Lizzie went up to the safety of her apartment and sat on the couch looking at the pot of yellow roses. She closed her eyes and heard in the distance a soft, familiar creak…
As a little girl, Lizzie had always thought of the stairs being made of dead trees. Some boards groaned when she stood on them, all echoed sombrely. But the greatest din came from contact with Gwennie’s dancing shoes that were golden and delicate and finely woven, making large childish kiss marks on her feet. She had paid five bob for them at the charity shop, sending Lizzie in for them so that old busy-body wouldn’t lecture about thrift and self-denial. Gwennie balanced precariously upon the slender heels and when she lifted her feet only the timid, tenuous strap about her ankles kept them in pursuit. And always down the stairs, those tiny heels clacked against the naked boards.
The stairs were mean, narrow and poorly lit. They came down one way then turned suddenly and went on down in the opposite direction. The house had been condemned by some department’s direction, ‘Unfit for human habitation.’ Finding an alternative was not that clerk’s problem. That was another department. Up the wide marble stairs to the top floor. No joy there for a single mum, so back to the narrow, wooden stairs up to the bedrooms. Well, almost bedrooms. Half the roof was missing in one and the pigeons roosted there in comfort but the other was really quite weatherproof. The three girls slept there. The eldest was Lizzie, and she didn’t even notice the roof (the missing roof, that is) until she heard Gwennie mentioning it to one of her dancing partners. It didn’t seem very important.
It was quite late at night, and Lizzie had been in bed a long time, all clean, warm and rather tired. She had been washed in the kitchen sitting on the table. Nanna had put one towel for her to sit on so her bottom didn’t get cold. It was nice when Nanna washed you. She always frothed the water as she scrubbed away at the soap to make it bubble on the flannel, then she sloshed it on your chest and down your arms, splashing your pants until you knew by the soggy feel that they were all wet too. Then she joked about big girls who wet their pants, and she clucked her tongue and pretended to be cross as she towelled you burning dry. It was nice when Nanna came.
Lizzie knew Gwennie loved her too. Mum loved all three of the girls. And now Lizzie wanted to cry. She didn’t know why. She wanted Mum, Gwennie, to come, to be there. She was warm and clean, and she wasn’t even scared tonight, but she wanted Mum to come. She called for her and called again. The dancing voice came up the stairs. In reply, Lizzie asked for a drink of water. Gwennie understood. Wooden boards rapped out the rhythm of her steps and she cuddled Lizzie who didn’t feel like crying any more. She didn’t know why. That was when she saw the shadowy outline of the dancing partner standing silently in the dark and heard about the roof. It didn’t seem important.
At least, not until the day the rat came.
It was probably scared when it heard the noise of the steps. It probably ran down them because they were dark. It probably ran into the wall and didn’t realise it had to turn around to keep going down. Probably it wouldn’t have wanted to go down, anyway.
Gwennie saw the rat. She saw its eyes gleaming red and green in the dark corner of the stairs. Her three girls were down there, and the baby was on the floor. The stairs were so mean and narrow, and she knew they wouldn’t be quiet. Even if her heels didn’t hit them, those steps would still squeak if she stood on them. There was silence in this suspended space, this tiny middle earth. There was darkness. There was only the appearance of somewhere to go. She couldn’t go up. She couldn’t go down.
The children’s rhyme came into her head, “and when you are only halfway up you are neither up nor down”. They were right, all those people who said she was irresponsible. She was frivolous. She should be making a decision. She should be weighing the pros and cons. She couldn’t stand here thinking jingles and songs. She couldn’t just stand here and hope it would all go away or all come right in the end.
The silence gradually filled Gwennie’s head, seeped into the cracks and knotholes of the stairs. She could see the outline now. The rat was standing silently in the dark. Rats’ tails were long. She hadn’t known that. It was black, and as she watched, she saw the snout lift and realised that the relative lightness was the mouth. Should she call it the mouth? Well, “jaws” seemed like a shark and “fangs” was rather dramatic. Perhaps she would say “fangs” when she told them about this. She would describe the noise and sudden hush. She would tell them about her skin creeping, her heart thumping and sweat breaking out on her forehead and palms. This would make quite a story. But how would it end? What would she do?
Well, don’t just stand here, Gwennie. At least you can pray. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I give you my heart and my soul. Christ! That sounds as if I’m going to die. Oh, hell, I shouldn’t take the name of the Lord, my God in Vain at a time like this. Oh God, it moved. Jesus-bloody-Christ! Do something, Gwennie. It’s gone into the corner. It’s coming out. It’s really cornered. I think it’s scared. It is. It’s getting panicky. Like me. Please, don’t let it run downstairs. Don’t let it run downstairs. The girls are down there. Rats will attack children. Oh shit, it will probably attack me. Oh shit.
The rat stopped. Now the tail was curved behind it. The whiskers were taut—pulling fiercely away from that spiteful nose and those teeth. They didn’t gleam at all. They were sullen. They would hurt. The body tensed. The claws didn’t move but they tensed, those beaky little feet. Which way would it move? Gwennie watched and heard the silence grow louder and louder. What happened inside a rat’s head? Did it make decisions?
Lizzie began to hear the silence too. From the noise of the baby, the passing cars and the sound of people outside, she heard the silence. She walked to the stairs, and they held their breath. She stopped, listened. Anxious eyes pierced the darkness.
‘Mummy, what’s wrong?’
The sound splintered like falling branches. The rat ran. Gwennie stood still. It ran. Up the stairs, past the woman, out through the hole that led to the roof, the roof that wasn’t there. Lizzie was afraid though she didn’t know why. ‘Mummy! What’s wrong? Mummy! Mummy!’
‘Nothing, darling.’ The voice skipped tremulously.
‘Everything’s fine and…’ The remainder of the words were smothered by the clack of skinny heels on the dried-up wood. Lizzie didn’t understand, but she felt the warmth. It was nice with Mummy. Nothing else seemed important.
But it didn’t stay like that. She forced herself to open her eyes. Mum was dead. A good mother who died. And no matter what they said, she was a good mother in her own funny, endearing, loving, exasperating way.
It’s just so difficult to understand the dead. Probably because I didn’t see her dead. Just heard her dead and then didn’t see her anymore. I couldn’t have gone to the undertakers with all those grey men, in grey suits, in grey cars, on that bloody grey day. They said I could. That husband of mine said that I should. But I didn’t. Bugger them all. Couldn’t they understand that I couldn’t understand? It’s no use just telling me about dying, just talk till they’re all black in the face—oh hell, that’s awful. Well, I didn’t understand why she had to die then. The whole bloody thing was stupid, of course. No drama, no histrionics, everyone so sensible and composed, no one wailed or keened, the earth didn’t shudder or the skies darken or horses eat each other in the fields. Which was probably a good thing.
‘She died two hours ago.’ To be told that while a plastic receptionist at the sports centre slyly admired the reflection of her own two golden, globular, plastic glands and simpered for the male clients who bulged and flexed by on vain, squeaky joggers.
Put the phone down. That’s it, dear, be calm and strong. You’re a grown-up lady now, a teacher, a respectable, suburban matron.
Wednesday 6:46 pm
May I book
my swimming time?
What’s that?
A call
for me.
Hello.
Yes? Yes, speaking.
Bad news,
A shock,
She’s gone.
Mum’s dead.
No.
She’s sick,
I know.
Even dying,
I knew.
But she’s not dead.
Not Mum.
I must find the shampoo.
Have a shower.
Wash my hair.
