Siddon Rock (12 page)

Some time later there was a mighty clatter and bang from the ward. Bert Truro dropped the bundle of wood he was bringing in for the kitchen fire and ran down the corridor to the ward, closely followed by Nell. There they found the breakfast tray overturned on the floor and an angry Matron Sullivan struggling off the bed. Bert bent to pick up the tray, but Matron stopped him.
Let that black bitch do it
, she shouted, and even the stolid Bert winced back from the spray of venom.
Make that stupid black bitch clean it up. She made the mess. She fixes it.

Bert helped Matron Sullivan to a chair on the side verandah, where he propped her foot on a stool.
I'm staying here until that bed linen is washed and the bed remade with the same sheets
, she said.
And it'd better be soon.

Nell picked up the tray and the mess of broken china, egg and tea. Her skin itched with the poison hanging in the air; she could feel the surface flaking away, and wondered
how much of herself she could lose before disappearing entirely. She fetched hot water and a rag and wiped the bedside table and the floor. Then she took the soiled sheets from the bed and went to the laundry where hot water was already bubbling in the copper, ready for the day's normal laundry.

Nell shook shaved soap into the boiling water and threw in the sheets from Matron Sullivan's bed, pushing them under the suds with a stick. After a few minutes she heaved them out into a large cement trough of cold water. Her skin still itched, the rough scaliness had become worse, and now her chest was heavy with the effort to breathe. Nell plunged her arms into the trough with the sheets, kneading them under the water to get rid of the soap. As she did a sulphurous-looking sludge rose to the surface, and she wondered what it was. She took her hands from the suds to run a second trough of water for rinsing, and realised that the skin on her arms had stopped itching and had smoothed to a soft sheen.

Nell looked at the water in the trough where the sheets were, at the jaundiced scum lying like algae on the surface, and a small hum started in the back of her throat. She shut the door to the laundry and peeled off her apron and then her dress and climbed into the water with the sheets. As Nell lowered herself into the water it seethed as if with a million tiny fish, as the poison from Matron Sullivan washed from Nell's skin. Nell pulled the sheets around her, wrapping them as tightly as she could as she sat in the washing trough.

When Nell climbed out she felt light and cool: her skin was fresh and clear and she breathed deeply. The water in the trough was darkly yellow, but the sheets rose white to the surface, the colour not marking them.

Nell hummed as she dressed, and hummed louder as she pulled the dripping sheets from the trough, ignoring the wringer attached to the trough which would normally squeeze out excess water. She staggered slightly under the weight of the sheets as she carried them to the clothesline, where she pegged them in a single layer so they would dry quickly.

When the sheets were dry Nell folded them and took them to the ward, swiftly making up Matron Sullivan's bed.
No starch
, she said to Matron through the French doors that opened onto the verandah.
Now they're soft for you.
Then she helped Matron from the chair into the bed.

On the evening of that day Doctor Allen looked in to see how Matron was faring. He could not understand why she had a fever.
It's only a sprain
, he said.
Nothing at all, really. And certainly no reason for a fever like this.
But in Matron Sullivan's body unknown organisms altered the symmetry, making her temperature rise and fever rage.

Doctor Allen's main concern, though, was to find what was making Matron's skin flake and peel away in thick strips as she scratched desperately, trying to relieve the deep and painful itch that would not be eased by any panacea from the hospital pharmacy. He consulted medical texts and telephoned every expert he knew, trying to find a precedent. He checked diseases that started in the soil
and in the air, and wondered if he was going to have an epidemic of something caused by the miasma released from Alf Barber's dunny. In short, he did all that was humanly possible for Matron Sullivan, but the fever was too fast and the itch too deeply embedded under the skin to relieve, and two days later on the death certificate he wrote
Unknown fever. Unknown etiogenic agent.

As a child Macha Connor was fascinated by the cloud of tiny blue shapes that accompanied Marge Redall wherever she went, sometimes swarming around her head like a large blue hat, at other times drifting languidly along behind her as a gracious blue veil. She asked Granna what it was and where she, Macha, could get one.
It's not for you to have, Mach
, Granna said with a hug.
We all carry things with us that no-one else can have. You'll have your own, when you get older. You'll just have to wait until then.

Will they be blue like Marge's?
Macha asked.

No love
, Granna said.
They'll be inside you, where no-one else can see.

But what if I want other people to see. Like Marge's blue cloud?

Marge doesn't really want them out there to be seen. She didn't have any choice. But you, my sweet, you won't talk about yours at all. Not to anyone.

But you say I talk too much anyway.
Macha laughed.
And Mum's always telling me to be quiet. So maybe then you'll both be happy.

