Pearl in a Cage (66 page)

‘Who did you borrow that from?' Sissy said when they met in the middle.

‘Mum.'

Danced away from her, which was the beauty of a hall crammed full. It offered fast separation.

‘It's a huge crowd, Mr Cox.'

‘And early days yet. We could get more.'

For every face Jenny recognised, there were two she didn't know. She danced with a farmer's son who told her his father had a place twenty-five miles west. Several groups had driven up from Willama. Jenny was dancing with a Willama boy when Amber saw her, and there was no more reaction than a slight widening of the eyes. Norman even offered his tight little smile. Weird seeing him with his arms around his Mrs Morrison. So weird. Something strange had happened to them.

A magical night though, the best of Jenny's life. Miss Rose and John McPherson were there. They were talking to Jenny and Dora when Mr Cox and the clarinet player from the talent quest joined them. He was in the Willama band and he'd recognised her. He asked if she'd like to sing a few songs with them during supper. She didn't mind. She'd been standing on that stage singing since she was five years old, and she had her beautiful blue dress back, and everything in the entire world was perfect.

Until the twins ran out of petrol, or realised there were more people to annoy in the hall than outside. They got in via a side door, unshaven, unwashed, still wearing the clothes they'd come home in, and they made a beeline for Jenny and Dora.

‘As if we'd dance with you,' Jenny said.

‘Buzz off,' Dora said.

Maisy had told them they smelled like polecats, which may have been insulting to the polecat, but they were determined to dance, their chosen partners agreeable or not. One grabbed Jenny, the other one made a grab for Dora. She kicked him. He shoved her. The floor was slippery. Dora's foot went from beneath her and down she went, petticoats flying, long legs flashing their garters. Which brought Joss and Geoff Palmer running. They took on a twin each. Joss lost his collar, a twin wouldn't be seeing out of one of his eyes for a week, two band members jumped down from the stage, half a dozen men left their partners stranded, and after a five-minute scuffle the twins were thrown out the same door they'd come in.

‘Trust you to be in the thick of it,' Sissy said.

‘Buzz off, Sissy,' Jenny said, more concerned about Dora's ankle and Joss's collar. She should have been concerned about Amber standing behind that rainbow taffeta, behind long slim Jim.

‘Home,' Amber said.

‘What have I done?'

‘Made a spectacle of yourself by flirting around with those larrikins.'

‘I didn't. I wouldn't. I hate the sight of them. We told them to leave us alone.'

‘You come over here dressed up like a little tart in your borrowed finery and what do you expect?' Amber hissed.

‘It's your old dress. I dyed it.'

Mrs Cox came to look at Dora's ankle, so Amber had to look at it too. Broken ankle or not, Dora wanted to go to the lav and pull her stocking up. One garter had slid down to her knee. Jenny went with her. Her brothers came out to stand at the side door while they ran down the back. They took their time, and
when they returned, Amber and Norman had gone into supper and the clarinet player was looking for her.

Jenny sang for half an hour, sang her lungs out, and perhaps glimpsed her future. She wanted to sing when she was older. A lot of people said she had a good voice.

Not many dancing now, more were watching, tapping their feet. Norman came from the supper room, his spectacles flashing, she hoped with pride. Amber wasn't with him.

Jenny was singing ‘You're The Cream In My Coffee' when she caught sight of Amber's pinkish beige in the stage wings, where she'd stood to prompt Sissy through her first recitation. She wasn't waiting to prompt Jenny. And her face didn't look like a mother's face. Tonight wasn't over yet. Jenny hadn't got away with wearing that dress. Heart beating like a small drum inside her, but not sticking to the band's rhythm, she forgot the words, until one of the men in the band joined in.

There are two sides to a stage. Amber was at the supper room side door. Jenny didn't wait to tell anyone she'd done enough singing. She went west, out through the dressing room-cum-committee room where Mr Lewis manned the side door, keeping the twins out while letting dancers in and out to the lavatories.

She ran down the back and used the lav this time. Amber's eyes gave her nerves in the bladder. Hitched up her stockings, adjusted her garters, washed her hands and opened the door.

And the twins were there, blocking her way.

