The Tying of Threads (26 page)

Maisy, who did her supermarket shopping in Willama after her Weight Watchers meeting on Tuesdays, called in for a cup of tea on the way home. She filled Jenny in on the latest anti Wallis woman news, but without a smoke in her hand Jenny couldn’t sit still to listen.

‘Betty Dobson sent young Steven in to get a bottle of tomato sauce she’d forgotten to pick up in Willama, and that Wallis woman told him to go elsewhere,’ Maisy said. ‘There’s those who move up here and make an effort to fit in, then there’s those like her who’d have trouble fitting in anywhere.’

Jenny nodded and peeled a carrot.

Maisy was half the woman she’d been. She used to fill that chair and hang over its edges, had never walked if she could drive. She walked four mornings a week now, walked around the central block and by the supermarket corner, walked close enough to the glass door to make it beep and rumble open, and if it failed to do so, she waved her hand or basket at it until it did. Most had seen her doing it.

Bernie didn’t go to the Weight Watchers meetings, but was also half the man he’d been in ’77. Jenny had seen him march by in the parade, and he’d been wearing his old army uniform, his medals and Macka’s pinned to it. Half the man, but maybe twice the man, a few in town said. He was a good son to Maisy. Jenny couldn’t deny that.

She denied the tombstone he’d bought for Margot. She hadn’t been out to the cemetery since it had gone up. Most in town had seen it. Most who visited the cemetery would have had trouble not seeing it, according to Amy. She saw it the day of Miss Blunt’s funeral.

Jenny sang at the service and said her goodbye there. Goose bumps still rose on her soul when she thought of Margot’s funeral – goose bumps of guilt, multiplied by lack of a smoke. Jim had followed the hearse to the cemetery. He’d seen Margot’s stone. ‘Big,’ he’d said. ‘Very fancy. White.’

And fancy tombstone or not, and half the man or twice the man, Jenny would never forgive Bernie Macdonald. She hadn’t spoken one word to him since the night she’d felt obligated to toss a ‘thank you’ in his direction when he’d given her a lift down to the Willama hospital with Donny, back in ’58 – twenty-two years ago.

It’s human nature to forgive. There were plenty in town who’d forgiven him his youthful sins – or perhaps with Macka dead and in his grave, it became easier to lay old blame at a dead man’s feet. Jenny couldn’t.

She couldn’t forget cigarettes either. She’d smelt the wafting smoke from Bernie’s cigarette when he’d walked out of the newsagent’s this morning just as she’d walked in, and he’d had the gall to hold the door open for her. She hadn’t felt obligated to thank him – had wanted to knock him over and snatch the smoke from his hand.

Vern’s old rosebush hedge, always pruned in June and July, was a hell of a job. This year she’d suggested Harry’s chainsaw and a faster, more brutal pruning. You can’t kill a rosebush – Granny’s climbing rose was testament to that – but Vern Hooper had pruned his own rosebushes each June and July, Jim at his side once he’d been old enough to hold a pair of secateurs. He knew when and how it was supposed to be done and he liked to do things the right way.

They were pruning when they heard that old Dave Watson, one of the town councillors for umpteen years, had died. It was expected, but it meant that he’d have to be replaced on the council.

They were pruning along the south fence when Joss Palmer, Walter Watson, who was Dave’s son, and Robert Fulton, all councillors, came to the fence to tell Jim that Brian Fogarty, a blow-in councillor, had suggested the male Wallis to take old Dave’s place. Jim’s secateurs continued snipping. Jenny’s stilled.

‘How about joining us, Jim?’ Walter said.

‘Not my cup of tea,’ Jim said.

‘Your old man was on the council for years,’ Joss said. ‘You’d get in.’

‘I’m not my old man, Joss,’ Jim said, easing a thorny twig from his gardening glove.

‘If we can’t get a local bloke to stand against him, Wallis will get in unopposed. His wife runs him and will end up running the town,’ Robert Fulton said.

Jim suggested they try John McPherson.

The councillors had no luck there, and that night five men met in Robert Fulton’s sitting room, all local councillors.

‘Who else is there?’ They’d tried three out of town farmers. They’d tried two Dobsons. Hadn’t tried Weasel Lewis, but old Shaky Lewis would have had a better chance of getting votes than Weasel.

‘How about sounding out Bernie Macdonald?’ Joss said.

‘I wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole,’ Robert said.

