Elsie had been eleven or twelve years old when Gertrude brought her home. She was ten years older now, old enough to keep things running while Gertrude was away.
‘Snib that door before you go to bed. Charlie’s son-in-law will pick up the eggs on Fridays, and if Mrs Crone wants anything, she knows where to come. If you go easy on the kerosene it should last until I get back. If you run out of anything, tell Charlie’s son-in-law when he comes down for the eggs.’
She didn’t know how long she’d be gone, didn’t know what she’d find when she got down there, or if she’d be able to find anything at all. The city, the world, had changed since a nineteen-year-old girl had moved in with her in-laws back in 1889. Too much to take in, too much to learn back then, and most of what she’d learnt swiftly forgotten. She’d forgotten a weekend spent at Box Hill until she’d read that name in Mary Ogden’s letter.
In 1897, when she’d worked her passage home from India on a boatfull of diphtheria, she’d come ashore in Melbourne, but seen nothing of the city. She’d ridden with her trunks from the docks to the railway station, where she’d sat until it was time to board the train home.
Ernie and Mary Ogden had offered her a bed for as long as she needed to stay, which she’d accepted, until Vern said he’d make the trip with her. He knew every inch of that city, knew that Mitcham was miles out the eastern side of Melbourne and the asylum miles out the other side.
‘We’ll do less travelling if we stay in a city hotel,’ he said.
He had his own agenda. He booked them in as Mr and Mrs Hooper.
They went out to the asylum on their second day in the city and were led into a room housing a skeleton, empty-eyed, sores circling her mouth. Vern didn’t recognise her, or not until she spat at her mother. He took off like a cobra leaving a mongoose party. Gertrude wasn’t far behind him. It shook them up. An hour later the smell of that place was still clinging to their nostrils. The image of those staring, soulless-eyed women with their grasping, hopeless hands stayed with them longer.
‘It’s an offence,’ she said.
‘Walk away from her, Trude.’
‘It’s an offence. It’s an offence to mankind.’
‘Walk away.’
‘I gave that girl life, Vern. I can’t walk away.’
‘Christ,’ he said and shuddered. ‘Christ.’
They were in for a second shock the following day. Vern had rung through from Woody Creek and made an appointment with the solicitor. They saw him on Wednesday at ten, when Gertrude handed over her letters of identification. There was money due to her. Archie’s father had left him five hundred pounds, which had been sitting in the solicitor’s account since 1924.
‘There are costs involved,’ the solicitor said.
‘And quite a bit of interest,’ Vern said.
There are bad shocks, then shocks of the other kind. One can’t cancel out the other, but it can take the edge off it. Gertrude walked the city streets that day feeling rich for the first time in her life, feeling rich and sad, homesick and hot, headachy and lost, and not too sure if she was nineteen or sixty.
‘I’m out of balance, out of time, out of place, Vern. Hang on to me, will you? I don’t know if I’m feeling faint or if my feet are off the ground.’
‘Your hat’s out of its time,’ he said, drawing her into a city store and sitting her down while he chose a new hat, black, with a cheeky red feather; a merry widow’s hat he named it. He asked the saleswoman to put her old hat in the box, and Gertrude felt ridiculous, but she walked at his side, her feather bobbing.
He told her she needed a pair of shoes to match her hat and he wanted to buy her a pair.
‘Stop wasting your money.’
‘I’m doing my bit for the retail traders — and I’ve been wanting to dress you for years.’
‘I thought it was more the other way around.’
‘That too.’
She let him buy the shoes. Maybe she was enjoying herself. He bought her a black suit with fitted jacket and straight-cut skirt that sat halfway up her calf, so he bought fine stockings too.
‘If you’re going to flash your legs you may as well do it with a bit of pride,’ he said.
They were loaded down and halfway back to their hotel when he sighted a black and white striped blouse in the window of a fancy-looking shop. He wanted it.
‘Stop throwing your money away. That thing is more costly than my suit.’
‘A good-looking woman ought to dress in good-looking clothes.’
