SHEARER’S TALE
January 1956
A week passed in sequestered resentment. The first indication that the floodwaters had receded was Fable flapping out of the cottage door with a towel around her neck, and sandals thrown on so hastily they weren’t even buckled.
Sonnet lobbed a sigh after her, but turned just as hurriedly herself in search of Plummy’s port. Thank goodness Olive was due to mind her today.
Sonnet’s morning at Emerson’s Fashion and Fabrics crawled by. At the stroke of midday, she locked up and hurried down to Shearer’s Books. Alfred’s SORRY, WE’RE CLOSED sign was no impediment to a woman on a mission such as this.
At her jangling entrance, Alfred looked up from his newspaper and aromatic steak and kidney pie with a smile so hopeful she wanted to weep.
He too had been waiting, then.
‘I want to know,’ she blurted, ‘why you are the only person in the world anyone has ever called an “ally” of my mother’s. Why you were her friend when she was friendless.’
Alfred wrapped his pie back in its paper bag. ‘That’s a story I’ve been waiting a long time to tell. Come upstairs, we’ll chat over a cuppa . . .’
Up the spiral staircase they went, into the overcrowded, odorous heart of an old man’s dwelling. Alfred’s flatlet above the shop overlooked Raintree Park and the green mountains beyond, sharply defined as cardboard cut-outs. The august view and hot cuppa softened the last residues of tension. Sonnet sank back into the overstuffed armchair. Alfred patted her shoulder as he shuffled to the seat beside her.
‘I haven’t anything alarming to tell you, Sonnet. You’ll have heard the worst of it from the meddlers round these parts.’
But she couldn’t look at him while he told this tale. Sonnet picked out a rain tree, the largest, making it her single point of focus.
‘I’d known Esther since she was a girl in the Young Readers section of my library – she was my library monitor for years, and I cherished our lunchtime chats. When she wasn’t in my library she haunted my bookstore. I used to call my back corner under the stairs “Esther’s Corner”. She was always starving for stories, like life just wasn’t enough for her. And when the bookshop and library were closed to her, Esther had a secret waterfall, somewhere up beyond Moria Falls, couldn’t tell you exactly, where she’d hide out with all her stories and dreams.
‘Esther lived for her books, or maybe lived in them – I’ve since thought perhaps it set Esther too far beyond her peers, made her yearn for someone who could equal her intellect and imagination, and that passionate heart of hers! And there were none in Noah like that.
‘Over the years, I watched Esther grow into a beautiful young woman, with a splendid mind on her. Oh she could write! I don’t think anyone doubted what Esther swore she’d make of herself. She had such determination about her, always demanding more than this valley could give her. But I sometimes thought Esther was frightened by the intensity of her own wanting. The idea that life might not ultimately live up to her expectations seemed unbearable to Es.’
He broke off, sighing.
‘Then along comes Archer Brennan. And who could blame Esther? Everyone loved him. Such a handsome man, and an ambitious and charismatic teacher, with artistic talents. Archer was a painter, a mighty talented one. Just a newcomer to Noah; yet he made Vice Principal in no time, married the town beauty, and they had two lads in quick succession. He was a tremendous father, especially considering young Edmund’s state.’
Tremendous father hung in the air, heavier than the humidity around them. Seeing her sneer, Alfred hurried on. ‘Archer had a passion for art and literature like we’d never seen in this town, and that tiny school. Believe me, I was the school librarian and the only bookseller, I knew! There wasn’t any genuine appetite for books here. I saw how Archer tried to whet their desires with his own zeal, a losing battle in this sugar-town backwater. He was too earnest. People didn’t want Shakespeare; they wanted to escape the slate as soon as possible, get back to the land or mind a steady income, and keep their heads above water when the floods arose.
‘Esther first came under Archer’s notice in her senior year. Well, we hope it wasn’t before. She always was a precocious beauty, though.’ Alfred cleared his throat. ‘He saw a promise shining in Esther he couldn’t believe, wouldn’t leave alone. He should have damned well walked away from the things she ignited in him! Archer fancied himself her sponsor – the one who was going to liberate her from small-town life, put her on the world stage. He was working hard to get her into her dream arts course. She had her sights on multiple university scholarships before they threw her out of school. You see? He ruined all that potential in his very attempt to possess it.’
Sonnet put her teacup on its saucer with a clatter, no longer trusting herself not to take a bite out of the china.
Alfred sighed. ‘Look, I can’t lie and say she did the right thing, either. Because she surely didn’t – he was married, he had those poor boys. But she was too green to understand the consequences. He was worldly-wise, he was her principal, he should have known better!’
Alfred’s own teacup came to rest, trembling, beside hers.
‘I should have stopped it – somehow! All that time he spent with Esther, hidden away in the study annex of my library, the two of them setting my books alight between them. That none of us ever saw it until it was done, that’s the part that always confounded me. Then the terrible way they were found out on that school stage, in flagrante delicto . . .’ He trailed off.
Raintree Park was a burning blur of green for Sonnet.
‘I was the only bloke in town who said it wasn’t Esther’s fault, that he bore the responsibility. She might have been eighteen, but she was still a girl. I copped plenty of flak, still do, for saying it.
‘And that was the worst of it. She was so much bigger than this town, yet they made her small by their shaming. And the graduation they denied her cost that girl her chance at university.’
‘Then I came along and spoiled any chance she had left. I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve heard the rest of this story already.’