What’s dead?
Not Mum.
Thank you for the message.
My word, it’s warm in here.
I see a girl
with her mother.
Mother.
Does that mean I haven’t got one?
Should I cry?
Should I tell someone?
Someone who’s got a mother.
Everyone has a mother.
Everyone needs a mother.
I need my mother.
Don’t you hear
all of you?
I need her
She can’t die
She can’t be dead
I want my mother.
Am I screaming?
Yes,
but silently.
I’m screaming in my head.
Time to go, dear.
She’s already gone.
That’s what they said.
I’m being very calm
That’s what they’ll say.
They can’t hear
the screaming,
the yelling
They can’t see me
stamp my feet.
I want my mother.
Put my coat on
It’s very cold outside
She’s very cold
That’s what I’ve read.
But she hated being cold.
Please warm her up
Someone, please,
Warm her up
Don’t leave her cold
Don’t leave her.
Don’t leave me.
Can’t anybody hear me?
I’m screaming in my head.
But Lizzie did not scream out aloud and that was what was important. Being composed, controlled, courteous and cultured, that was important. And being warm. Mum and Lizzie both hated not being warm. That was why Lizzie had been at that place, because she loved swimming in the steamy atmosphere and the warm, warm water. She had always loved the water, the sensation of being totally caressed and enveloped by it with her hair floating free, swirling and fanning and playing in her wake.
There had been no wake for Gwennie, her beloved Mum. Wakes were the vestiges of a primitive way of life that had no place in an all-electric suburb. If Nanna had still been alive there would have been keening and renting of clothes for her beautiful Gwennie.
Across the intervening years, Lizzie seemed to see the old lady again redoubtable and taking possession in the old way. Nanna had been Mary Jane McLachlan. The name conjured up a vision of golden ringlets and rosy dumpling cheeks, but Mary Jane was nearly seventy as Lizzie remembered her. The golden ringlets had never existed. Her hair was silver, much prettier than the drab orphan-brown it had been and was trapped at the nape of her neck in a knot that defied escape. Her skin was soft to touch. It was as if a fine dusty film covered the criss-crossing lines that slept just out of reach of the exploring, gentle fingers of her grandchildren. Mary Jane’s fingers could be gentle too. When a little girl was feverish they would pass across a small, white forehead and soothe the tossing and burning. When it was party time, they could mend the delicate lace collar on a jade-green velvet dress and tie a satin sash so that its newly ironed folds exactly hid that spot where a previous owner had been careless and torn the skirt. When those fingers fluffed a sleeve and buckled straps, the young Lizzie felt loved and almost pretty.
In memory, Lizzie saw those fingers pounding and strangling a great ball of dough. Flour covered the white paper on the table in front of Mary Jane and as she threw the ball against itself, soft puffs rose into the air. Mary Jane really worked that dough. She didn’t believe all the nonsense about blending and coaxing. Her bread was good because she wouldn’t namby-pamby to it. Even Lady Manton, whom Mary Jane had worked for once upon a time, had praised her bread. Mary Jane had gone to the big house as kitchen maid when she was thirteen and her last foster family had moved inter-state. She only cooked when the real cook, old Mrs. Duncan, was sick or on holidays but they were pleased with Mary Jane, who certainly was a worker which was unusual in a girl of her age. Probably, it showed how sensible the old man had been to keep such a tight rein on the child and really the beatings had done her no harm at all, according to Mrs Duncan. Yet sometimes Mary Jane remembered those beatings and her hatred for the dried up, sour, old man rose afresh. Then she would vow that her Gwennie would never suffer like that.
Mary Jane remembered the cream that kept disappearing from the ramshackle dairy. The dairy shed had been built of thick, rough slabs that grudgingly bore the brunt of wind and sun. When the milk and cream were separated, the cream was put into a large shallow dish, covered loosely with cheesecloth and left on the crude shelf by the wall.
Cream was missing. You could see the sticky ring around the bowl where it had been and you could see some had been taken. The old man, who was Mary Jane’s foster father called for that fat, lazy girl whom he had taken into his home and family, who received food and shelter from his generosity. You only had to look at her to see she had plenty, the big lump. He didn’t ask much in return, God knew, he didn’t ask much, just a little help with the farm work and a God-fearing life. Mary Jane feared God. There was no doubt about that. She dreamt of God chasing her over paddocks and fences, always waving the old man’s whip in one hand and carrying a pearly Bible in the other. God’s face was the old man’s face. Oh yes, she feared God. If this mean old man were his servant, she feared God, the master.
She always walked home from school, walked quickly for the old man was never satisfied with her pace and there were hours of chores to do before she would be fed and sent to her bed. Despite her size, she was always hungry, but she had learnt to live with the hunger. The first day he met her with the whip and dragged her into the dairy to inspect the cream bowl she howled and yelped her innocence. She had never touched the cream. She hadn’t. She hadn’t. She hadn’t. He beat her twice, once for stealing and once for lying.
Mary Jane was fairly unsinkable, and by the next afternoon, she had almost forgotten the beatings. Until she saw him at the gate, waiting, waiting for her. She whimpered softly. What now? She hadn’t done anything. Cream was missing again. She couldn’t believe it. She knew she hadn’t touched it but who else was there? The old man wouldn’t steal his own cream. His wife wouldn’t steal her cream—only a fat, godless, Irish lump would steal. He owed it to God to teach her a lesson. Mary Jane’s whimpering became sobs. ‘Please don’t whip me. Please don’t. It hurts. It hurts. Please, please don’t do it. Please don’t.’ But he did. He panted and glowered, and his eyes flashed excitedly as he whipped her. Again and again, he whipped her. She crawled off to bed with the red welts bursting out all over her fair skin.
Two days later, she could barely walk. Each day, the routine had been repeated, and each time with more frenzy. Now she walked slowly and painfully down the dusty track to the front gate, and when she saw that he was there, she felt too tired to cry. She thought she might just die this time so she sat down in the dust and waited for him to come. He came carrying a thick black snake. He had found it coiled around the rim of the bowl with its head dipping into the cream. The snake had stolen the cream. He had made a mistake. She wouldn’t be beaten. She could just go in, do her chores and forget all about it.
Mary Jane hadn’t forgotten. She had beaten a few people in her lifetime but never a child, never her own child. Of course, her little Martin had died young but there was still Gwennie, the little adopted beauty who was the joy of her heart. No one would ever hurt her little Gwennie. Not while Mary Jane could move and breathe.
As she kneaded and slapped, her eyes checked the rabbit carcass lolling on the chopping board and she was pleased with it. There was no sign of dreaded myxomatosis, and there was no fat around those kidneys. You couldn’t fool a country girl when it came to rabbits. It would be a good pie. They wouldn’t be expecting anything when they all arrived home from school and work. Gwennie meant well, she had stuck to those girls of hers, and they all loved her—particularly Lizzie, the eldest, who took life too seriously, thought Mary Jane, who was their Nanna.
Yes, Gwennie did well by her kids, but she just didn’t cook them proper meals. They’d be pleased to see her all right! They loved their Nanna too. With a final twist, she knotted the dough, wiping her hands on the starched bib of her apron and reaching for the rolling pin. She always had a clean, crisp apron when she cooked. It was the first thing she unpacked from the cardboard cartons that held all her possessions. The bib was pinned to her full bosom. Actually, it wasn’t too full these days when she took off the brassiere but, once, she had been a fine figure of a woman. She always felt that it was her breasts and her cooking that had got her the men. But she had probably had her last man. Still, you never know, she grinned to herself. She was conscious of her stays hurting. They were new ones she had bought in Smith Street, and she was proud of the tight, smooth look they achieved. The hooks and eyes had to be done up at the front and then twisted to the back, and she had thought she would never manage to move it the first time she put it on. But you get used to it and they probably stretched a bit anyway. Like she had. Well, as soon as she finished the pie she would take the stays off. First things first, she always said. The work won’t go away just because you don’t like it. No use whinging and whining about life. Just make the most of it. And it hadn’t been such a bad life at that. That was a good rabbit, and it would be a good pie.
