Playing Beatie Bow (3 page)

With a cry of pleasure, Abigail saw that each flower had been over-embroidered with yellowish green tiny knots which seemed to indicate stamens or hairs. But the coloured thread had so faded that it was almost indiscernible.

About seven, her mother telephoned. She sounded tired, said she had been delayed, and told Abigail to go ahead and eat something. The girl agreed and went back to her work.

The border of the crochet was a curious twist, almost like a rope, done in a coarser thread, and at the edge of each shoulder Abigail saw, between the leaves of a flower, the tiny initials A.T.

As she worked, she found herself singing, ‘The cow in the byre, the horse in the stall.’ She broke off. ‘Now where did those kids hear a funny word like byre?’

By the time Kathy had tottered in and collapsed in a chair, Abigail already had the crochet tacked to the dress. Weary as she was, her mother exclaimed at it.

‘It’s a Victorian piece, I think, although the pattern is unfamiliar. What superb work! I could sell it like a shot if you want me to.’

‘No,’ said Abigail.

‘Don’t blame you. Heavens, I’m bushed. No, I don’t want anything to eat. Had a bite in town. Sorry, love. Have to fall into bed.’

She limped off, yawning like a lion. Abigail stitched the yoke to her dress with the smallest stitches she could achieve: the fineness of her new treasure seemed to demand it. The yoke fitted the bodice as though it had been made for it, and when she tried on the dress it was as if the two pieces of fabric had never been separate. The girl had an extraordinary sense of pleasure. She felt that she would wear this perfect dress until it fell to bits. Even now she knew that this was one of those mysterious garments in which she always felt happy.

Just before she went to sleep she thought, ‘I’ve seen that flower somewhere. Not real though. A picture.’

At the same moment she recalled the old
Herbal
in the bookcase. She squeezed her eyes tight and tried to go to sleep, but it was no use. She had to get out of bed and look. She riffled through the thick fox-marked pages to the wild-flowers, and there it was: not a buttercup at all, but a peat bog plant called Grass of Parnassus.

Parnassus! Was the plant Greek then? She knew that Parnassus was where the Muses lived, the goddesses of poetry and dance and art and whatever the rest of them were. Parnassus was a lovely word, and perhaps the original Parnassus had grass that was not ordinary grass but blossomed with little hairy flowers of green and faded yellow.

Suddenly she felt intensely happy, almost as blissfully happy as she had been before she was ten, knowing nothing of the world but warmth and sunshine, and loving parents and birthdays and Christmas presents.

She floated off to sleep. She did not dream of an enchanted mountain where goddesses danced and sang, but of a smell of burning sugar, and a closed door with an iron fist for a knocker, and tied to the fist a bit of yellow rag.

At breakfast next morning her mother was fully recovered, talkative and bright-cheeked. She admired the new dress, puzzled over the crochet pattern, and voted for Agnes Timms as the owner of the initials A.T. But Abigail said that, since the design seemed to be of a Greek plant, A.T. probably stood for Anastasia Tassiopolis, or something similar.

Kathy chattered on until at last her daughter said teasingly, ‘What are you excited about, Apple Annie? Did you find something extra special at St Mary’s?’

Kathy’s eyes twinkled. ‘I might as well tell you. I had dinner with your father last night.’

Weyland Kirk and his wife had never been divorced. Their relations were friendly, and two or three times a year they met to discuss business matters or Abigail’s future. Abigail was occasionally taken out by her father to some entertainment; and although they both behaved with careful courtesy it was always an awkward and hateful experience for Abigail. Something lay between them, an ineradicable memory of rejection of love, and Abigail could not pretend it was not there.

He asked her polite questions about her friends, even the ones he could remember from her childhood and she had almost forgotten.

‘You seem to be a bit of a loner, pet,’ he said, almost apologetically.

She answered coolly, ‘I really don’t care for people much.’

He had the same quickness of uptake as she, and he shot her a blue glance that laid her thoughts bare. Then he said gently, ‘Well, you can always trust your mother, anyway.’

She knew how much she had hurt him. She tried to be glad. He deserved it. But she was not glad; she was sorry and ashamed.

Now she looked without concern at her mother and said ‘Oh, yes? Did you just run into him?’

