Wind in the Wires (29 page)

‘The window survived the transition, and the staircase. It leads from a small entrance foyer up to a landing now. The upper floor units open off the landing.’ Cara hadn’t seen it finished, not quite finished. She’d see it in the September holidays, maybe with Morrie.

‘It would have taken some doing, turning it into flats.’

‘The builders worked on it for almost twelve months.’ A safe subject, Amberley.

‘What do you do for a living?’

‘I followed Dad into teaching.’

‘You sound like a schoolmarm,’ Raelene said.

‘Do you work, Raelene?’

‘There’s no jobs up here.’

‘Where would you like to work?’ Cara asked.

‘Television.’

‘One of my friends got a small part in a television show. She’s a teacher too.’

Raelene’s eyes almost met her own. ‘Did she get piles of money for doing it?’

‘No, but she had fun.’

The mantel clock struck a long aching eight, four sets of eyes watching it.

‘It’s slow,’ Jenny said, checking her watch. Cara glanced at her own. Ten past eight. She looked at Georgie, hoping she might suggest they leave.

‘I told Jim I’d pick him up at nine. He’s at a meeting at McPherson’s. I’ll drop you off at the hotel. Have you booked?’

‘She got one of the veranda rooms,’ Georgie said. ‘More wine anyone?’

‘It tastes like bad vinegar,’ Jenny said. ‘Where did you get it?’

‘A few of the salesmen give Charlie bottles for Christmas.’

‘They’re trying to poison him.’

‘He deserves putting down,’ Raelene said.

Jenny took cigarettes from her purse and offered the packet. Cara accepted one, accepted a light from Jenny’s match and looked again at the hand holding the match, at the hand holding the cigarette. Same atrocious fingernails, same slightly curving pointer. Long fingers, square-topped. Looked at her own hands. Since January of 1964 they’d spent their lives typing. All for naught.

She’d burn
Angel At My Door
when she got home, burn it one page at a time, in her sink if necessary. Everything about it was wrong, the town, the people, the house they lived in, and Jessica. Every single thing. She’d started it with no plan and ended it the same way. It had served a purpose, that was all.

Morrie would be back in Melbourne on Sunday, and the way she felt right now, she’d sleep with him and hope he got her pregnant.

Margot knocked at the door. Georgie opened it. Margot didn’t come in. Georgie returned to the kitchen with a hot-water bottle she emptied down the sink then refilled from the kettle.

‘Fill your own bottle, you albino vampire,’ Raelene yelled.

‘Hold your tongue, Raelene!’ Jenny said.

‘That’s what she looks like.’

My Sister, the Vampire.
Another good title.

A pill-swallowing vampire too. Georgie offered pills at the door along with a glass of water and the hot-water bottle. Four sets of eyes watching Georgie’s back –
Feeding Time for the Vampires.

The door closed and Georgie returned to the table to drink her wine.

‘Are they doing her any good?’ Jenny asked.

‘They’re just sleeping pills,’ Georgie said. ‘She sleeps.’

‘She needs exercise, not sleep,’ Jenny said, and Cara turned to the clock, willing its hands forward while Georgie spoke of the Polish doctor, Raelene punctuating the conversation with comments, Georgie or Jenny translating for the interloper from time to time. Maisy was Margot’s grandmother. Elsie was married to Harry. Granny had raised Elsie.

‘Teddy is on with Vonnie Boyle and her parents are having kittens,’ Raelene said.

‘She’s not much older than you.’

‘Micky is older than me. She’s eighteen,’ Raelene said, and Cara sipped atrocious wine and wondered how old Micky was. She sipped wine and smoked their cigarettes until that old mantel clock struck an arthritic nine, and Jenny rose and Cara rose.

Nothing to say on the trip back to town. She found four words. ‘It’s a nice car.’

‘It was the only one Jim’s legs would fold into,’ Jenny said.

Then the hotel where she’d left her case in a bleak louvre-windowed veranda room. Cheap. That was about all Cara could say for it, and breakfast thrown in.

‘Thank you, Jenny. I’m pleased to have met you,’ she lied as she slid from the car.

‘I’m pleased you came, Cara.’

Then goodbye.

S
TALE
C
IGARETTES

F
or five years Jenny had taken on a variety of shapes and personalities. She entered into Cara’s dreams that night. A tossing, turning night, the howling wind and rattling door pushed in on a nightmare of being pursued by vampires through dark streets. And when she woke gasping for breath, she tasted vampire in aged bedding, and heard them scraping at the louvre windows. Only the limb of a tree, battling gale-force winds.

Grey daylight was filtering into the room when next she opened her eyes, and with the dawn came a calm. Too early to leave her bed, still hours until the bus arrived to deliver her out of this place, she clung to the limited warmth of musty blankets.

At seven she found her way to the bathroom, her overcoat now her dressing-gown. Intent on a long hot shower to wash the night away, she changed her mind when she saw the shower. Washed her face, brushed her teeth and returned to her room to dress in the clothing she’d shed last night, the smell of stale cigarettes, of fish and chips still clinging. Combed her hair at a mottled dressing-table mirror, and in the grim light of Woody Creek’s morning, the mirror reflected Jenny. Turned her back fast, forgoing creams and lipstick, tied her scarf to cover Jenny’s hair.