Lizzie knew how Nanna had loved Gwennie and now that her anger at them both for dying and leaving her had faded, she could be glad that Nanna never saw Gwennie suffer. Nanna would have felt so awful that she could not stop the hurting for her beautiful Gwennie. Lizzie thought Nanna had been a little sad even when Mum had that job at the Theological College, the time when Lizzie got her skates.
Lizzie remembered when she and the Dean’s daughter were roller-skating on the neglected tennis court. Lizzie was quite competent but hesitated about taking risks while her friend was much more daring, doing twirls and speeding to the net, turning off just in time to avoid a collision or a spill.
The gentle morning sun glinted on them both, touching their cheeks with soft pink and bringing tiny beads of dew to sit trembling on clear foreheads and above lips pursed in concentration. There were a few old fruit trees looking like witches’ brooms with green sprinkles caught in the twigs, an old hothouse and the sad-looking remains of a once thriving vegetable garden where chooks pecked in and out between the science-fiction stalks of silver beet gone to seed and running-wild mint and parsley. That had been the old kitchen garden of Rangley College. No one bothered about it anymore. The buildings had turned their backs and they looked across the busy street to more important, modern ways. The ivy clung to the grey stone in tresses and tentatively curved around the rusty skeleton of pipes left bare to the elements.
The older girl had begun urging Lizzie to be more daring in her skating. ‘Come and have a go at it! See how close you can get to the net without over-balancing or touching it!’
Lizzie tried but swerved away in an arc so large that her friend scoffed. ‘You’re not really trying. Look, just jerk the skates and swing sideways. You’ll stop real quick.’
‘But the strap might break.’
‘So what?’
‘So what do I do then?’
‘Get another one.’
‘Oh, just like that?’
‘Yes, dumb-dumb, just like that. I’ve had two broken already.’
‘Who fixed them for you?’
‘Joe did.’
‘Oh.’
‘What do you mean, ’Oh’?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Oh, boy, You bug me sometimes. What do you mean, “Oh”, “Nothing”? What’s wrong with Joe?’
‘I didn’t say there was anything wrong with Joe.’
‘Well, what are you carrying on about?’
‘Nothing—I mean I’m not carrying on.’
‘Yes you are, as if you know something and you’re not going to tell.’
‘Don’t be stupid.’
‘I’m not the one who’s being stupid. I might not be a brain and win scholarships all over the place, but I’m not stupid.’
‘I didn’t mean you were.’
‘Well, that’s what you said.’
‘Look. I’m sorry. Let’s just forget about it. OK?’
‘Well, stop making weak excuses and I’ll race you to the end of the court.’
‘I wasn’t making excuses.’
‘You were so. Skates are meant to be used. You can’t have them and not use them. They’re not precious or something, are they?’
They continued on their way.
The skates were precious to Lizzie. And she had seen Joe watching her mother who was employed here as kitchen maid and sometime cook when real cook was on holidays or sick. Lizzie had smiled when Nanna burst into great belly laughs on hearing about Mummy’s new job. ‘A kitchen maid? Gwennie? Gwennie? Washing dishes? What? Cooking too? Cooking???? Gwennie??’ She had laughed until she had to undo her stays. Her big bosom wobbled up and down and the fat grey bun at the back of her neck threatened to fall apart. ‘My Gwennie can’t cook to save herself.’ The laughter bubbled again. ‘Gwennie, a cook?’
Lizzie had remembered the funny look in Mummy’s eyes when she had come home and said that at last she had found a job. She was pleased, of course, because they had been so very broke this time, and even the food orders from St. Vincent de Paul hadn’t really helped enough. Jobs were very hard to find for everyone in the Housing Commission Flats, it seemed. Mrs. Henry and her husband (who had a “drinking problem”) and their two boys had been evicted last week because they hadn’t paid any rent for six months. Mrs. Henry had been looking for a job for ages but couldn’t get one anywhere. Everyone had cried and abused the men who moved the Henry’s furniture out onto the street. Mum was especially mad. The men seemed to notice her more than the other screaming women. That was probably because she talked rather “posh”. That’s what the other women always said, anyway and the little girl was teased about it sometimes too, but Mum was surprisingly unsympathetic when the girl complained.
‘You must just ignore that sort of thing.’
Why did they sound different from the others? It wasn’t even as though they were foreigners. It wouldn’t have mattered if it was because of that—the Egan boys were Irish and they just threatened to knock your block off if anyone teased them about their voices. The Marinos were Eyetalian and…’
‘I beg your pardon?!’
‘The Marinos are Eyet…’
‘Don’t ever let me hear you say that.’
Lizzie had been puzzled.
‘The Marinos are Italian. Italian! Not Eyetalian!’
‘Well, everyone else says…’
‘That is not the point!’
‘But why not?’
‘Because I won’t have a child of mine speaking like that. Some things are important and speech is one of them. It’s not like being poor. We can’t help being poor, and many other people have the same troubles. It doesn’t really matter. Well, it does when they threaten to cut off the electricity but it doesn’t really matter. The way you stand and speak does matter. That’s a part of you, it’s not just what you have or you don’t have, like money. It’s what you are, yourself. Do you understand, darling?’
‘No. Lots of people…’
‘Never mind. Just do as I say and never, never let me hear you say “Eyetalian” again.’
The day, Mummy finally got the job she mentioned speech again. ‘The boss, Dr Beveridge, chose me because he thought I was a gentlewoman down on my luck. If he only knew. Still if he wants to boast about his cultured kitchen maid, that’s his affair. At least we’ll eat for a while, darling. Kitchen maid and sometime cook! God help us all.’
Gwennie looked down at her hands with their carefully manicured nails. She sighed, and that was when Lizzie had seen that funny look in her eyes. When Mum choked slightly, Lizzie thought at first she might have been crying, which would be silly when she had just got a new job, but she realised that the woman was gurgling with laughter.
‘Well, it’s certainly something different, and we don’t have to eat what I cook, so it’s more their problem than ours, isn’t it, darling? Come on; let’s have a cup of tea.’ Gwennie had hugged the girl, and they drank the tea happily.
Nanna had stopped laughing and had that funny look too. ‘My Gwennie, a kitchen maid and cook. My beautiful Gwennie.’
Sometimes, Lizzie had wondered what life would be like if Mummy were not beautiful. Then people like Joe, the maintenance man, wouldn’t look at her that way. Of course, it didn’t seem to worry Mummy. She just smiled the way she did at everyone and thanked him for his help when he carried the heavy dishes and buckets for her. The more she told him not to bother the more he helped. Mummy didn’t seem to notice how ugly he was and how his mouth was squashed up on his top lip under his nose. She often kept his dinner in the oven for him when he was late, and one day, when Matron complained about the smell of his boots and even Lizzie was wrinkling her nose, Mummy just winked at Joe and he seemed not to mind Matron any more.
Matron hadn’t liked them at all when they first went to the college. ‘It’s not right for the kitchen help’s brat to play with the Dean’s daughter,’ she had sniffed.