‘I'm sick of you. Get away from this door or I'll scream out to Mr Lewis.'

‘Scream,' one said.

‘I've had enough of you to last me ten years. Let me get past!'

‘We wouldn't mind having a bit more of you,' one said.

She wasn't dumb, mainly because Dora wasn't dumb. She knew that everything those twins said had a dirty second meaning.

‘Mr Lewis,' she yelled. ‘Mr Lewis!'

Someone was coming, because the twins glanced over their shoulders then skulked off down towards the men's lavatories.
Amber took their place. ‘This time you've gone too far.'

‘They wouldn't let me out,' Jenny said, attempting to get by her.

Amber pushed her and Jenny stepped back.

‘One not enough for you, you little slut?' A hiss of words; Norman must have been nearby. ‘Out here in the dark with the two of them.' Hissing like a snake, full up with venom.

‘Daddy? Are you there?'

‘Jennifer?' He was out there.

He changed Amber from snake to mother. ‘You were asked tonight to wear your brown, Jennifer, and you come over here dressed up like a twenty-year-old tart.'

‘Did you look like a tart when you wore it?'

Got past her. Got out. Norman was standing halfway between the lavatory and the hall's side door.

Too much material in that old skirt. Amber caught a handful of it. Fabric, abused by dye, moth-eaten, silverfish-nibbled, mouldy, of course it ripped. Jenny heard that rip, saw the gash of white petticoat, and it may as well have been a gash in her heart.

‘Destroyer,' she said, snatching the material, hearing it rip again as she pulled free, backed away. ‘Evil, jealous destroyer of everything good. Does Sissy look better now? Have you made her look better now?'

Norman approached and Jenny ran from him too, darted between trees and out to Cemetery Road, the train of blue skirt dragging behind her, feeling the chill of the night cutting through the thin fabric of her petticoat.

Walked to the corner and glanced back, glanced towards Maisy's house. Couldn't walk past the hall with her skirt dragging, couldn't go to Maisy anyway. Those mongrels could be there. Gathered up what she could of her skirt and looked at the post office, thought about knocking on Mr Foster's door. Couldn't go there late at night, her dress hanging half off her. Nowhere to go. Stood on the corner panting with anger, panting to hold back her tears, panting with frustration and hurt for that dress, panting out her hatred of those twins who were the cause
of her being on this corner — and hatred of Amber. Hated her. Hated her, and hated Norman for being so blind he couldn't see who she really was.

Nowhere to go. Nowhere. She was a swaggie with nowhere to sleep and freezing cold. Only Granny, and Granny two miles away, down a dark road, in the middle of the night. She couldn't go down there.

Nowhere.

Shivering, shivering and crying, because there was only one place to go — over the road and through Norman's gate, down the side of the house. The doors were never locked. She went inside, went into her room to strip a blanket from her bed. Cocooned in wool, she returned to the verandah, where she sat in the old cane chair, head down, bawling her heart out, bawling so loud she didn't hear him coming until he stepped up to the verandah.

‘You'll catch your death of cold. Go to your bed.'

‘I didn't do anything wrong. I sang. I went to the lav. I didn't do anything wrong and she ripped that dress off me, Daddy.'

‘You're a fourteen-year-old child, will dress as a child and behave as a child. If you had done so tonight, as you were instructed to do, you would not have caught the eye of those louts and been found by your mother in a compromising situation. Tonight your wilful behaviour ends. Now go to your bed!'

‘She's a liar. I wasn't in any situation. I was trying to get out. And I hate her as much as I hate them.'

‘You are beyond me,' he said, and he walked back the way he'd come.

She stood, shed her blanket, heard that skirt rip. ‘Don't you run away from me, Daddy. You know she's lying. You know I didn't do anything.'

‘There is a hall full of dancers over the road. Do you want them to hear you?'

‘It's all right to say she's a liar if no one hears me say it. It's all right for her to be the devil himself so long as no one knows.'

He came back. ‘Inside,' he said.

‘It's all right for her to half-kill me out here one day, so long as no one remembers it. But I remember it, Daddy,' she yelled. ‘I remember every single thing she's ever done to me. She's a destroyer of . . . of everything. She's destroyed our house, and now she's destroying you.'

