I was always sure that Miss McPherson was very beautiful underneath her bandage. It was a large white bandage, tied securely round her face so that one saw only that part of her face above her mouth. But her eyes made you want to keep looking at her. They were brown and large and gazed gently at you. But the trouble was, that’s all you could see. I wished I could see the rest of her face.
She had white hair that didn’t make her look as old as it should. It was not white hair like what you see on the old people with wrinkled faces, but white hair what you’d see on people who loved you and were worried about you from when you were little. Like my mother’s hair, only whiter.
‘It’s the white hair of suffering’, my sister once said when I asked her what made Miss McPherson’s hair white, but she didn’t say what she was suffering from.
Joe was a bit frightened of her, but it was a funny thing; I never was. All my life I’d been like that. It is a funny thing.
I liked talking to Miss McPherson because she always said nice things. Like she’d say—— ‘You look quite smart in that cap, Alan.’ It’s good to hear people say things like that.
Joe and I used to hunt hares in the paddocks round her house. She never minded us doing it at all. All she said once was, ‘Don’t take your dog into the sheep paddock, will you. They’re lambing.’
When she said that, Joe and I wouldn’t let Dummy go near the sheep paddock. We shouted at him and made him walk close to us. Anyway, the best paddock to raise a hare was just behind her house.
When we’d coursed hell out of the hares in this paddock, I’d go over to the house and knock at the back door. Joe wouldn’t let me knock at the front door because he said it would frighten shit out of her. ‘When Mum hears a knock at the front door she nearly takes a fit’, he explained. ‘She thinks it’s coppers. The front door’s never to knock at unless you’re somebody.’
Joe’s got a lot of brains about things like that.
When I knocked at Miss McPherson’s back door Joe stood behind the fence. When Miss McPherson opened the door I’d say, ‘Thank you for letting us hunt in the back paddock, Miss McPherson. We didn’t go near the sheep paddock.’
She’d smile at me then. It was a lovely smile, but you couldn’t see it: you could tell by her eyes it was beautiful.
I said to Joe once, ‘If ever I have a buster and hurt my back or something and we’re near Miss McPherson’s, get her. Don’t get anyone else.’
‘Righto’, Joe said, then added, ‘anyway there are no stones in her paddock to land on. I wouldn’t take you where there are stones because your old man told me not to.’
When we were on our way home we often talked about Miss McPherson’s face. Joe thought that maybe her teeth were so bad she had to hide them, but I didn’t think so.
‘No matter how bad they are they couldn’t be that bad’, I said. ‘I think her face must be all out of shape below the nose. Say a horse kicked you on the face. Now, say it did that.’
‘A draught horse?’ asked Joe.
‘No’, I said. ‘Not heavy like that. Say about a twelve hands pony, a well-bred sort of pony.’
‘Shod?’ asked Joe.
‘Not just out of the blacksmith’s’, I said. ‘He’s been shod about a month say. They’re a bit worn like.’
Joe considered this for a moment, his face screwed up and turned to the sky.
‘I’d be buggered’, he said at last.
‘Well, I don’t know’, I argued. ‘You’d be alive but your face would be out of shape, that’s what would happen.’
‘All right then’, argued Joe. ‘Do you think she’s been kicked by a pony?’
‘I just don’t know.’
‘You know what I think’, Joe went on. ‘I think she’s been born deformed.’
‘Deformed?’ I was a bit puzzled.
‘You know—born without a jaw or something.’
‘That’s terrible’, I said.
‘Yes it is, isn’t it’, said Joe. ‘That’s why I don’t like going near her. I can’t stand deformed people. They make me feel crook.’
‘Yes. That’s right. Funny thing that; they make me feel crook too. I dodge them if I can.’ I agreed with Joe.
We had reached a fence topped by two strands of barbed wire.
‘How the hell are you going to get over this’, Joe said thoughtfully as if talking to himself.
‘It’s a bad fence’, I said, ‘but I’ll get over it all right; don’t worry!’
‘I think I’d better lift you on to a post and you can hang across it sort of till I get over and grab you. You’ll have to lift your right leg with your hand so that it won’t tear on the barb.’
‘Yes, that would be the best way’, I said. ‘Bend down till I get a proper holt of you.’
‘Right’, said Joe. ‘Now put your arm round my neck. Now lift your bloody leg. Pull your back in, damn you’, he suddenly shouted. ‘You’ll catch it on the bloody barbs. God Almighty! Don’t move. We’re going to fall arse over head. Hold on to that bloody post. Grab the barb wire. Let go of it or you’ll cut your hand. What the hell . . .! O, shit!’
He staggered with my weight. I let go the barbed wire and clutched the post.
‘It’s all right!’ I exclaimed. ‘I’ve got a grip on the post now. I’m set. Lever me over a bit. Now ease off. Steady me a bit. I’m right. I could stay here a week. She’s jake.’
Joe wiped his nose with the back of his hand, then stepped back and looked at me hanging across the post. ‘Couldn’t be better. Now I’ll get your crutches. Don’t move. I’m coming.’
He climbed swiftly through the fence carrying my crutches, then dropped them to the ground.
‘Now!’
I put my arm round his neck and he lowered me till I stood beside the fence. He then picked up my crutches and I put them under my arms.
‘The worst thing about walking on crutches is the crutches’, he said by way of a final summary.
‘They do slow you down a bit’, I said.
‘It’s a good job we’re not in a hurry’, said Joe. ‘All I’ve got to do is feed the ducks when we get home.’ He thought a while, then said, ‘Ask Elsie about Miss McPherson’s face. She’ll know. She goes up to see her sometimes. Ask her.’
‘I will’, I said with sudden decision. ‘I’ll ask her tonight. When we know what’s wrong with her we won’t have to worry over it. Anyway, I don’t care what’s wrong with her. I’m still going to like her.’
‘I will too’, said Joe. ‘Once I know, I won’t be frightened of her.’
I asked my sister that night. She was washing up and she stopped and said:
‘It’s a sort of secret, but I’ll tell you because you love her. You told me you did.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘All her face is covered with white hair like a beard’, she said. ‘She has worn that bandage on her face for forty years to hide it from people. It’s sad.’
I was horrified. I felt like I was hit by something. It seemed so easy a thing to get rid of.
‘Why doesn’t she shave?’ I asked my sister.
‘I asked her that’, said Elsie. ‘I asked her why she had wasted all those years when she could so easily have shaved it all off.’
‘What did she say to that?’
‘She said, “It was sent to me by God. Who am I to question it! It’s a Cross I just have to bear.” ’