‘His old man sat on the council for fifty years. He’s off the grog. He employs more than any other bugger in town. Who’s got more right?’ Joss asked.

‘He wouldn’t do it.’

‘If we don’t put it to him we won’t know if he will or not.’

‘He’s a mongrel. He’s always been a mongrel, and he’ll die one,’ Robert said.

‘Better him than that henpecked Wallis bastard and his missus,’ Walter said.

‘Who’s for sounding him out?’ Joss asked.

‘I’ll give you ten to one that he won’t do it,’ Robert said.

‘Tell his mother the Wallis coot will be elected unopposed, and she’ll make him do it,’ Walter said, and the men laughed. Maisy’s waving of her basket at that beeping door was a town joke.

Joss mentioned it at the dinner table on Sunday night.

‘No bloody way,’ Bernie said.

‘You will so do it,’ Maisy said, and Jessica seconded the motion.

‘You’ve got the gift of the bloody gab. You do it,’ Bernie said.

‘If Joss will nominate me, I will,’ Maisy said.

Joss didn’t bite.

Maureen always phoned on Sunday night. She got around Bernie on the phone.

‘Dad would be so proud to think that one of his sons was taking his place on the council,’ she said.

Poor old George; his sons had never given him a lot to be proud of. Maureen said more, but Bernie wasn’t listening. He was thinking about making a bloody fool of himself in front of the whole town.

Joe Flanagan’s kelpies would have got more votes than Wallis. Bernie Macdonald got in with a massive majority and, two weeks later, all but half a dozen roses pruned, the Wallis duo placed their store on the market.

It was big news in Woody Creek. It was the best news, the only news, until Saturday afternoon when Joe Flanagan’s Jap car pulled into Jenny’s driveway and Joe wasn’t driving it.

S
hock can paralyse. Jim had his secateurs in hand, he could have fought her off. Instead, too late, he attempted to dodge claret lips. The lawn edge was six inches higher than the surrounding brick path and it didn’t take a lot to upset Jim’s balance when his artificial leg was doing the supporting of his near six and a half foot height, so when his foot hit the edge he landed on his backside on the lawn. She got him while he was down, planted her kiss on his mouth and told him to congratulate her.

Jenny came with her own secateurs. She’d seen the car and noticed its colour but maroon was becoming a popular shade for cars, there were a lot of similarly shaped cars on the road and Jenny was unable to tell the difference between any of the imported models. She wiped at Jim’s lipstick-smeared mouth with a gardening glove, her back turned to Lila and her vehicle.

Jim, born in the horse and cart era, had never trusted horses but given his trust early to his father’s motorised vehicles, and as a twelve year old had learnt to drive a big black Hudson. He could still put a model name and year to every car in town.

‘That’s Joe Flanagan’s car,’ he said, wiping his own mouth with the handkerchief he never failed to carry.

‘Nice to see you too,’ Lila said.

Jenny was walking away when Jim repeated his words. ‘It’s Joe Flanagan’s car, Jen.’

‘You wouldn’t give me a bed,’ Lila said, and Jenny turned, ripped off her gardening gloves and tossed them at her visitor, not because she’d taken old Joe’s advertised job but because she’d lit a cigarette.

‘Put that out,’ Jim said. ‘Jen has given up.’

‘That’s why she’s got a bee up her arse,’ Lila said.

Tobacco smoke wafting on the air of a winter afternoon – is there a smell like it in the world? That old desire slowed Jenny’s footsteps and, halfway across the lawn, she turned to face her nemesis.

‘He’s had three housekeepers we know of. One lasted for two hours, one for two days,’ Jenny said. ‘I wish you joy of him – and how come he lent you his car?’

Lila’s reply was a gush of smoke then the flash of her left hand, and be it new or one of her vast selection, there was a wedding ring on it. Jim stared at the hand, decided he’d done sufficient pruning for the day and escaped towards the shed. Jenny turned towards the house, then back, her legs refusing to walk her away from that sweet scent of burning tobacco.

‘You didn’t marry him?’

‘He’s got money coming out of his ears,’ Lila said.

‘You bloody fool! How do you think he got his money?’

‘Cows. You should see the size of the cheques the butter factory gives him for his cream,’ Lila said.

‘He buried his wife in a suit I made for her twenty years ago. That’s how he got his money—’

‘Some women don’t know how to handle men,’ Lila said. ‘Are you going to invite me in, or make me stand out here with everyone gawping?’