But the two girls had become friends. Anna didn’t tease Lizzie about how she spoke because after all Anna’s voice was worse than hers. She was much more “posh” sounding so Lizzie felt at ease and enjoyed having a friend who had read some of her favourite books and who understood when one was playing at being Jo from Little Women or singing Toad’s Song or exploring the back of a Wardrobe for Aslan and Prince Caspian. It was sometime before she realised that Anna was rich. At least by Lizzie’s standards. But Anna seemed to be impressed by what she termed the “brains” of the kitchen help’s brat who had just come first in the State Government’s Scholarship Examinations and had thereby won an extra grant to cover the cost of books and uniform for five years of secondary education. Mummy had been pleased about that but not particularly surprised. She had assumed Lizzie would continue her education, and as they couldn’t hope to afford it, she had been supremely confident all the time they waited for results to be published. Mummy was like that. Everyone else was surprised, of course. Matron especially. Anna was definitely impressed.
It was at about that time when Anna was given her roller skates. She mastered them quickly and was generous in sharing them with her friend and for days, they practised on the wide verandas which ran on three sides of the college building. The light was lovely there where the verandas were tiled in dull-red squares that glowed warmly in the sunlight that filtered through the wisteria. Near the huge front door there was light of all colours that came from the stained glass surround of deep red panels with gently swirling lily lines and a blue that took your heart away when you first saw it in the morning sun. If you stood in the right place, your whole face turned the colour of the sea out where it meets the sky. Lizzie loved those verandas. They were like church for her, but more gentle and friendly because God wasn’t there.
People didn’t skate in church, of course. They prayed. Lizzie prayed in church, prayed for some skates for Christmas. She loved that feeling of rolling free. Even when they were banished from the verandas because of the theology exams, she enjoyed the motion. That was when Dr Beveridge suggested the old tennis court as the students wouldn’t be using it for a while, not that many of them used it anyway. They were mostly serious-minded young men who considered God a solemn event. The young Lizzie was inclined to agree with them given that God was the only male she knew very well, and she never really felt comfortable with Him. But she wanted some skates, and He was her only hope, so she prayed earnestly and long during mass and once she found herself imagining what it would be like to skate down that long wide aisle. Imagine zipping up to communion and stopping in a spectacular curtsy in front of the altar rails. Imagine the gasps of the congregation and admiring eyes of the servers and choir. Imagine. She stopped imagining and continued to pray, pray for skates on Christmas Day.
But Lizzie and Mummy had already done all the Christmas shopping for Nanna and the younger girls. Mummy had found enough money for the doll that one wanted and the tea set coveted by the other. There were smaller items like new socks, a Christmas stocking each with whistles, coloured lollies, masks and a comic each. Lizzie had a stocking too. She was too grown up to believe in Father Christmas and anyway she felt it might be more useful to believe in God, at least until after Christmas.
After midnight mass, she helped Mummy put out the presents so they would be ready when the young ones scrambled out in the morning. When they had done the final budget together to work out how far the money would go, Lizzie had known that there wasn’t enough for roller skates. Mummy had been hoping for a Christmas bonus in that last pay packet but it wasn’t there. Dr Beveridge had explained that the college had economic problems and had had to cut back. He was very sorry. So was Lizzie. She smiled at her mother and said how much she liked the socks with lace edging on top. She kissed Mummy goodnight and crept into bed where she cried. Quietly. Then she slept. She wouldn’t cry in the morning.
The young ones woke early and she was given milk from a teeny cup and offered a cuddle of the “mostest beautifullest doll” in the whole world. For a minute, she thought she would cry—her throat felt all thick and hot. Then they dropped a heavy parcel on her chest.
‘Open it.’
‘Open it.’
‘It’s yours. It has your name on it.’
‘Open it. Open it.’
‘What is it?’
Suddenly, Mummy was standing in the doorway with her special, loving smile. Lizzie was still. The young ones kept on bouncing up and down. The heavy parcel knocked at her ribs.
‘Open it, darling.’
‘But we didn’t have the…’
‘Christmas means magic, remember?’
‘But we didn’t have the…’
‘Well, it seems we did, doesn’t it?’
‘Open it. Open it.’
She did and those skates were precious. God might be OK, but Mummy was terrific—even if she couldn’t cook.
In memory, Lizzie heard the tired old door groan as the woman came out to the garden. She called, ‘Come and help, please, darling.’
The roller skates were regretfully unbuckled, the wheels cleared of any small stones, straps entwined, and Lizzie’s feet placed on solid ground. It was such a funny feeling, rather like getting off Silver, Anna’s pony, after a long ride. Her legs felt soft in the centre, and with every step, her feet hit the ground before she was ready. A funny feeling, but a fun one.
The old door groaned again while Lizzie’s feet felt the stone floor, and she was welcomed into the long, cool passage where the floors and walls were all green. ‘Bathroom green,’ Mummy said. The surface was inclined to be bumpy under the layers of full-gloss paint. Through the scullery, past the pantry with those big flour bins. The girl could imagine herself falling into those bins one day. They had slanted lids like old chook houses and she had to walk around to the side to fling them back fully. There was a green tin scoop that hooked inside each one and looked like the tin man’s head from Wizard of Oz. If Mummy or Joe hadn’t filled a bin for a while the girl had to half roll over the edge to reach down to the flour. If someone—like Mummy—tickled her waving legs and made her laugh or gasp the flour would fly around her face. It was like being inside one of those Christmas water scenes with snow drifting up from the bottom. Lizzie smiled at the pantry as she passed. Mummy was in the big kitchen. Everything in the big kitchen was big, the table, the stove, the sinks, the benches, the drawers, the cupboards, the knives, the…
‘What are they?’
‘They’re called marrows.’
‘They’re big.’
‘I know. Aren’t they awful, darling?’
The green things were rather a bilious colour, and they weren’t a very pleasant shape. They seemed to ooze around in a tight skin so that you felt sure they were squashy inside. They looked a bit like Nanna in her stays. But Mummy looked as though she positively hated them. Perhaps they were poisonous or something.
‘What are they for?’
‘Well, Matron said I had to—excuse the expression—stuff them.’
‘Why?’
‘For dinner, of course.’
‘No. Why excuse the expression?’
‘Oh never mind that, darling. What am I going to do? I’ve never had to stuff anything before. Oh, I wish Mum were around. Why didn’t she ever teach me anything useful? It should be written in all parents’ handbooks: lesson 43—How to stuff marrow. I mean, where does one begin?’
‘What do you have to stuff them with?’
Another giggle.
‘Oh dear, I think I’m losing control. What a conversation!’
Lizzie had watched in confusion. Mummy was very confusing sometimes. She seemed upset but she was giggling.
‘Mummy…’
‘Yes, dear; it is serious. We must be sensible. We have to stuff, fill, the marrows with a mixture of mincemeat, onions and things. That’s all right. But how do we put it inside and keep it inside without it falling out again? And do we take the inside out or leave the inside in? Help! I sound like Alice in Wonderland.’
Lizzie had thought Mummy looked like that too. The shoulder-length hair was pitch black and curled softly as it bobbed around. The wide band held it back from an oval face with clear, luminous skin and eyes set deeply under fine brows and thick lovely lashes. The girl was like her mother but different. It was as if a heavy, amateurish hand had copied something delicate. To describe the two faces would be to make them sound similar, but looking at them, the younger one lacked the magic and charisma that made people want to keep looking at the older one. When Gwennie was in a room, Lizzie always watched and saw those eyes and the mouth that were ever changing in light, mood and expressions. The face was lovely when it was still, but bewitching in its mobility. It was smiling ruefully at Lizzie.