‘It’s a long time since I qualified.’
‘Then I’m seeing you in hindsight,’ he said. ‘And in my hindsight, you make a lot of the present company look like a donkey’s backside.’
‘Where am I going to wear something like that at home?’
‘You’ve got so intent on denying who you were, you’ve forgotten who you are.’
‘If I’d gone out to Monk’s place that day clad in rags, the sod wouldn’t have looked at me, would he?’
‘If you’d listened to me when I told you he was a twisted little bastard, you wouldn’t have looked at him,’ he said, and he went into the shop and bought the blouse.
She told him she was paying him back just as soon as she got her money. He told her she was marrying him and could work off her debt. They argued when she refused to wear her new outfit out to a meal with Ernie Ogden and his family, so she wore the whole new rig the next day, to a doctor’s appointment.
They were seeing the chap who had treated Amber when she was in Melbourne after the birth of Leonora April. He had her records. Gertrude didn’t tell him the entire truth, only that her daughter had lost another child, had a nervous breakdown, left her husband and children and had been missing for six years — and where they’d found her and the condition they’d found her in.
He suggested a colleague, one who specialised in problems of the nervous system, and he placed a phone call to him while they sat in his office. The phones in Melbourne surprised Gertrude. Business folk seemed to use them as folk at home used their back fences. He spoke for five minutes, explained that the couple was down from the country, that the problem was urgent. Gertrude heard her name mentioned twice. The chap he spoke to agreed to make time for them at five that afternoon.
More trams, more walking in high heels, but Vern found the place, and they were too early — then sat late and he grew impatient and left her sitting.
‘Mrs Foote.’ The doctor greeted her, eyeing her hat appreciatively. ‘Not a common name,’ he said.
‘I’m the only one I know.’
‘I know another. My sister is also a Mrs Foote — a Mrs Frederick Foote. A relative of yours perhaps.’
‘Could be.’ She’d known a Freddy Foote, a younger cousin of Archie’s.
‘Frederick is a pharmacist,’ the doctor said. ‘He was the son of a Doctor Gerald Foote, cousin of Miss Virginia Foote.’
He led her into his fancy office, seated her, seemed more interested in finding a common connection than in why she was there — or maybe he thought he was relaxing her. She wasn’t feeling relaxed. Her shoes were crippling her, so she gave him the connection in the hope he’d move on.
‘Virginia Foote was my sister-in-law. I knew her as a girl of fourteen.’
He pointed a finger and smiled. ‘Which makes you the family scallywag’s missing wife? Archie’s wife.’
‘We separated before my daughter was born.’
‘My word,’ he said. ‘So, we are here to discuss Archie’s daughter. What age would she be, Mrs Foote?’
‘Thirty-seven.’
‘You were obviously a child bride,’ he said.
Cheeky sod, she thought, but sent a silent thank you to Vern for her suit and fancy shirt and hat.
It was six thirty before she got out of that office, and Vern nowhere to be seen. She walked out to the gate, hoping he hadn’t gone off somewhere and forgotten where he’d left her, but he was holding up a lamppost, sucking on a cigarette.
‘I’ve been visiting with a long-lost cousin,’ she reported as they walked down to the tram stop. ‘I probably said too much but he was a disarming sort of chap.’
She’d poured out Amber’s life, other than her attack on Jenny and her attempt to bury her last baby alive. He’d known of Archie’s addiction, had known more about him than she. Archie had become the skeleton in the Foote closet, and a well-documented skeleton.
She was still relating her tale when they walked into the hotel room, and she couldn’t get those shoes off her feet fast enough, get those stockings rolled down.
‘Anything else coming off?’
‘Sit down. I’m talking,’ she said. ‘He told me how Archie died, Vern. He and two of his ne’er-do-well friends got themselves involved in selling stolen artefacts in Egypt. He died in prison, Vern. He’s buried in a unnamed grave, and it may not be very Christian of me, but you don’t know the relief I’m feeling tonight. The hearing of it from one of the family.’