A good place to stay away from, Robert had said. Parents know nothing when their kids are fifteen. She was older now.

Breakfast was served in the dining room between seven and eight-thirty, according to a sign taped behind the door. She found the dining room, a room behind a bar, six tables with red and white checked cloths, four metal chairs at each table. It had to be the dining room. Chose a table and a chair which allowed her to get her back into a corner, and there she sat until a middle-aged man came in, his arms loaded with small logs.

‘I didn’t know you were in here, love. A wild old night, eh,’ he said.

‘It certainly was,’ she said, watching him drop his load before adding a log to a meagre open fire.

‘You might be a bit warmer over this side,’ he said.

‘I’m fine, thanks.’ Watching him brush woodchips from his sweater, add smaller fuel to a dying flame.

‘Tea or coffee,’ he said, fire-stoker and waiter both.

‘Coffee please. Strong, with milk, and two slices of toast.’

Watched the fire grow and, the width of a room away, could feel its heat before a woman brought her breakfast. Two eggs, bacon, fried tomato, four slices of toast, a slab of butter and two bowls of jam, one marmalade, one red jam.

‘A wild old night,’ she said, emptying her tray to the table.

‘It certainly was. I only ordered coffee and toast.’

‘Coffee’s coming, love. There’ll be a few trees down today, I’ll bet.’

‘I don’t eat a cooked breakfast.’

‘You paid for it with your room last night, love. Leave what you don’t want. The cook won’t be insulted.’ She walked to the fire to warm her back as the male came in with a large pot and a jug of milk.

‘Visiting relatives, are you?’ he asked.

‘Business,’ Cara said. They took the hint and left her to eat.

She ate the tomato with a slice of toast, ate the bacon, crisped the way she liked it, poured strong coffee, buttered more toast and added raspberry jam. Eating filled time.

‘A wild old night,’ a second eater greeted her. Maybe he lived at the hotel. No one came to take his order, but he received his two eggs, bacon, his fried tomato, toast, jam and slab of butter.

‘Where are you from?’ he asked.

‘Melbourne.’

‘What are you doing in this neck of the woods?’

‘Business,’ she said, draining the coffee pot into her cup and wishing she had a cigarette so she might dawdle longer in that warm room where a roaring fire now burned.

Her breakfast companion ate fast. Perhaps he had a place to go. Cara had no place to go, but with no more coffee, at ten past eight she returned to her room for her case; then, following directions given by Georgie the previous night, crossed over the road to follow a well-marked path through a railway yard and over train lines. No crossing gates to protect walkers from passing trains. No trains passing.

She didn’t know she was walking where Jenny’s feet had trod a thousand times, that Norman Morrison, the stationmaster, had been her grandfather. She glanced at the small station, then at the railway house, at the collapsing paling fence beside the track. Then no more fence. She was back at the road where the bus had dropped her off.

In Melbourne at this time of morning, there’d be a constant buzz of traffic. No traffic in this town and little movement. She walked down to the post office’s recessed doorway and stood a while in its shelter, willing the bus to be on time.

So much land, each house well separated from its neighbour, old houses, big and small; the police station opposite the post office was just another house with a sign. The town hall looked like a brick barn.

Heard the roar of a motorbike and, still startled by that sound, she stepped back against the door. Loathed the sound of motorbikes. Not his. He was in jail, and if it was a bike, it wasn’t going anywhere.

Half-a-dozen dogs started barking. They woke the town. A truck went by, its driver hawking, spitting to the road. Then a ute, a red dog in the tray barking at a black and white dog, who gave chase – until it smelled stranger and walked across the road to check out Cara’s credentials.

She picked up her case and held it protectively before her exposed legs, but the dog sat down to scratch, and maybe in dog language to mention the wild old night.

‘It certainly was, and in more ways than one, Bowser,’ she said. ‘I’m up here on business,’ she added.

He nodded, satisfied, had another scratch, approached to sniff her case, then went on his way towards Charlie’s shop, where he watered a couple of veranda posts before turning the corner, to no doubt water more posts, or to find out who was burning rubber on that motorbike.

Cara placed her case on the culvert, where the bus had dropped her, where the driver had said he’d pick her up, then she followed the dog past Charlie’s twin green padlocked doors, past his
Bushells Tea
sign.

And saw what was making the noise – a bloke with a chainsaw cutting wood in the middle of the road. Stood until the saw was placed down to quietly splutter while its driver pitched half a tree onto the back of a small truck, until he looked around and caught her watching.

She beat him to the punch. ‘A wild old night,’ she said.

He nodded, stepped over a larger section of the tree, picked up his chainsaw and allowed it to do what it had been made for.

Not a tree but the giant branch of a tree. She could see the scar where the branch had twisted free to crash through a picket fence, bits of tree and fence strewn. She walked on, sidestepping a small branch, walked as far as the train lines, looked west down the lines, looked east. Nothing to see other than twin metal rails disappearing into the distance. No hills in this town, no bends in those ruled lines.