‘Darling, what do you think? Where should we begin with these obscene things?’
The girl accepted the plural person. You couldn’t just leave Mummy on her own.
‘Let’s make the mixture.’
‘Right; you wash your hands and I’ll gather the ingredients.’
As Lizzie entered the passageway, the door creaked again and there was Joe, a dark outline between the girl and the summer sunlight. He stood back to allow her to pass into the alcove which was also the washroom. She didn’t smile. She knew he was ugly. She resented him staring at her beautiful mother. Why should Mummy smile at him too? Why should he watch her as the girl did? It was extraordinary that Mummy didn’t see that twisted face and the dirty skin and smelly clothes. Everyone else did. Even Anna, who thought Joe was harmless, knew he was ugly. The girl had once thought of telling her mother but something in those lovely eyes and a tightening of that gentle smile had warned her not to mention it. So Mummy didn’t know, and Joe wasn’t ashamed in front of her. He was ashamed in front of the girl. He knew she knew.
The water dribbled gloomily from the old brass tap as the soap slushed and slipped between her fingers. Wash quickly. Wipe them quickly. Return to the kitchen quickly. Just in time to see Joe relieve Mummy of her load of meat and vegetables from the pantry. In time to hear the woman flutter about not knowing where the mincer was stored. In time to see him find it and set it firmly on the rim of the bench, screwing it firmly so that the chimney looking part wouldn’t wobble, and the handle wouldn’t stick. In time to hear the woman thank him. To see him love her with his horrible old eyes. To stare and make him uncomfortable. To watch in unhappy triumph as he left without the cool drink for which he had come in the first place. To see Mummy watching her. To hear the sigh. To wonder about the hug and the funny way she told her she would always love her little girl so she shouldn’t worry. Lizzie didn’t worry. She knew Mummy loved her best of all.
So back to the marrows. First, mince the meat. The chunks were pushed in at the top, the handle was slowly turned and the red worms oozed out of the criss-crossed grille. Provided you were careful not to graze your knuckle on the edge of the bench, it was an easy and relatively quick process. Gwennie had assembled the big bowl and several large baking dishes. The bowl was patterned inside with a network of fine surface lines, was heavy and sat firmly when you mixed things in it. Lizzie tipped the fragments of meat from the catching tray and watched them tumble over one another in the bowl and saw onions and herbs and salt added. Mummy had chopped the onions. The girl giggled at the sight of the woman with eyes streaming and a teaspoon held in her mouth.
‘It stops the smarting,’ Gwennie always asserted.
‘Look, it doesn’t. You’re crying.’
‘It would be worse without the spoon. That’s what Nanna always says, anyway.’
They both oozed and squelched the mixture in the bowl. ‘Perhaps we should add some eggs to bind it.’ Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. Four eggs joined in the fun and the girl squealed with delight at the last crack. It was a double-yoker and that was good luck. It would be a fine meal. Nanna always said that too. Nanna knew lots of things like that. She knew that if you spilt salt it meant an argument and the only way to avoid it was to throw a pinch over your shoulder. It mattered which shoulder, but Lizzie couldn’t ever remember when she needed to do it. Nanna knew that black cats were bad luck. When she was young, Nanna had a baby boy, her only natural child. ‘He was a bonny boy,’ she said.
He was only six-weeks old when Nanna was bathing him on the kitchen table of her terrace house with the front door open. Nanna felt a chilly draught and saw the curtains that hung in the passage move. They quivered ever so slightly. In the dull light, Nanna saw a shape against the burgundy velvet drapes. Eyes glittered. The blackest cat she had ever seen stood there, staring right past her at the child she held in her arms. For a long time it stood, then it glanced at Nanna, turned and stepped stealthily back through the curtains. Nanna had known what it meant. She prayed and prayed. But her baby boy died within a month. Nanna knew about black cats and things. She would have known what to do about these horrible marrows too.
The moment for decision had come for the woman and the girl. They had the mixture. They had the marrows. Mummy had the knife. It was time to strike the blow. ‘What if they explode when I prick them?’ They both giggled.
‘Mother and child killed by flying marrow in kitchen of a theology college.’ They giggled again.
‘Dean fears visitation of the devil as marrow pierces chapel wall.’ More giggles. ‘People at Parkville today are still searching for the remains of a marrow which spread out after a savage attack on local residents. The detective leading the investigation says he has never seen anything like it before in his career.’
By this time, the carving knife was doubling as a murder weapon and microphone. The woman was enjoying herself, changing from role to role and always keeping a cautious eye on the offending vegetables as if she expected them to spring up any moment. ‘Bang!’ The girl nearly fell off the stool on which she was precariously perched. ‘Don’t do that, Mummy!’
‘Sorry, darling, that’s enough nonsense. Now say a quick decade of the rosary or something while I execute this obnoxious creature. It’s decision time. Make a decision. I can’t. I can. I can’t. Perhaps I can. Perhaps I can’t. I can’t decide whether or not I can make a decision. Aayeeowh!!’ With a leap like a Japanese Samurai, she threw herself on the helpless marrow decapitating it most efficiently. The little girl’s face was aching with laughter. She loved the woman in these moods.
There was the middle of the marrow. It hadn’t exploded, and it hadn’t collapsed like a burst balloon. It was quite pretty with the flesh inside a gentle green with a dewy surface that reminded the girl of gossamer. She had never seen gossamer but she knew it would have tiny beads like that.
‘Well, now. I guess we scoop it out.’
The woman was looking tentative again. ‘What will we do with the innards?’
‘We could mix it with the meat.’
‘I suppose so. It’s rather mushy, isn’t it?’
‘I think it’s pretty.’
‘You’re right. It is. Fancy being frightened by a marrow. You scoop, I’ll mix. We’ll both stuff it. Oh dear.’
Lizzie began to prod at the soft green flesh, and by twisting the big spoon it came out easily.
‘I thought it would be harder, like pumpkin,’ said the woman. ‘But it’s more like zucchini or squash. I hope it holds together. I suppose these are the ones Matron meant. They must be because I couldn’t see any others out there.’
The end was cut off the second one as the small hand was disappearing into the bowels of the first bringing out chunk after chunk. It all went in on top of the meat and onion until the mixing bowl was soon brimming.
‘It looks rather a lot, Mummy.’
‘Lord, yes. We’d better take some out again.’
A reasonable balance was finally achieved, and all that remained was to fill the yawning holes in the two huge vegetables.
‘The sides are really quite thin, aren’t they?’
‘Do you think it will all fit in?’
‘We’ll make it fit!’
Deliberately, the woman held the upended marrow and stuffed the mixture inside. At last, it seemed full to overflowing. She lowered it onto its side again in the baking dish and the mixture oozed out. She pushed it back. It oozed out, again.
‘We’ll have to put the end back.’
‘How?’
‘Could we tie it with string?’
‘Good girl. A brilliant idea. Find some string.’
String was found. ‘Tie it like a parcel.’
The string kept slipping off the smooth curved surfaces.
‘Oh, Damn!’
‘Cut a little grove for the string.’
‘You really are a clever child. That’s just the thing.’
A groove was cut and the string was pulled tight. It sliced through the thin shell and mixture oozed out.
‘Damn! Damn! Damn!’
‘Well, as long as you don’t move it, it will probably be all right. I mean, not much will come out of that little crack.’