She talked for an hour, talked through dinner, too wound up to eat, but sipping on wine, and her face colouring up with it.
‘He and half a dozen others were caught going over the wall and they shot him. You’d think I’d care. You’d think that somewhere deep down inside me, I’d feel pity for him, and all I’m doing is rejoicing.’
‘Me too,’ he said. ‘Now you can marry me.’
‘You’ve had three wives. Quit while you’re ahead. I trust that chap, Vern,’ she said. ‘I told him everything. He’s treated Archie’s sister. She’s been in and out of hospitals for most of her life, thanks to her bastard of a brother. He’ll do something for Amber. I know he will. It’s like I was led to him, like Archie’s money led me to him. Maybe he’s hanging around out there somewhere until he makes restitution. There’s something bigger than us, guiding our way. There’s some reason why I was sent to that particular chap. I’ll have to go out to that asylum again though, let her know what’s happening.’
‘For Christ’s sake, woman. Give it up. She’s not capable of taking anything in! She’s a spitting, clawing, raving lunatic —’
‘She’ll take it in. She’s as mad as hell because life didn’t turn out the way she planned it to go. She’s her father all over again. I’ve seen him worse; and seen worse than that asylum too.’
‘You walked away from him.’
‘I hated him.’
‘And she hates you.’
‘I know you don’t understand, but I have to try, Vern.’
‘You’ll be going by yourself then,’ he said.
‘I’d never find the place. You don’t have to go near it. Just get me somewhere close and I’ll go in alone.’
She was his wife in bed, maybe the only place she’d ever be his wife. He tried to talk her into marrying that night. She talked him into taking her back out to the asylum.
He went as far as the gate and watched her walk off, clad for comfort in her sandals and the skirt and blouse she’d worn to Amber’s wedding. He sat under a tree and lit a cigarette. He didn’t expect she’d be in there long.
The attendants kept Gertrude waiting for half an hour, and when they let her in to see Amber, she knew why they’d kept her waiting. Her daughter was in a cage of a room, her hands strapped to the arms of a chair, and in no mood for visitors. With no other weapon available, she used what she had, her saliva.
The woman attendant stood at the closed door making it obvious that she didn’t need the interference of visitors, but today Gertrude was prepared and that long greasy hair, that rag of a dress, the spite and spittle wasn’t as shocking.
‘You’re putting on a damn fine show, but I’ve got no time for it today. Vern is waiting for me.’
Amber spat again. Her aim was off.
‘Your father is dead. He died trying to get out of a place much like this, though maybe worse. They locked him up for stealing.’
She dodged to the side, almost evading a good aim, but not quite. She took a handkerchief from her pocket, wiped her skirt.
‘Do you want to die caged up like a spitting wild animal, the way your father died?’
‘I wish you dead.’
‘I knew you were in there somewhere.’
‘I hate you, you lying old trollop.’
‘You hate me seeing you like this, I know that much. And I hate seeing you like this. I’ve got a doctor coming out here sometime next week. His sister is married to your father’s cousin. He knew your father, knew your grandfather, he knows your aunty, and he’s prepared to help me get you out of this hellhole.’
The woman who’d brought her to the room didn’t like that. ‘Are we ready?’ she said.
‘A minute more.’ She turned again to Amber. ‘I’ve done as much as I can. It’s up to you to decide if you want to get out — or to die in a cage.’
She stepped back as Amber spat.
The woman opened the door and Gertrude turned to her. ‘How long is it since her hair has been washed?’
The woman shrugged.
She’s just an outsider, Gertrude thought, paid a pittance to do a terrible job. She feels nothing for her charges, doesn’t care if their hair hangs in greasy clumps, doesn’t smell the stink of this place. She’s here for the money. Folk will do terrible things in order to eat.
Gertrude was halfway out the door when she remembered the photograph she’d been carrying in her handbag since she’d boarded the train in Woody Creek. She turned back.