Turned and walked back to the corner to watch sawdust fly and to keep her eye on the main street, uncertain of which direction the bus would come from.
The Chainsaw Man
, by Norris Caraj, she thought. What a perfect setting for a dark murder mystery Jenny Hooper/Morrison’s town would be. Shrugged and walked back to her case. She was no longer a novelist.

Is there anything worse than standing waiting for a bus that won’t come? It hadn’t come by quarter to nine, and she needed a smoke to kill the taste and scent of stale smoke.

Georgie’s old ute came from the east, passed her and pulled in, its nose to a deep and open gutter. She waved and Cara left her case and walked again to Charlie’s veranda.

‘No bus,’ she said.

‘He’ll turn up. Did you get any sleep?’ Keys in her hand, Georgie was breaking into the shop.

‘It was a wild old night,’ Cara said.

‘There’s a big tree down across our road. I had to bush-bash to get around it. It came out by the roots.’

‘There’s one down around the corner, or half of one.’

‘Could be what’s keeping the bus. A few months back we had one come down out near Three Pines. It took them four hours to clear the road.’

Cara followed her indoors. ‘Could I trouble you for a small packet of Marlboro and a box of matches, Georgie?’

‘That’s what I’m here for – I think.’ A packet slid across the counter. Cara opened it while Georgie unlocked the money drawer and made change of a pound note.

‘Do you ever get away?’

‘Daytrips to Melbourne. Not for a while though.’

‘Shops are a tie,’ Cara said.

‘Yep.’

Her eyes were green by daylight, appraising eyes this morning, then she turned them away to flick on a light switch, to find an old cloth from beneath the counter and with it wipe accumulated dust, insects and what may have been a mouse’s leavings to the floor.

Cara returned to the door to watch for the bus.

‘You came, you saw, you conquered, now you want to get out, eh?’ Georgie said, following her.

‘It’s been incredible –’

‘Mind-boggling incredible, or the other type?’

Those eyes watched her face for the reply and Cara, unable to meet them, looked both ways for the bus.

‘I didn’t expect to find Jenny – or you. I don’t exactly know what I expected to find, Georgie.’

Georgie found a broom. She swept the floor on the customers’ side of the counter, swept what she’d collected to the door. Cara gave way while the accumulation was flicked outside to the street.

‘What were you hoping you’d find?’

‘Jimmy, I think. I’ve seen photographs of him as a tiny boy. I’ve always thought of him as my big brother.’ She shook her head. ‘It was a stupid spur of the moment decision to come.’

‘Jim doesn’t know about you – Jenny’s husband. She was cleaning up the garden as I drove past. She said she would have liked to have spoken to you without the kids around. Have you got the phone on?’

‘No.’

‘Where do you work?’

And the bus was coming. ‘Armadale Primary,’ Cara said, relief flooding her limbs as she walked back to her case. And salvation only yards away, she realised what she’d done. Until that moment she’d given away no personal information.

‘It’s a small world,’ Georgie said. ‘Back when Jenny was married to Ray, we went to the Armadale primary. We lived around the corner from it. Life is crazy, isn’t it, the way that sooner or later everything seems to connect up.’

‘It does seem that way at times.’

Bus pulling in, door slapping open, the driver, who would have preferred not to leave his seat, saw her case. He left the motor running and stepped down. Cara stood with Georgie and her broom until the luggage bay was opened, the case tossed in, then for the second time their hands melded.

‘It’s been seriously interesting,’ Georgie said. No makeup, hair pulled back from her face, old broom in hand, and still regal.

‘It’s certainly been that,’ Cara said.

‘Call me sometime if you feel like it – or Jenny. They’re the only Hoopers in town. Charlie is the only grocer. The exchange will give you our numbers.’

Cara didn’t say she would or she wouldn’t. Wanted to say something. ‘Do you have any idea how incredibly beautiful you are, Georgie?’

‘Watch it!’ Georgie warned. ‘Half the town has already got me pegged as a lesbo.’

No time to say more, but more she might say, now that she was leaving. Bus driver, already running late, itching to be on his way.

‘I’m glad I met you, Georgie.’ She stepped on board then and the door slapped shut behind her.

Plenty of empty seats; she chose one on the left side so she might wave goodbye. Knew Georgie would stand there to wave.

And she did.

Then gone, and Jenny’s town disappearing behind her, all of the old houses, the few new ones looking foolish beside their ramshackle neighbours. A scattering of shops on either side of another railway crossing; a scratching dog forced to give way to the bus’s bleat; another ute, another hawking driver and his dog.

Watched the houses give way to paddocks and trees. Watched the land outside that window until her eyes stung with their staring. Then she closed them, closed the lid on Pandora’s box, sealed it.

Sealed Georgie in.

I’ve done what I said I’d do one day. Now it’s over.

Bus driving into fog, and it seemed so right that Jenny’s town should disappear back into the mist like some godforsaken Brigadoon.

Let them sleep, she thought. I won’t be disturbing them again.