‘It looks rather odd.’
‘No one will notice, Mummy.’
‘Perhaps you’re right. Once it’s baked and all golden brown it will probably look superb. Anyway, let’s get the wretched things in the oven and out of sight.’
The heavy oven door clanged open then shut. They both sighed with relief.
‘Let’s clean up and have a cup of tea.’
Cups of tea always made things better. They chatted, sipped and played ladies together and quite forgot about tedious things like marrows and mixtures, until sometime later, when the woman went to check and turn the vegetables and gave a gasp of dismay, a real one, not play-acting. The whole thing seemed to have fallen in and it was a soggy, greasy mess.
‘Oh, darling! What are we going to do?’
‘Quick. Close the door before anyone sees it.’
Clang.
‘Oh, doesn’t it look dreadful? Matron will be furious at the waste if we throw it out and we can’t expect anyone to eat it.’
‘Is there anything else in the pantry?’
‘I don’t think so. The students will have to be given meal vouchers for the cafeteria.’
‘They like those.’
‘Yes, but the Dean doesn’t because it costs him so much money.’
‘Will he be very cross?’
‘He might think I’m totally incompetent and fire me at last. He has been rather patient about a few accidents.’
Like a tray full of crockery dropped and smashed when Gwennie was talking to the students and forgot about the step down from the dining room. And like the stray dog that she had been feeding which took fright at a saucepan clanging and ran berserk through the college corridors until it found the chapel where service was being held and it howled and howled when anyone went near it.
‘Oh dear, when I think about it, we’d better do something to salvage them.’
She opened the door of the oven again, hoping that they might have improved. They hadn’t.
‘I don’t even dare try to turn them.’
They sat looking at each other in despair until the old door signalled the entry of someone, and they both looked up to see Joe standing in the doorway.
‘Is something wrong?’
‘Oh, Joe, you can’t imagine.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s the marrows.’
‘What’s wrong with them?’
‘I really stuffed them!’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Oh, Joe, don’t look so shocked. I know I’m being vulgar—well, I’m not really because that’s just what I did do, with the mince you know, but as well as that I stuffed them. You should see them. They look ghastly. I can’t serve them to anyone and Dr B. will be furious because Matron will tell him it was just incompetence and I’ll probably lose the job. Oh hell! What am I going to do?’
‘Well, whatever you do you had better be quick because the dinner bell is about to sound.’
‘Oh no!’
‘Oh yes, here, show me. They can’t be as bad as all that.’
‘Yes they can.’
She opened the oven door and the man choked. ‘Bloody hell, woman, what have you done?’
‘Joe, I’ve never heard you swear.’
‘Woman, I’ve never seen such a mess!’
‘Oh, isn’t it awful?’
She was halfway between crying and laughing as footsteps were heard outside the inner door leading to the dining room.
‘It’s Matron, Mummy!’
‘Oh help, here we go!’
‘Good afternoon, everyone. Are we all ready?’
This was the royal “we”. It had no sense of involvement or equality with the lesser mortals who stood grouped in absurd horror at the entry. Lizzie had kicked the oven door shut with her foot and then watched aghast as the man moved deliberately to open it again. He wanted Matron to see that mess! He was reaching for the protective mitts and drawing the baking dish out into full view. He couldn’t! Mummy was standing stock-still. She looked stunned. The girl took her hand and joined her in her silence waiting for the crash to come.
It came but not as they were expecting. The baking dish hit the floor. Mincey marrows slodged all over feet and furniture and gradually oozed down in greasy little rivulets from the legs of the table and the front of the stove. Matron yelped. The girl started. Joe apologised profusely. The woman remained silent and still.
Eventually, Joe looked at her. The little girl watched the look. She watched the slow lightening of the woman’s eyes and saw a conversation she couldn’t understand taking place between the ugly man and the beautiful woman. She saw the man drop his eyes and the twisted mouth struggle into its horrible smile. She saw him stand up very straight and, even though Matron was still scolding him for his clumsiness and yapping about the cost and inconvenience he had caused, she saw him walk out of the kitchen as though he had just won Tatts or something. Mummy didn’t seem to notice or think it strange at all. She just kept smiling in that special, gentle way. Adults were very difficult to understand sometimes. However, Mum kept the job for a while longer and Lizzie kept helping with the cooking.
Mum, Gwennie, was like that. It was quite unfair, the advantage that beautiful women had in this world. It wasn’t only looks. Gwennie had had charm in the real sense of the word. She could get away with the most outrageous statements and requests just by smiling and the most subtle forms of flattery. Always indulged and petted as a child by Nanna she had assumed everyone loved her, so they did. She didn’t mean to exploit people, never consciously manipulated anyone.
When she found herself a widow at twenty-five with three young daughters to support, she set to and did support them. Being brought up to “play ladies” might not seem a real preparation for that life but it certainly worked for Mum. Looking deceptively fragile (or so Lizzie thought) Gwennie would parade in a new dress on the few occasions she could afford one and a neighbour, any neighbour, or a friend, any friend, would be called to share the excitement. If the dress were too long, they would all consider it. Mum would look crestfallen and helpless and the neighbour, or friend, would hem it while Mum glowed and chided herself for not being more practical about things like that. The neighbour, or friend, would glow and tell her not to worry about such a trifle. It was all so obvious, and it always worked. Lizzie would watch and understand because she too loved the warmth, beauty and joy in living that was her mother. Everyone loved Mum. You just couldn’t help it.
Lizzie wasn’t like that. At an early age, Lizzie knew herself for what she was and she loved her mother and grandmother all the more because they loved her anyway.
Lizzie, the woman, remembered herself as a child in front of the mirror. The mirror had been cracked near the bottom. When she smiled at herself one side of her mouth was higher than the other, and if she half closed her eyes and turned her head slightly she could imagine herself with a moustache like a man. She stood on tiptoe to adjust the hat which was grey and rolled up around the edges so that it reminded her of one of Nanna’s pies with the bulge on top. Only there weren’t two little slits in the hat, and there was no braid on the pie. If Lizzie ate lots of pie she would grow, Nanna said. Nanna was always wanting her to grow. Really, Lizzie didn’t mind being short. Tall girls were noticed more, and she didn’t like to be noticed. If she had been pretty, it would have been different, but she knew she wasn’t pretty and it didn’t matter. She had known for sure the day she saw the photograph.
There she had been, balanced precariously on the seat of a bicycle. It was a two-wheeler that felt about ten feet high and Billy, the best dog in the whole world, was bundled in the basket at the front. Because the bike was leaning against a hedge, she could feel the prickles all down one side and Billy was anxious too. His soft white fur was standing up around his collar and the stump where his tail had been was very still. Once he gave a sort of half-bark but the photographer, one of the dancing partners, had sworn at him and the dog and the girl both sat still. She had been in uniform that day, but she wasn’t wearing her hat so she was squinting in the sun. They said she had nice eyes but you couldn’t see them in the photograph. You could see the legs with the turned-down sky-blue socks. She really enjoyed those socks. Everything else was so sensible. The navy tunic with its contrary pleats that loved to fold in the wrong way and which was designed to make all the girls look the same—awful. The grey shirt didn’t show the dirt, the tie identified her as one of the six hundred girls who attended St Peter and Paul’s Primary. But the socks, the socks were the colour of a wedding-day sky. Mummy said special days were wedding days. The sun shone gently in the photograph, enough to gild the outline of the old houses and the tired fences and sullen chimney pots that were just too stubborn to fall down. The trees were lacy on wedding days and the sky was blue like her socks.