‘Go home to your groom.’

‘I can’t. His sons are there. I’ll toss my fag,’ Lila said, and so saying she tossed it onto the lawn, a long butt, a good half of a cigarette, and every muscle in Jenny’s body wanting to run and snatch it, she turned her back on it and opened the front door, Lila on her heels.

‘I told you the last time you were here that you’re not welcome, Lila.’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ Lila said.

‘You’ve lost your marbles – and so has he.’

‘All the better to roll ’em, my dear,’ Lila said. She followed Jenny in through the front door where she veered right into the sitting room to turn on the television.

Jenny stood in the hall, watching her flick the channel selector around the dial. It was Murphy’s law that, no matter when you turned on that box, you’d catch it in the middle of a commercial, but by her third circle of available channels, she found a movie, an old black and white tear-jerker from the thirties. She sat then, and Jenny walked to the doorway.

‘I was halfway through watching it when they turned up,’ Lila said. ‘Remember
Forever Amber
?’

Jenny remembered it. It had been a ‘must see’ movie in its day. Like a woman’s breasts, few old movies stand the test of time.

‘Why?’ Jenny asked.

‘You wouldn’t give me a bed,’ Lila repeated. ‘He was advertising for a live-in housekeeper when I went back to the dole mob after I lost my job. They gave me his number so I phoned him. He got a bit more than he expected.’

‘You’re no better than a prostitute, Lila.’

‘And you’ve got a filthy mind. I was talking about my cooking.’ Lila turned to the screen, then back to the doorway. ‘It was like doing it with a sex-starved chimp – if you’re interested. He’s covered in hair from the neck down.’

Unable to take any more, Jenny closed the door and went out to the kitchen to vomit, but Jim was in there stoking the stove.

‘His sons will have him committed,’ he said.

‘She doesn’t know what she’s in for – and I can’t live in this town if she’s in it, Jim. If you want me to stay off the smokes, for God’s sake, sell up and get me out of here.’

For ten years, she’d been urging him to sell. The year they’d sent Trudy to boarding school, she’d almost talked him around.

‘Going by her past record, she won’t stay long,’ Jim said.

‘Today is too long,’ Jenny moaned.

The movie ended at four. Lila found them in the kitchen. ‘Your sitting room is like a tomb,’ she accused.

‘You weren’t invited to sit in it,’ Jenny said.

They rarely used the sitting room during the worst of winter when a two-log fire did little to remove the chill. The room was too big. The house was too big, and the garden – and this town was too small.

‘Where do your guests sit?’ Lila asked.

‘We don’t have guests. Go home.’

During winter, two easy chairs lived in their cosy kitchen where they ate, read, worked beneath powerful fluorescent lighting. Jim’s typewriter spent most of its winters on the south side of the kitchen table.

Lila moved a kitchen chair close to the stove; she took out her cigarettes.

‘No.’ A chorus of two.

‘The smoke will go up the chimney,’ Lila argued.

‘No,’ they chorused. ‘If you want to smoke, you smoke outside.’ Watched her, willing her out that back door so they could lock her out, but she put her cigarettes away.

‘I told him not to tell his sons what he’d done, but the silly old bugger phoned them.’

‘You’ll learn,’ Jenny said.

‘What?’

‘What most gave up attempting to do fifty years ago.’

‘What?’

‘Trying to tell old Joe Flanagan what to do.’

Jim turned on the television, a small portable which used up too much space on the kitchen bench but offered a clear picture of footballers rolling around in the mud. He followed Collingwood. They were playing someone. Jenny had no interest in a mob of men rolling around in the mud, but the mass of males held Lila’s interest until the game ended and the news came on.

Someone had shot a judge at his own front door. A while ago, there’d been a shooting outside a family court. Australia was catching America’s disease. Australia’s first test tube baby had been born intact and healthy. Jenny sat forward to listen to that.

‘When you think of the trouble we went to to dodge getting pregnant and now the buggers have found a way to inject them into us with syringes,’ Lila said.

‘You’re well past worrying about it and we’re trying to listen,’ Jenny said.

Jim gave up and left the room. Lila changed the channel and Jenny rose to serve two bowls of soup which she carried into the sitting room, where Jim had lit the open fire. They pulled chairs close to it and sat to watch the ABC news, then the show that followed the news.

They sat until ten, when Jenny stoked the kitchen stove, closed it down for the night and told Lila to go home.