The Party Line (15 page)

‘It’s … it’s as though she’s not even doing it to try to shock me. That’s not it. It’s as though these words — the f-word even — they’re just normal for her now. She’s turned …’

Neither Joy nor Ruby said anything for a bit. They were nearly at the school. There were cars in the bus bay. The lights of the staff room were on and people were moving about inside.

‘Well, you know where she’s getting it from, don’t you?’ Ruby said quietly, as they pulled up to park.

Joy switched the engine off. Should she bring it up, the business about the Gilberts?

‘No doubt about that, Ruby,’ she said instead. ‘No question at all.
Doing something about it’s another thing, though. She and Gabrielle are as thick as thieves now.’

They were last to arrive at the meeting. Ewan Burgess was dragging chairs in from the corridor and setting them around the table. The other women were cradling mugs of tea and settling themselves down.

Joy nipped down the corridor to the toilet. She took her time washing and drying her hands.
Keep things in perspective
, she told herself, looking in the mirror.

The staff room door was open. Evelyn’s voice was the only clear one, riding over the top of the babble, she appeared to be arguing with Ewan. Joy wasn’t listening to the conversation, but when she walked into the room everyone stopped talking.

‘Hi, folks,’ she said. ‘How’s everyone?’

All eyes were on her, then Evelyn; Joy wondered what they’d done to earn the attention. Ewan was blushing. He wouldn’t meet her gaze. He was holding a ballpoint pen and clicked it, at first slowly, then picking up speed. His eyes blinked quickly behind his glasses.

Joy frowned, then smiled at him.

‘Are you alright, Ewan?’

‘Fine … fine thanks, Joy.’

He wasn’t fine, and nor was anyone else in the room. No one looked at her. The women fidgeted with their handbags and made a big, unnecessary deal about arranging themselves just so in their seats. The only sounds were the click of the pen and the ticking of the clock on the wall. The only person who eventually caught her eye was Ruby.
Later
, Ruby mouthed.

The meeting took about half an hour — it was the same routine every year. Morning tea and lunch duties were allocated, required ribbons counted, cups accounted for. They were almost done.

‘Okay, let’s have it, Ewan,’ Ruby said. ‘What’s on the miscellaneous pet list this year?’

Ewan opened the manila folder on the table in front of him. Ruby rolled her eyes at Joy, who rolled her eyes right back. How many non-calf, non-lamb pets could there possibly be turning up this year? Enough to warrant a list in a manila folder?

Ewan clicked the pen on, and ran it down the margin. Joy could see, sitting across the table from him, that there were four items. She couldn’t help herself.

‘Snakes? Katipos? What’ve we got, Ewan?’

Everyone laughed, except for Ewan. He looked up from his list.

‘Two rabbits, one rat and a worm farm.’

‘You are joking,’ said Joy.

Ewan wasn’t. He shook his head and stared down again at his list. ‘That’s what they’ve told me.’

‘Well, who’s bringing them?’ asked Joy.

Ewan consulted his list again. ‘Rabbits from the McGaskill kids. The rat belongs to Kerry Bristow. Worm farm is Wayne Bennett.’

‘Knew it,’ said Joy. ‘Didn’t I say, two years ago? Didn’t I say then that it would be a
big
mistake to open it up past calves and lambs, just because the sharemilker kids were turning up with weird pets?’

‘Hear, hear,’ someone muttered, others murmuring their agreement.

‘Well, they can just all go into one category. They’ll have to,’ Ruby said. ‘And next year, we go back to normal pets. For God’s sake.’

‘I’m not sure … how do you compare a rabbit to a worm?’ Ewan asked, looking around the group.

Joy could see the man was serious. She tried not to smile.

‘Alright. Put the worms in a separate category, on their own. It’s a farm, there’ll be lots of them. They can compete against each other,’ said Joy. ‘And we don’t need to worry about the rat and the rabbits, because all three of them will have escaped by morning tea time.’

‘And be breeding by the afternoon,’ added Ruby.

‘Seriously,’ said Joy. ‘We do have to sort this out. For a start, we don’t need rodents and rabbits coming into the school. There’re the diseases, and they’re pests. And it’s
Calf
Club Day. It’s not as though they don’t have plenty of opportunity to groom a calf, get it ready in time. Or a lamb, if they want. You move to a place, you fit in. That includes your pets.’