In the mirror, she could see one tip of a tree. It looked as if it were growing out of her head. There, if she were taller she wouldn’t have been able to see it as clearly. She loved that tree. When she was missing Mummy, she sat under the tree and felt safe, and when someone came, she could hide in the tree. The tree loved her too, like Nanna did and Mummy did. Mummy even loved her nose. It wasn’t really snub, she said to the lady in the shop. It was turned up a little but that didn’t matter a bit. The girl tried to straighten the nose. No. It just squashed against her face until she almost laughed. That made her look like Billy.
She remembered she had called the dog and lifted it so that their reflections were together through the crack. The dog began licking her face enthusiastically, and then Lizzie did laugh as the grey hat was pushed aside in the flurry of tongue and paws and as her tight little plaits fell over her shoulder, the dog attacked in delighted fury. He snapped for the tail where the plaits finished and ribbon roped the long brown strands together. Lizzie reached for the other one and began to tickle the dog with it. The solemnity disappeared from the little girl’s grey, anxious eyes: the lips neither trembled nor pressed in their usual line. As the woman entered, she heard the unusual sound of laughter from the girl and her dog. Gwennie was glad. She smiled, then checked her own smile in the mirror. Yes, she still looked good, so she smiled at her daughter too. Lizzie had loved that smile and loved the woman. But now the woman was dead.
Gwennie who never let any man get the better of her, who knew how to keep men guessing and loving it, was dead. There had never been any dearth of men around her, a widow with three children and never enough money to scratch herself. How did she do it? The answer was obvious. She loved everyone, the world was a circus, and she was always the star. Even when things went wrong, as they did frequently, she was still the star. From one role to another, she moved with panache and poise. Now the cultured widow living in a condemned house in the worst slums of South Melbourne, with no silver, no lace and no roof. Now the naive young girl struggling with an unskilled job to support her darling daughters. Now the woman left by a lover who had taken the little money and the few rings she possessed. And always the loving, warm person who gave and loved joyfully. No wonder Walt Whitman was her favourite poet. She loved them all and she kept them guessing. Even at the wedding.
Lizzie had been grown up when Gwennie had decided to accept the proposal of the good, kind, unexciting man who loved her as he had never loved anyone. She was the fairy on the Christmas tree to him. Lizzie had watched and tried to read his mind during that particular performance of Gwennie’s ‘Gwennie the bride.’ He had turned to watch the bride come down the aisle. She was walking hesitantly, stepping carefully so that she didn’t wobble on those shaky heels. He looked at Gwennie with such love. Lizzie could read his thoughts. Silly damn shoes for a female her age. Still the legs looked good, nothing wrong with them at all. Hell, she was taking her time. And he knew they didn’t have too much time. He knew this woman had never been a saver, even of time. Her girls are probably the same—especially Lizzie, the oldest one. Runs in the family from what he could see. They were all alike, those women, this beautiful woman and her beloved daughters. He’d never thought he’d go for an older woman, one with kids. Yet here she was—no blushing, virgin bride. So much for the convent education and all that nunnery stuff with their blue cloaks, white veils, their gloves and their hats. ‘A child of Mary,’ Gwennie had told him laughingly that first time they met. And look at her today. He might have known she’d choose blue. Always nutty about blue and weddings. White gloves, grey hat that looked a bit like an old-fashioned pork pie. He’d tell her that later, and they’d both have a good laugh.
Gwennie liked to laugh. Said it was because she had to make the most of her time. He didn’t really understand what she meant by that. There were a few things he didn’t really understand about her when he came to think of it. Here she was, looking every inch a lady—head held high, soft, dark hair curling gently on her shoulders, long lashes flickering demurely. But the woman was laughing. He was sure she was. Well, almost sure. She lifted the flowers to her face. Through the lace stuff of her gloves, he could see her fingers trembling slightly. Strong, working fingers she had, and they were entwined about the resilient stems of the posy she probably made herself. Some of her friends had been shocked when she said she would pick the flowers that grew wild around town. Hothouse flowers weren’t for her, she wanted blossoms that had grown because they couldn’t do anything else when the rain rained and the sun shone. They were pretty enough, he had to admit.
So was Gwennie. Her complexion reminded him of one of those white opals he wanted to give her, a milky glow with warm flashes of blood-red underneath. She said they were bad luck for brides and they didn’t need any more of that. A superstitious lot, the Irish. All the same. Moody too. A bit unsettling that was sometimes. She was taking her time coming down to the altar. He couldn’t tell now whether she wanted to laugh or cry. Well, women always cried at weddings or she would only be laughing because she was happy anyway. What else was there to laugh at? Not him, surely. Not herself? You shouldn’t laugh in church. Marriage was serious business. Like living. And dying. He wouldn’t talk about that and bloody doctors didn’t know everything. She looked a picture, and she was smiling at him now as she came closer. He heard those fragile steps against the cold stone and reached out to hold her. He still wasn’t sure. Was she laughing or not?
Even Lizzie who had watched her mother in the golden light of the blue wedding day had not been sure. Now she envied her mother who had laughed at the world and lived out her plays and dreams. Even the name, Gwendoline Shirley, straight out of a gothic romance. Gwendoline Shirley, who always believed in the knight in shining armour. Nanna always said Gwennie would have to grow up one day but Nanna was wrong. Mum never did grow up. She just died. Lizzie grew up for her and lived to envy her mother who suffered the pain of bones disintegrating and clear white skin being transformed into grey, slimy pulp.
Lizzie knew there had been those times of pain and fear for Gwennie. Because she was Gwennie’s girl, Lizzie knew. She remembered that Gwennie’s hair had still seemed dark under the gauzy grey that had settled softly on it. The eyes were deep, deeper than they had ever been, with the pain. Once, she had been appealingly vain about her eyes, boasting that all Irish eyes had been put in with a sooty finger. Nanna always said that. She remembered Mum saying that. Poor Mum.
It had taken a long time, but she was loved to the last moment—and then some. She had found her knight in shining armour, a strong, calm, solid man who was exasperated, infuriated, enchanted and beguiled by her. There would only be a little time, he knew that, but it would be a wonderful time, he knew that too. But had he really understood the loss? Had he understood what they would be like, those last months of seeing her pain, her fear, the crumbling courage and more fear? Christ! Why did you let her be so scared? Why? You bastard God. Why? Why? Answer me! You bloody man-God! Why did you let her be so scared at the end, when she had managed not to be scared all those other times?
Oh yes, that had been bad. But it was worse when it stopped. Not for Gwennie perhaps but for Lizzie because she had the added guilt of not wanting it to stop because then Mum would be gone and Lizzie didn’t want to face the loss without Mum to help her. That was it. The guilt of wanting her not to die. Nanna used to say we needed guilt to spice our lives. Poor old Nanna. Thankfully, she hadn’t had to see her lovely, laughing Gwennie calling out to be cuddled and comforted, calling for someone to make the pain go away. Walt Whitman hadn’t helped then. ‘To die is different from what everyone expects and luckier.’ It was different all right, that was what had frightened Gwennie. She had to die by herself and it wouldn’t be put off. Like giving birth, once the labour began, it just couldn’t be avoided. One way or another, it was going to happen. Nanna didn’t see her Gwennie face that. Thank God—or thank something!