We're always happy with you around,
Granna said.
We always will be.

To the people of Siddon Rock, the farmers of the district, and the various travelling salesmen who stayed overnight at the Railway and Traveller's Hotel, Marge Redall was the stereotypical publican's wife. Large, loud and brash, she looked after the bar when an extra hand was needed and made sure the kitchen produced good, filling and basic food.
These blokes don't want anything fancy
, she'd said to Bluey when they first took over from his father.
As long as there's a lot of it, they'll be happy.
And happy they were, the pub known for its generous plates of food, well-pulled beer, and easy welcome from Bluey and Marge.

Marge's swarm of tiny blue shapes had arrived with her when Bluey Redall brought her back from Europe. When people got around to asking her what they were she just said,
a nuisance
, and it was left at that.

While she was loathe to discuss herself with other people, Marge Redall recalled vividly when she was six years old and sat for the first time at the piano. Mrs Enright opened
Teaching Little Fingers to Play
. There on the page in front of Marjorie were black shapes that Mrs Enright said made music.

That's not music
, Marjorie said.

Luckily for Marjorie, Mrs Enright had been around music and musicians for more years than she cared to recall, and was wise enough to take the child away from the piano
and ask her to show her what music was. So Marjorie told her about the sounds that were with her all the time. She hummed and danced the rhythms of her life, from waves breaking on the beach near her home to the clangity-clang of city trams. The pop-pop of her father's car was there, as was a sliding note that Mrs Enright thought to be from the opera
Turandot
.

Mrs Enright listened and watched. Then she said,
Your music is just for you, Marjorie, and no-one else can hear it quite like you do. But if you learn which notes go with which keys on the piano, then maybe you'll be able to copy some of it, so that you can show other people what your music is.

And so Marjorie began the journey towards her music. We don't need to follow the beginning story too closely. It's sufficient to know that once she moved away from the piano to the more suggestive tones of the clarinet, Marjorie flew up the crescendo of a stellar musical career. But the harmonies of Beethoven and Bach, and even the soaring genius of Mozart, had no place for the wild music that Marjorie still carried with her.

So there Marjorie was, at what appeared to be an impasse in her life, in that late summer of 1935. She had just left the London Symphony and was about to leave for Berlin, enticed by the idea of being part of a new ensemble.

On her last night in London her bags were packed and she was ready to go. The taxi was ordered for early the
next morning. But there was a touch of chill in the night air, and in the yellowish glow from street lights the first dying leaves from beech and oak trees spun to the ground.

Was it excitement at the new venture, or a touch of fear about going to a strange country from where came whisperings of war, that kept Marjorie awake and drew her into the streets of Soho so late at night? She was walking slowly along, looking into shop windows and obviously reluctant to go back to her packed-up flat.

Someone opened the door at the bottom of a set of steps leading to a basement, and music flowed out.
Is this a private party?
she asked the man who came up the steps.
You can go in, lady
, he said.
Anyone can go in.

She enjoyed the music; it was modern, simple and boppy, different from her own classical world and easy to let slip into the background as she bought herself a drink and settled in a booth near the low platform stage. But as she did so the trio made its final flourish – it was very late, after all – and the few people in the audience left quickly.

The saxophonist started to pack up, but the piano player lit a cigarette and settled back on the piano stool, running his fingers up and down the keyboard in cadences with a slight syncopation, doodling on the black notes. The drummer touched brushes over the skins, giving
whooshy-swish
support to the doodles. The sax player looked at them and smiled. He took a long swig from a glass, wiped his lips, and joined in the improvisation.

Then the drums took over, and the notes became a slow-moving train. The piano player picked up the
rhythm, and waves rolled in on a beach and then receded as the saxophone blew up a summer storm. Marjorie was surrounded by her music,
was
her music. Marjorie had found jazz.

On the table where the open saxophone case lay was another, familiarly shaped, case. Marjorie opened it, put together the pieces of the clarinet, held it up to the sax player with a question in her eyes. He nodded, and she stepped into jazz and out of the Berlin quartet. As she lifted the clarinet to her lips, her music gathered around her and she saw that it was made of deep, vibrant blue notes.

Marjorie stayed and played, forgoing Berlin, classical quartets and symphony orchestras for a hole-in-the-wall basement, jazz and the blues. She formed a casual friendship with the barman, a young Australian from a country town who was working his way around Europe.

As he cleaned the bar down early one morning, the barman mentioned that he was going home.
My dad's died
, he said.
I've gotta go back soon and look after things. D'ya want to come home?