Alfred shook his head, voice earnest. ‘Now, Sonnet, don’t you blame yourself. You were the after. Esther and Archer made their own bed and none of that is your fault. But your mother wanted you more than anything in the world. This is the part of the story you don’t know, how she gave it all up – her home and reputation, family wealth and security, all her education dreams – to keep you.’
‘I know precisely what she gave up. They were the very things we went without.’
‘She had no other choice! They gave her none. Sonnet, I sheltered Es in my home here for a month. I was her last stop on the way out of town, and the only door open to her after your grandfather threw her out, hoping to drive her to her senses. Of course, I only took her in because I was in love with her myself – or so said the town gossips.’
‘Were you?’ There seemed no reason not to ask.
‘She was the daughter I could never have. But no, Esther was never going to be in danger of that from a man . . . like me.’
Alfred stared at his teacup, not meeting her eyes. Sonnet kept her gaze on his aged planes, until he looked up. Her eyes were soft with comprehension, and his grew wetter.
There was a tiny catch in his voice as he went on. ‘I imagined I saw myself in Esther – being cast out like that by her family. I would have done anything for her. Least I could offer, though, was to keep her away from the pitchforks, while she planned her escape. Gave her whatever I could, as much money as she’d accept, and connections – old friends of mine in Sydney, good people who took her in, fed and sheltered her until she was ready to give birth. She had you in a tiny back room at their home, safely hidden away from the greedy hands of the state. When she was ready, they helped her on to her first home.’
‘She must have been terrified.’
‘Oh yes. If you could have seen her little face! She launched herself into the world at the same stage women were once retiring to their bedrooms for their lying-in. That kind of courage doesn’t come along very often. And she did it to keep you.’
‘To keep me from what?’
‘If she’d stayed, Sonnet, if she’d let your grandparents have their way, the doctors would have dragged you out of her womb and off for adoption before she could clap eyes on you. Most likely they’d have knocked her out first. You’d never have seen your true mother again. The government’s long been in the hidden business of stealing babies from “unsuitable” mothers. They’d already been flogging children from Aboriginal mothers for years. Then they set their sights on the white bastard babies. It made good sense to the do-gooders: rob the disreputable unwed mothers, to fill their adoption quotas for respectable married couples. There were dibs on Esther’s baby already.’
Sonnet shuddered.
‘So she ran. Right out of my front door that wet September morning, heavy with child, determined to save you. And I never saw her again.’ He paused, gathering himself.
‘Initially, she sent me word of her safety, and yours; then precious titbits on postcards dashed out – though even they fizzled out after the first year. My friends kept me abreast of how she was going so long as she stayed in their district. But once Esther moved on, she severed those ties. She was done with us. The odd postcard graced my mailbox from time to time, and I was able to pass back some of your aunt’s letters, too. But we knew next to nothing about what happened to our Essie.’
Sonnet exhaled. ‘And that’s what I owe you. The truth of what Mama did next.’
‘No, Sonnet. As much as I would love to hear about Esther’s life after Noah, that would make me no better than any busybody up the street.’
‘You must have questions? I’m sure Mama wouldn’t have minded – you helped her escape. What would she have done, and where would I be now, without you?’
Alfred smiled. ‘If there’s one thing I’ve always longed to know, it’s whether Esther kept up her writing? I always hoped I’d see her name writ large across a novel one day. Imagined I’d crack open a new box of books, and there she’d be: Esther Hamilton, published.’
Sonnet mulled this over, wishing she had better news. ‘I guess she still wrote, but only when life was . . . light for her. And that wasn’t often. She seemed to have endless phases of despair. You know, Mama called us her “Story Girls”, she named us for her love of writing, and yet we cost her that very aspiration. Who has time for writing while single-handedly raising three children and eking out a meagre living with factory work and seamstress jobs when she could barely raise her head from the pillow for anguish? She had to take her hand off the quill and put it to hard labour, instead.’
Alfred’s eyes brimmed. ‘I’m sorry to hear those tempests followed her. Poor Essie, nobody to steady her; all those intense emotions hers alone to bear.’
‘I often wondered how much happier she might have been without us.’
‘Oh, she’d never have survived losing you, Sonnet. She gave up a lot for what she wanted most of all: love. You were the best thing in her life.’
Sonnet couldn’t pretend to agree. ‘Not saying much, is it though?’
They fell into a dense silence. Alfred shook himself, as though to cast it off. ‘And do you write yourself, Sonnet?’
‘Not a sentence. I’m starting to feel I missed out on some impressive talents. Daughter of an artist-cum-literature-lover and his protégée-turned-mistress. And here’s regular old me, no artist at all.’
Sonnet looked away to the mountains, afraid of seeing disappointment on Alfred’s face. ‘But I do love reading. Mama used to call me her logophile, because I could spend hours with a dictionary.’ Oh, listen to her vain posturing! Never before had she so wanted her mother’s talents. ‘I just like to collect words,’ she corrected lamely.
But Alfred was nodding intently. ‘Ah yes,’ he said, ‘you’re a lexiconophilist.’
Sonnet wanted to grin like an idiot. ‘But Mama’s creativity is alive and well in my younger sister. Fable can write like a dream, yet she’s not quite thirteen. And you should see her watercolours!’
‘She paints?’
‘Yes. She’s astonishingly talented for one so young. I say that with the bias of a proud sister determined to see Fable make something of herself.’
Alfred considered Sonnet for a long minute. If he had another question, it remained unformed. Instead, he reached to nudge her teacup. ‘I want to thank you for today, Sonnet. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate, lass, but you can come here at any time and help yourself to anything you want.’