‘As a matter of fact I’ve seen him quite a few times lately,’ Kathy said. ‘Oh, darling, don’t be cross. I know it was deceitful of me, but I thought I wouldn’t mention it in case it all fell through.’

Abigail felt a sudden chill. ‘Whatever are you talking about, Mum?’

‘Oh, Abigail, I don’t know how to put it without sounding silly. Dad – well, he wants us to become a family again.’

‘You’re joking,’ said Abigail.

Kathy’s face was almost pleading. ‘No, I’m not.’

Abigail felt much as she had felt that morning her father had said good-bye. A burning wave of dismay, anger and fright swept up from her feet. But before it reached her face and turned it scarlet she managed to say, ‘And what about Miss Thingo? Is she going to join the party?’

Kathy said stiffly, ‘You know very well Jan went off to Canada a year ago. She has a name. Use it, and don’t be vulgar. What do you think I’m talking about, last Saturday’s TV movie? This is a serious matter for me and your father, so please don’t fool about with it.’

Abigail could hardly believe what she heard. ‘You’re really considering it! After what he did four years ago?’

Kathy smiled nervously. She used a cool tone, but it did not go well with her restless hands. ‘Next thing you’ll be saying he tossed me aside like a worn-out glove.’

‘He dumped you and me for a scheming little creep on his secretarial staff, that’s what he did, after being married twelve years.’

‘Hold on,’ said Kathy. ‘Fair’s fair. Jan wasn’t like that at all. And besides that, he fell in love with her. You don’t even know what that means yet.’

‘Oh, Mum, now you’re being wet!’

‘Oh, I know all you schoolgirls think you know every last word in the book about the relationships between a man and a woman; but love is a thing you have to experience before you know –’ she hesitated, and then blurted out – ‘how powerful it can be.’

‘Oh, come on!’

‘I’m only thirty-six,’ said Kathy. ‘I’ve missed being married.’

Abigail leapt up and began to pile the dishes noisily in the sink.

‘You’ve no self-respect!’

‘Okay, okay!’ cried Kathy. ‘It’s awful, it’s shameful, it isn’t liberated in the slightest – but I happen to love Weyland. I always have, and I always wanted him to come back. And now it’s happened and I want to go with him.’

Abigail was so outraged, so disgusted that anyone as capable and independent and courageous as her mother could be so… so –
female
was the word that sprang to her mind – that for a moment the significance of what she had said did not strike her.

‘What do you mean,
go
?’ she said, aghast.

‘He has to go to Norway for three years of architectural study, and he wants us to go with him and … and be together again as we used to.’

Abigail felt as if her mother had risen and hit her with the teapot. ‘Norway! Why Norway?’

‘Well, he’s always had this strong feeling for Scandinavian design, because of his family, I expect. But he wouldn’t be in Norway all the time. He has to take some seminars in the University of Oslo, and of course we could often go to Denmark … and England sometimes.’ Her voice trailed away.

‘Mother,’ said Abigail, ‘don’t you realise that he could easily leave you again?’

‘Yes,’ admitted Kathy. ‘I have to take the risk, you see.’

Flushing, she looked at her daughter, and the innocence and frankness of that gaze was such that Abigail thought, amazed, ‘She really is in love with him; she has been all along.’

Such jealousy fired up in her heart that she felt dizzy.

‘Then you can take it by yourself.’

Her mother looked as if she had been slapped. ‘You can’t mean that, darling.’

‘You forget that he dumped me, too,’ said Abigail tartly. ‘That’s not going to happen to me again. I can’t stop you doing something idiotic if that’s what you want, but you can’t make me do it, too.’

‘But, Abigail, how can I … I can’t leave you here at your age!’

The shock of realisation hit Abigail. ‘She’d really leave me, if there had to be a choice.’

Pride forced the hurt into the back of her mind. With an effort she composed her face. She even smiled.

‘Oh, well, let’s be practical, Mum. I can easily change over to boarding-school until I’m ready for university, and then I’ll go and flat with someone, or live in college.’

‘Oh, no!’

‘Don’t try to wheedle me out of it, Mum. I’m not going. No way.’

Her exit was spoiled because the door slipped out of her fingers and slammed. She couldn’t very well open it again and explain to her mother that she wasn’t so childish as to go around slamming doors. She stood in the middle of her bedroom feeling sick with fury and shock and a horrible kind of triumph, because she knew how much she had wounded her mother.

