Three Summers (15 page)

A night bird called out across the paddocks – what if she never found anyone to love her down in Sydney?

Somewhere in the street a door slammed, Bang! Then there was silence, into which the old hymn came drifting, faintly at first, so she couldn't be quite sure she wasn't imagining it, and then clearer and clearer, like a shadow that close up reveals itself to be a man.

Come down, O love divine,
Seek now this heart of mine
—

He was singing the words this time, and out there in the night the hymn sounded purer, more lovely than it had ever sounded in Father Joseph's church on Sundays, as if each word was rimmed with the most tender love.

Tam Finn was out there. Excitement welled in her; she didn't hesitate. Pulling on her skirt and blouse, pushing her feet into sandals, she hardly noticed what she was doing, she was breathless, desperate to get outside before Tam Finn disappeared. When she rushed through the front door, the street was empty but the hymn drifted down it, riding in from the paddocks on that warm scented wind. She ran towards it, past the shops and houses and on into the paddocks where the moon seemed brighter, a big half moon like a bowl of shining blessings tipped over the land. As she turned into Starlight Lane Tam Finn stepped out of the grove of she-oaks, exactly as he'd done that first time. ‘Ruth,' he said softly. ‘Here's Ruthie.'

She stood still, her breath so quick and loud she seemed to be almost panting, like Fee's old dog Rusty, when he stood in the kitchen waiting while Mrs Lachlan cut up his meat. It was a wanting sort of sound, and she hated it, she couldn't bear that it should come from her mouth. The excitement dropped from her and she looked around, hardly able to believe she'd come here, blindly, like the sleepwalker in Helen Hogan's old story, as if another person lived inside her and did these things, a person who felt, who wanted, who went ahead without a word. One minute you were leaning on the windowsill of your old room, and the next – she turned to go back but Tam Finn reached out and placed his hands on her shoulders. ‘So you came,' he said. ‘You know, I thought you might.'

She looked up at him. His face was thinner and the skin around his eyes had a blueish tinge, as if he'd been ill. But perhaps it was only the moonlight, shining down on him.

‘So-o,' he murmured, smiling. ‘What do you want, little Ruthie?'

She looked away from him, down at her feet. Moonlight glittered on the buckles of her sandals and seemed to wink at her.

‘Here's a girl who doesn't know what she wants!' said Tam Finn, and then his arms went round her and his body was all bones and sharp nagging angles and there was no comfort in it and nothing you could imagine to be love, even when he lowered his head and she felt his lips move gently against her hair. ‘She doesn't know at all,' whispered Tam Finn. ‘But I do, I know what this girl wants.'

A light flashed suddenly behind them and Ruth jerked her head sideways to see. The porch light had come on in the Hogans' house on top of the hill.

‘They can't see us,' said Tam Finn. ‘Not from up there on the hill. Not when we're in the dark down here.'

A small child's voice cried out, ‘'Bonny! Here, Bonny, Bonny, Bonny! Good girl, Bonny!' The light went out. A door slammed. Silence fell again.

Tam Finn laughed softly. ‘Good girl, Ruthie,' he said, catching her chin in his long fingers, raising her face to him. ‘Oh, good girl!' His grip on her body tightened, she closed her eyes and his mouth came down on hers; she felt the wetness of his lips, his tongue, and the utter strangeness of another person's breathing turning into hers. She opened her eyes and saw his eyes, their dark rainy grey and a cloudiness beneath it like the sediment of poison at the bottom of a cup. The sediment shifted, and once again she had the impression of that other person hiding there, that frightened, importunate stranger knocking at her door.

He drew his mouth from hers and pressed her face down against his chest. ‘Let me, ah, let me,' he whispered hoarsely, and for a moment she thought perhaps he was saying, ‘help me,' but all around them the trees were whispering and stirring, and the sound of her blood was rushing in her ears and she couldn't be sure. His hand slipped beneath her skirt and there was the sudden shock of cold metal, of the snake ring against the warm flesh of her thigh. Over his shoulder she saw a strange moving glimmer on the hillside; the wind and moonlight had caught the dark water of the dam and it gleamed down at them. The sight made her gasp and pull away from him, and Tam Finn didn't try to stop her.

‘Ah well,' he said sadly, and he leaned his face against her breast for the briefest of moments, before turning to see where she was staring. ‘The dam,' he said, ‘where they say your nan pushed your grandpa in.'

‘She didn't.'

‘You're right,' he said, smiling his lovely smile. ‘She didn't, Ruthie; that's only a Barinjii tale. They're fond of tales round here.'

‘I know.'

‘Your nan wouldn't hurt a fly.'

‘I know,' she said again, eagerly.

He nodded. ‘Good,' and then he added, ‘She gave me something once.'

‘Gave you something? Nan?'

‘She gave me a smile, right in the middle of Main Street. It mightn't sound like anything much, but I loved it. Not so many people smile at me round here, you know. She was kind.'

She looked up at his face. She thought, he sees people, how they are. She thought he might even be good, in a way that most people never were. ‘Tam,' she said, and knew with a shocking certainty that it was the only time she'd ever say his name to him.

He touched two fingers against his lips and pressed them against her forehead. ‘Well, little schoolteacher,' he said, ‘off you go then.'

‘But—' she hesitated, and he touched her gently on the shoulder.