In many ways, they had been so alike, those two women. The girl could remember several Poppas who had different names from Nanna because Nanna had had lots of husbands, not all of them legal, of course. That meant Mum had had lots of fathers. McLachlan, Camelleri, Bradbury, Newndorf and Harris, they had been Nanna’s own little league of nations but Camelleri was the only one she really cared about. It was his son, the little baby Martin who had died before Nanna adopted the dark-eyed girl called Gwendolyn Shirley whose natural mother had been told by her wealthy landed family to get rid of the baby as quietly as possible. The father was married to someone else and left the western district in quite a hurry. Nanna was enchanted by the child, and her husband, the big Martin, gave her gentle care and love. He was Dadda to Gwennie. A small Italian man settled in a strange, raw country in a place called Carlton with a buxom, embracing young Irish woman. Nanna must have been a handful when she was young. Mum probably was too. They were so alike in so many ways even if they were not biologically related.
There was old Poppa Newndorf too. A tall, white-haired man who looked like a soldier with a limp and who always used his silver-topped walking stick to wave in the air when he told stories of his youth when had been fiery and strong. Then he was old and pottered in his garden at the front of the house in Station Street, Carlton, and called Lizzie Doddikins and loved his tired old dog. His favourite flowers were “puppy-dogs” too. ‘Snap-dragons,’ Nanna said. Yellow, mauve, white and purple they were, with little heads that moved up and down as if they were barking silently at the birds and the dog and the girl and Poppa Newndorf.
Lizzie had always enjoyed those occasions when Nanna moved. Because Mum didn’t arrive home until after six each night, the three girls travelled home from school together, and it was Lizzie, as the eldest, who was responsible for tidying the leftover mess from the morning’s rush, light the gas fire to warm the flat, give the younger ones some afternoon tea and prepare the family’s dinner. She was so accustomed to the routine that she didn’t think to mind it, but it was always a joy to open the door and see Nanna’s boxes piled in the little lounge room.
Nanna never could fit her belongings into the one suitcase she owned, so she moved in vegetable or grocery boxes all tied up with string or old stockings. There were the inevitable string-bags too, so crammed that there were little bulges between the criss-crosses. It only took a moment to take in the sight, and then Lizzie would become aware of the warm, the smells, the slappings and clatterings from the kitchen. Nanna was at work with her pinny tied under her boobs and tied in a bow above the hills of her bottom. No matter what drama had precipitated the move, Nanna always had a fresh pinny or two. No matter what else happened she would always have brought the makings for a pie and she would always have flour spread across the table and the board and her hands and arms. When Nanna cooked, she threw herself into it, heart and soul.
There had been an occasion she had thrown more than that. The girl knew the story by rote now. It had been when she left Old Bradbury, who was Nanna’s second legal husband, and she said he was a mean old bugger. He was a widower and had a son by his previous marriage, a son who was “not the full quid”, Nanna said. A bit simple, young Jackie was, a bit simple. Must have got it from his mother because Old Bradbury was sharp enough. Especially with his money. Old Bradbury ran a wood-yard and was what everyone called “very warm”. Mind you, he seemed to think that just because of that he could expect Nanna to bow, scrape and do exactly as he wanted. Well, she wasn’t that sort of woman, and so she told him. Like most men, he needed to be put in his place regularly; otherwise, he got too uppity and thought he was God Almighty.
Nanna put up with a fair bit in that marriage. Young Jackie was a handful sometimes: he could be quite destructive, and he was a strong little devil. One of the explosions that marred their marital bliss came after the little boy was found heating a milk bottle in the open fire. Nanna told him to stop, then she took the bottle and put it outside the door. After a time, he apparently retrieved the bottle, re-heated it and sidled along the floor to where Nanna was ironing. Very quietly and serenely, he put the bottle against her leg and he sat watching as she leapt to her feet, dropped the hot iron on the floor and screamed in pain. Simple or not, it was a bit much, Nanna said and she would show the place where the burn scar still lived on her flesh. She was cooking sausages in a heavy cast-iron pan when Old Bradbury arrived in that night. Her leg was bandaged and the little boy was sleeping angelically, and Nanna must have been full of the story and Old Bradbury must have been tired. He was impatient of what he called her “bloody hysterics”. He wanted his tea. He wanted her to “shut-up”. He wanted his tea, damn her! He got it. She lifted the hot, heavy pan full of hot, sizzling sausages and hot liquid fat. She approached him from behind as he sat at his place at the table with the Herald open in front of him. She tipped the whole bloody lot over him. He screamed. She left. No bloody man was going to treat her like that and get away with it.
Eventually, of course, he came after her, and she allowed herself to be persuaded to return. Lizzie knew he died years later but she couldn’t remember what happened to Jackie. She should have asked Mum. Now, she’d never know. She would never know the true details of another one of Nanna’s dramas either. She had been aware that Nanna was housekeeper/companion/nurse for an old lady who lived in a big house with a huge palm tree in the front garden. Nanna was quite proud of that tree but the girl always hated it for it was ugly and dead looking. So was the house. So was the old lady, Mrs. Albert or Alfred or something.
There were some beautiful things in her house but it had a dead sort of smell, all musty and mouldy even though it was quite clean. The stairs into the bedrooms were black as black and creaked and moaned if you stood on them. Nanna wasn’t allowed to open the blinds or the curtains because the sun would fade the carpets or cushions. She did open them, of course, especially downstairs, but then the old lady would squeal and stamp the floor with her walking stick and “put on a real turn”. She was always threatening to sack Nanna, but Nanna just wouldn’t be sacked. She stayed and pretended the old woman didn’t really mean it.
The little girl was there, the day the old lady’s daughter came to visit. Her name was Evelyn, and she was very pretty with a baby in a shawl. Nanna made her some tea, nursed the baby and gave the young woman lots of cake because she thought Evelyn was too pale and thin. Evelyn and her mother didn’t get on for some reason but she had come to ask if she could live at the old house because she was too poor to live anywhere else. When the old lady came in and saw her at the table, she really threw a fit. Screams. Yells. Banging her stick across the cups and saucers, she tried to hit Evelyn and the baby. They should get out, get out, get out. She wouldn’t have any of their sort in her house. She was a God-fearing woman. They were filth. Get out. Get out. Get out. Get out.
Nanna was outraged. ‘That poor little lass. Why couldn’t that mean old bitch take her in? Where would the lass go with her baby? They would all be better off if that mean old woman fell down those bloody stairs and died. Then her daughter would be able to live in peace with her baby.’
Evelyn and her baby left, and the little girl never saw them again but it wasn’t long after that Nanna arrived for another visit and this time there was a box piled with silver things amongst her possessions. The old lady had died. She fell down the stairs late one night and Nanna hadn’t known a thing about it until next morning when she found her dead on the ground floor. Nanna wasn’t upset. She just told the story calmly. No one to blame really. Who could tell what might have happened? The miserable old thing was better off dead anyway. Evelyn would be better off too—best thing in the world for everyone that it had happened. It was a terrible accident of course, and no one could have foreseen it or prevented it. If the old girl was going to begin snooping around in the middle of the night, she was going to hurt herself sooner or later. Might as well be sooner; she was better off dead, anyway. A policeman called to talk to Nanna but the little girl wasn’t allowed to be present so she never knew what it was all about but she knew it was nice when Nanna came to stay. She’d loved Nanna, and she remembered now that vague smirk as Nanna showed the police out of the door.
Lizzie broke the chain of defiance and of being strong. Lizzie was not like Nanna who would never put up with anyone who tried to push her around. She was not Gwennie who was charm personified. But now, Lizzie was OK here in her safe apartment in Geneva.