He took her arm, to move her inside; she grasped the chair, determined that if he wanted her inside, he'd take the chair too.

‘I'm never living in that house, never until I die. I hate your house.'

‘Lower your voice!'

He shook the chair off. He had her halfway through that door, but she clung to the frame, hand and foot, and her frock ripped again, its skirt still attempting to cling to the raggedy cane of the old chair.

‘She stuck a needle halfway through my leg when I was ten. She threw my Alice Blue Gown costume down the lav because Sissy wasn't allowed to recite “Daffodils”. She burned that yellow dress so I couldn't wear it. I'm not lying to you, Daddy.'

‘Daughters and their dresses,' he said.

‘I'm talking about lies, not dresses! Why can't you hear me!'

He'd got that back door shut. He was panting, but he got her into her bedroom, dumped her on the bed and went for his key. Had to turn the kitchen light on to find it. And she was out of that room, the blue-green dress hanging off her, only her knee-length petticoat offering a minimum of modesty.

‘Cover yourself,' he demanded.

‘Cover
your
self,' she said. ‘If that scar on your shoulder is covered up you can't even remember she tried to cut your head off with the shovel, can you?'

‘You go too far!'

‘And you don't go anywhere. You're acting in a radio play called
Happy Families
, and there has to be a wife in it, and you know she's the devil, but it doesn't matter because she's in the play now and everyone will be shocked if she goes missing — except you're the one who's going missing. I love you, Daddy! I want you to be who you used to be!'

Saw his eyes then, and they looked like the Palmers' dog's eyes the day Mr Palmer took her pups away, just too old and sad, knowing she should snarl and bite and save her pups, but didn't have the teeth to do it. She moaned, looked down at her petticoat, at the shredded blue-green skirt, looked at its very fine colour.

‘What makes Sissy worth an eighteen-pound dress and me worth nothing, Daddy? Who says she's worth more than me?'

‘We'll speak in the morning.' He closed the door.

‘No, you won't, because I won't be here.'

He didn't believe her. His key was in the lock. It turned. He walked down the passage and out the front door, walked back to the ball to dance with the devil, back to smile his Cheshire cat smile.

 

She felt the tears coming, but killed them with light; glaring white light she blinked from, turned her back on. She'd said she wouldn't be here in the morning and she wouldn't. She'd got that top window sash open once, or got it started. She could do it again.

Up on the bed then, head beneath the curtain and she reached for the twin hooks and heaved — and felt a trickle of colder air immediately. She heaved again, using her knees to gain leverage. Only an inch, but an inch was a start. She'd get out of this town too. She'd go down to Granny's, get her talent quest money, get the train to Melbourne and live with Mary Jolly.

That window refused to budge further. She wasn't going anywhere. And Norman wouldn't sell her a train ticket. And five pounds wouldn't last long, and she wanted to finish school this year because Mr Curry had put her name down to sit for a bursary, which was worth a lot more than five pounds.

Wanted to howl. Instead, she reached for the curtain rod and pulled it down, pitched it and the curtains at the door. Saw an angry stranger reflected in the dark window glass. Like a black and white photograph of . . . of someone . . . somewhere. Couldn't see the ripped skirt, could only see the puffy sleeves and fitted bodice, see her hair.

But she wasn't on this bed to look at herself. She reached high, putting her weight on that sash and gaining nothing. Sighed, pressed her hot face to cold glass, her brow, both cheeks, thought about giving in and going to bed.

And letting him find her in bed when he unlocked the door? That was losing. That was losing forever. She'd been a singer tonight with a band. She could get a job in Melbourne singing with a band. She could . . .

Up again, standing feet spread, her fingers through the space she'd opened up. Free fingers, chilled fingers. And she swung on that window. And it slid past the jamb and kept on going. She gained eight inches, then gained another inch before it jammed again. It needed soap on the runners. Maisy used soap when her windows jammed. No soap available, she tried saliva, and thought of Dora who had once told her that if a mouse could get his head through a hole, the rest of him would fit. She considered trying to get her head through, imagined Norman opening that door in the morning and finding her hanging, head out, frozen stiff.