Everyone agreed. Joy thought about the diseases that Larry and Vincent were probably carrying, and hoped for a miracle cure or a quick and painless death for both the sorry, sick animals before the big day.

They left the staff room, Ewan staying behind to turn out the lights and lock up. Joy and Ruby walked with the others out to the carpark. They chatted about pets until they reached their cars, then called
Goodnight
to each other and left.

It was only when she was behind the wheel that Joy remembered the strange silence at the start of the meeting.

‘So,’ she said to Ruby, ‘what was all that about?’

Ruby took her handkerchief out of the sleeve of her cardigan and blew her nose hard. Joy asked again, and Ruby blew once more.

‘I don’t think it was anything. Really.’ Ruby tucked the handkerchief away again.

‘So why did the talk stop when I walked in?’

Ruby sighed, said nothing.

‘Bloody hell, Ruby.’

‘Okay,’ said Ruby slowly. ‘Well, Evelyn was having a go at Ewan, you know how she does that, telling him he needs to do more to attract good kids to the school.’

‘The roll’s alright, isn’t it? Don’t tell me we’re losing someone?’

‘It’s fine. She was just doing it for the sake of an argument with him, I think. He’s always managed to get under her skin, just the existence of him annoys her. Anyway, in the middle of all the kerfuffle, she mentioned Nickie.’

Joy nodded. ‘And?’

‘Well, Evelyn accused Ewan of being so away with the fairies that he didn’t even know what was going on in his own playground. Apparently—’ Ruby breathed in deeply. ‘Apparently, Julie came home from school one day with the story that Nickie wore a scarf to school, one that belonged to Gabrielle Baxter’s mother. And the father turned up in the playground and thought it was his wife and … touched it. Touched Nickie, as though she was his dead wife.’

Joy heard Ruby swallow. It was so quiet in the car, she could hear every breath her friend took.

‘Ewan said it was the first he knew about it, and Evelyn said that proved the point that he had no idea what went on. And then … you walked in.’

‘So why didn’t Evelyn say anything to me? It’s been weeks … months.’

Ruby shrugged. ‘I suppose she thought you knew. Or she thought it wasn’t that big a deal, really — she just liked having something to fling at Ewan.’

Joy looked in her rear-vision mirror. The lights in the staff room had gone out. The two women sat in silence. Joy stared out the window.

‘Gabrielle Baxter gave her the damned thing, that kid wasn’t supposed to have it either. The father had thrown it out, but Gabrielle sneaked it out of the rubbish and kept it. Then she gave it to Nickie. Nickie turned up in the kitchen one day wearing it … I threw a fit — we both did, Eugene and I — once we realised who it belonged to.’

Ruby sighed again. ‘Joy,’ she said, ‘you know how girls are. I remember … don’t you? Whatever you’ve got, you hate. Nickie would have just wanted to be glamorous. They see stuff on TV now …’

‘We made her get rid of it, told her to give it back to Gabrielle. Obviously she didn’t.’

‘She might have, you don’t know yet,’ said Ruby. ‘This … this incident in the playground might have happened before you put your foot down about it.’

‘That’s what I need to find out,’ said Joy. ‘Isn’t it? And what the hell this Ian Baxter’s playing at.’

Joy dropped Ruby off at her front door. Ruby leaned across the front seat and, for a dreadful moment, Joy thought Ruby was going to kiss her on the cheek. But Ruby just reached out and touched Joy’s hand.

‘It’ll be alright,’ said Ruby. ‘You’ll see.’

Joy was grateful it was dark. She was starting to cry. She swallowed back the tears. ‘Thanks Ruby,’ she said. ‘I’d better get home. Start asking some questions.’

Joy didn’t go home. She waited until Ruby had gone inside and she watched for the porch light to go out. Then she backed out of the driveway and drove back the way she’d come.

As she passed the dimly lit houses of her neighbours and friends, the bedroom whispers of wives to husbands slipped under the gaps between windows and their frames and tumbleweeded through the
night, into her car.
Jack Gilbert’s sharemilker touching Nickie Walker in the playground
…

She thought, at first, that all the lights were out at the Baxter cottage too. But as she slowed down, she noticed a pale milky glow in one window. She parked the car and climbed the steps of the front porch.

Joy knocked loudly and called out. For a moment, it seemed that no one was coming, but eventually footsteps echoed inside. Ian Baxter opened the door and flicked on the porch light. He squinted at Joy.