‘Go on down to Sydney, Ruthie. It's right for you.'

‘Is it?'

‘It's your place. You're lucky to have a place. I wish I had.'

She stared at him. ‘But – but you've got
Fortuna
!'

‘Oh,
Fortuna
.' He looked away. ‘Perhaps.'

‘But—'

‘Off you go, Ruthie. You go home now, before I change my mind.'

‘But you—'

‘Don't worry about me. There's plenty more fish in the sea, eh? Plenty more little fishies.' He shoved his hands into his pockets and began to walk away down Starlight Lane, whistling his old hymn again. In the bright moonlight, before he passed into the shadows of the trees, she saw the brave tilt of his head, the narrowness of his shoulders and the way he held them, straight and defiant, like a little kid, like someone very young who was saying with his body, which was all he had, ‘I don't care.'

It made her want to cry, it made her want to run after him. She didn't; she turned the other way and began to walk slowly back towards the town.

THAT
night Father Joseph had a dream of cloven hooves and shaggy muscled legs and little Ruth Gower's sweet white body held fast between them, her small breasts grasped in brutal, hairy hands.

He woke and sat up in bed. His skin was clammy and sweat dripped from his forehead. It was dread, he thought, dread of what would become of Maidie's girl down there in that sink of iniquity. He was old, he knew – his congregation was dwindling, the young ones were drifting away, the pew beside the confessional was empty most Saturdays – but while he had breath in him, that girl would be saved. He would shame Margaret May into keeping young Ruth in Barinjii. He would force Maidie's hand.

Father Joseph switched on the light and opened the drawer of his bedside table. He'd already written his sermon for tomorrow, but he knew now it wouldn't do. He took out the pad of paper, ripped out the sheets, and started all over again.

fourteen

It was Sunday morning. Margaret May was halfway to Saint Columba's when Ruth came running after her. ‘I'm coming with you,' she said.

‘To church? I thought you said you weren't going anymore.'

‘I'm not,' said Ruth. ‘Just this very last time, with you.' She took Margaret May's hand, and together they walked on up the hill.

‘Nan?'

‘Yes?'

‘Nan, I
really
want to go to Sydney now. I didn't, before.'

‘You had me worried there for a little while,' said Nan. Today her voice sounded so light and carefree that it was hard to believe in the panic Ruth had seen last night.

‘Did I? I think I was afraid, a bit,' said Ruth. ‘I wasn't
sure
.'

‘And now you are?'

‘Yes.'

‘Has something happened?' asked Margaret May, with a quick sideways glance into the girl's bright face. ‘To make you change your mind?'

‘No, no, nothing,' replied Ruth quickly, pushing the memories of last night away, the roughness of Tam Finn's shirt against her cheek, the warmth of him, his thin black shadow vanishing down the lane – and pushing away the strange feeling of failure that had crept over her later when she was lying alone in her room. ‘I've been thinking, Nan, that's all. I think Sydney's
my place
.' Her brown eyes fixed intently on her grandmother's face. ‘My
place.
You know?'

‘I think I do,' said Margaret May.

THEY
sat close together, three rows from the front of the church, in the seat that was nearest the little statue. The vase of pink lilies had gone; Merle Hogan had taken them away.

After the readings, Father Joseph unfurled the newspaper he'd carried with him up the steps of the pulpit and held it out dramatically towards the congregation. There was a startled intake of breath, for the newspaper was
The Record
, a publication against which he railed so often that many of them bought it to see what the old man was on about, and found it a good Sunday read. Even those in the middle rows today could make out the banner headlines screaming from the front page:
Sex Scandals Rock Our Universities!
Father Joseph turned a page to a double spread of photographs: fine old stone buildings set amongst heavy-leaved English trees.

Ruth didn't notice; she was thinking of Tam Finn. She wondered what he was doing now; she wondered if he knew she was going tonight. She thought of his voice urging her, ‘Let me, oh, let me!' She should have let him, she should have! Only – what would have happened then? Afterwards? She frowned, remembering Helen Hogan down at the creek in her torn dress, and Meg Harrison bawling in the washroom, and girls like Kathy Ryan who'd had to go away. Perhaps it would have been different for her. Would it have been?

‘Sex Scandals Rock Our University!' Father Joseph roared, and Ruth's head jerked up – all round her the congregation was rippling like long grass in the wind and heads were turning towards the place where she and Nan were sitting. Everyone knew Ruth Gower was going off to Sydney University, that she was booked on the evening train, that already her luggage had been delivered to the stationmaster's office and was waiting for the 7.20 down.

‘University, they call it!' Father Joseph jeered. ‘The seat of learning! The ivory towers!' Spit flew from his mouth; he wiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘You know what I call it? I call it the
Sink.
Yes, you heard me! Not Mum's kitchen sink where you all go to wash your hands at teatime, but the Sink of Iniquity!'

Margaret May leaned towards Ruth and whispered, ‘Do you want to go home, sweetheart?'

‘No,' said Ruth. ‘I'm staying here with you!'

Down at the back, Merle Hogan was craning forward to see the pair of them. She noticed how Margaret May was sitting with her back poker straight: a habit she'd have learned at the orphanage. The girl was white as a sheet hung out to dry.

Father Joseph rose on the balls of his feet. ‘They teach Free Love down there!' he bellowed, shaking his fist in the air.