‘She’s hurt because she knows I’m right. How could she, how could she be like that, with all she’s got – me, and the shop, and her friends and… ?’ Here a burst of anger made her feel sickish. ‘And Dad! The nerve of …’

Her mother tapped on the door. ‘Abigail, I’d like you to come and help me unpack and catalogue some things today. I got so many items from St Mary’s.’

‘Thanks, but I don’t want to,’ answered Abigail curtly.

‘But,’ wailed Kathy, ‘if you go to boarding-school where will you spend the holidays? You’d loathe it with Grandmother and we haven’t anyone else. Oh, please, darling, I know it’s been a surprise. I suppose I told you all the wrong way. But please come with me and let’s talk it out down at Magpies.’

Abigail did not reply. After a while her mother gave the door a ferocious kick. The girl could not help grinning; Kathy was such a child.

After her mother had gone she washed up, and put on her green dress, which made her feel better. But not much better.

She had a terrible feeling that her mother would go to Norway, regardless. She could not mistake that look on her face. It was happiness and hope. All these years, then, she had longed and hankered for Weyland Kirk to come back to where she felt he belonged. It was like some late-late-show movie – brave little wife making the best of desertion and loneliness, and then one rainy night, gaunt and pale, in comes Gene Kelly. Oh, Kathy, can you ever forgive me? I made such a mistake. I ruined my life, but oh, how can I forgive myself for ruining yours? It’s always been you, Kathy, always.

Bring up the reunited lovers music, and she falls into his arms and a bit later he dances up and down the stairs on his knees.

Abigail could just imagine what the girls at school would say. Some, the sloppy romantic ones, would think it just lovely. Together again! But the others, the toughies, would think it disgusting. Love was for the young, everyone knew that. Like having no wrinkles or varicose veins. And besides, they’d say her mother was being grovelly. He whistles and back she goes like a well-trained dog.

The more she thought about it the angrier and more embarrassed she felt. ‘There’s the shop, too. After all her hard work building it up. She’s not thinking straight – early menopause or something. And what about me? Turning my life upside down once more for him? A lot he cared about me when I was little and needed him! I don’t owe him anything,’ thought Abigail, white with fury. ‘Not one kind word.’

But, oh God, there was Grandmother, chic and glittery and poisonous and probably thrilled to her long claw toes to get her hands on a lonely Abigail and teach her what’s what and who’s who. Grandmother’s house, expensive suburbia, with a surly houseman, Uruguayan or something, who lived in separate quarters at the end of the garden, the Bridge ladies, the theatre parties, and Abigail required to hand round the teensy bits of fish goo on decarbohydrated crackers. They were always on diets, the Bridge ladies, though not one of them had a soul in the world to care a spit if she turned into a porker or not.

She went around the unit saying, ‘Norway!’ She saw it as a kind of iceberg with houses on it. And Lapps, weren’t there Lapps, with funny knitted hats with tops like two horns? Penguins? Polar bears, then. Norway, a million kilometres away from Sydney and the life she and Mum had made for themselves without Dad’s help.

Alternatively she raged and sulked, and then reassured herself with little bursts of optimism. ‘Of course she didn’t mean it, that crazy lady. She’ll think it over and see it doesn’t make sense.’

And then she imagined Dad dancing up and down the stairs instead of Gene Kelly; but instead of laughing she cried, because even though she hated what he had done all those years ago she knew she still loved him and was afraid that if they lived together she’d come to love him still more and so could be hurt worse.

In this way the day went past dreadfully and speedily, and when the Bridge began to bellow with the home-going traffic she stirred herself, washed her face and, taking her shawl, she went next door.

‘I’m bored, Justine. Like me to take the kids to the playground for a while?’

The young woman, who usually looked like a starved cat, now looked like a sleepless starved cat. She seemed at the end of her tether.

‘If you could just take Natty off my hands. Goodness, how super! Vincent has been moaning all day, and I’ve just pried open his trap to look at his throat, and it’s like a beetroot. I was just about to hustle him and Natalie along to the doctor. But if you could look after Nat –’ She threw her arms thankfully about the girl. ‘You’re a pet, Abigail, bless you. Good heavens, is that the family tatting you have on your dress? I can’t believe it.’