‘It’s Joy. Joy Walker … I know it’s late but … I need to have a word, Ian.’

Did he recognise her? She couldn’t say. The name — Walker — didn’t seem to trigger any response. Joy thought that, on Nickie’s behalf, this was a good thing.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Of course. Come in.’

There was no heady scent coming from Gabrielle’s bedroom this time. The door of that room was shut now. Joy hoped Gabrielle was asleep.

Her hands brushed against the wall as she moved through the dark hallway. Her fingers pressed against rips and bumps and indentations in the wallpaper; layers of life before now, some pushing their way to the surface. Who had lived in this house, before Jack Gilbert’s inaugural sharemilkers? No face or name came to mind.

The living room was sparse and cold, with two tatty armchairs and a matching couch. In the corner, a television was switched on but the screen was white static, hissing to be switched off.

He sat in one of the chairs, and gestured for her to take the other. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ he asked. The question — the correctness of it — seemed to startle him.

Joy shook her head.

‘Look. I’m really sorry about this … I could have left it until tomorrow, I suppose. But I just heard and … well, here I am.’

She shrugged and stared at Ian, searching for signs … of what? Depravity? There was only bewilderment in the face of this man.

‘I need to ask you about something that happened at the school, a
while back now.’ Her heart thumped. ‘My girl, Nickie. She was wearing a scarf, apparently. It belonged to your … to you, I think.’

Ian nodded. His eyes met hers, unblinking and honest.

‘And,’ Joy went on, ‘I heard, just tonight. I heard that you might have … approached her? Played with the scarf?’

Ian got up, for a moment he brought his hands to his face and held them there. Joy wondered whether he was crying, or perhaps thinking about his next move.

He left the room without speaking. Joy listened to doors opening and closing softly. When he returned, the scarf was in his hands.

There had never been an object more out of place, Joy thought, as he laid the glorious fabric gently on the threadbare carpet. Ian kneeled at one end of it and, with a tender hand, flattened the ballooning air out from underneath. Joy slipped to the floor at the other end of the scarf and did the same, taking care not to catch the sequins.

‘I bought it for Bridie — my wife — for her birthday,’ he said. ‘Her last birthday, though we never spoke about it in that way.’ He looked up at Joy shyly. ‘The peacock. It’s a Catholic symbol, did you know?’

Joy shook her head.

‘Immortality. And renewal. That’s what the Church believes. The peacocks … in the nativity paintings.’

‘I didn’t know. I’d never noticed them.’

‘I hadn’t either. I had no idea when I bought it. It was hard, trying to find something for her, when she was so sick. I knew she’d love the colours, the way the sequins change in the light. That’s all. That’s why I chose it. Then, after she died, I noticed peacocks in the Church paintings. Bloody hopeful peacocks everywhere.’

Joy leaned forward. One of the sequins was about to fall away, the thread loose. ‘This should be mended. Before you lose it.’

‘I threw it away, after she died. The whole peacock thing … faith … I lost faith. I threw away a lot of her things, couldn’t bear to have them around. I never knew Gabrielle’d rescued it from the boxes until that day at the school.’

Ian held Joy’s gaze. ‘I thought it was Bridie, Joy, but only for a
second. As soon as your girl turned around, I saw it was just a kid. But that’s why I can’t have Bridie’s things around. Things like this, stopping us from getting over her.’

‘It’d be nice for Gabrielle to keep it. For when she’s older, maybe.’ Joy ran her hands over the tail once more. ‘There are a few loose sequins, actually.’ She sat back on her heels. ‘I could fix them, if you like?’

Ian nodded and shook his head all at once. ‘Thank you. Really … I know you’re right. It’s too beautiful to throw away.’

Joy swallowed. ‘It won’t be
objects
that stop you settling here, Ian. The girls — Gabrielle and Nickie — they need to be careful …’

The sentence faded, incomplete. Ian was lost in his thoughts, carefully folding the scarf, making sure the creases didn’t cut across the rows of sequins. The surge of pity for him — for his mountain of grief — stalled anything else she had to say.

The following Saturday she watched as the girls, backpacks full of Calf Club Day dress rehearsal gear, became specks in the distance. She had made a fresh pot of tea and carried it from the bench to the table. Her hand shook as she put the pot down and turned it slowly. It was something her mother had done. Joy had picked up the habit without really knowing whether the tea tasted better for having been swirled three times.