‘Cecelia has grown into a big girl. She’ll be as tall as me before she’s done.’ She removed an envelope and slid the photograph free. ‘Vern took her up to see the new Harbour Bridge when it opened,’ she said, holding the photograph up, at a distance.
It was Cecelia’s prized possession, a four by six inch print of Lorna and Jim posed behind Margaret and Cecelia, the arch of the bridge behind them. She’d given it to Gertrude to show to her mother. Norman had tried to keep the facts from the girls and from the town, but most knew Amber had been found — found sick in hospital.
Maybe, just maybe, she saw a glint of interest in Amber’s eyes. She held the photograph a little closer, ready to save it from spittle.
‘She wanted to come down with me to see you —’
‘Get out,’ Amber screamed, and Gertrude left.
Sixteen days in all Gertrude spent away from her land. The shine can wear off a city in less time. A hotel room can grow small, a forty-year love affair stressed by proximity, and a smart black suit and fancy hat grow commonplace. In sixteen days, feet can become accustomed to walking in high-heeled shoes — accustomed, though not happy in them.
The first doctor had brought in a surgeon and a specialist of the mind who ran his own clinic. On the fifteenth day, Gertrude sat in the surgeon’s office at Norman’s side. He was Amber’s husband. She’d be paying the bills but it was up to Norman to make the final decision on what was to be done.
Two men sat on the other side of the desk. The specialist, an Englishman, was in his forties, a balding, bombastic chap suffering a permanent case of sunburn to the face. The surgeon might have been fifty, a smaller man. He opened the conversation.
‘The fact that gonorrhoea is not so prevalent amongst women as amongst men is the salvation of the human race,’ he said. ‘In almost every case found in the female patient, the disease so mutilates the reproductive organs that conception and childbirth are impossible.’
Norman’s mind was with his girls, taken in once more by the good folk of Woody Creek. He was wishing he was with them, or at the hotel with Vern listening to the cricket match. He did not want to be subjected to this. Did he want her cured? He would not take her back — with or without her diseased uterus. The thought of her repelled him. He sat, hands almost folded in prayer, index fingers tapping his lips, holding what was within him in, while the doctor continued the lecture on topics unfit for general discussion. He harped on the female functions and Norman, seated at his mother-in-law’s side, bowed his head, hoping to hide his flush. It was a relief to him when the Englishman spoke.
‘The patient has a hysterical mania, which is a state in which the ideas control both body and mind, Mr Morrison, thus producing morbid changes and functions. The mania appears to be increased during the menstrual cycles. I would suggest the patient has also an inherited instability of the nervous system. This, aggravated by the loss of her four infant children . . .’
The specialist of the mind continued but Norman heard nothing beyond inherited instability. Those two words jammed in his mind and his thoughts returned to Cecelia, who had begged, demanded, screamed to accompany him to the city to see her mother.
He had achieved much with her during the past year. The influence of the Macdonald boys removed, the womanly influence of Margaret Hooper, Sissy’s friendship with Jim, had steadied the girl. She’d slimmed down a little, had taken an interest in her appearance, could peel a potato, iron a frock.
There was no closeness between his daughters. Their personalities so diametrically opposed, it was unlikely that a closeness would ever grow. Jennifer was a gentle, silent child, eager to please. Cecelia had a dominant personality. In any group, Jennifer was standing silently within the inner circle, Cecelia demanding on the outer. She had the size and desire to push her way to the centre, but when she did, the group quickly reformed, leaving her again on the outer.
He pitied her. His early years had been spent standing outside the circle. But that had changed. An organiser, Norman, a methodical man, on every committee, he had found his way to the inner circle in Woody Creek — since his wife had left home.
He did not want to be here. He had argued against making the trip. He had not seen his wife, did not wish to, would not see her.
Did he want her out of that place?
The doctor was still speaking. Norman heard nothing, or heard nothing until he heard the one word he did not wish to hear.
‘. . . home.’
It penetrated.
‘Home?’ he repeated, aghast.
‘Indeed, Mr Morrison. In two such similar cases, I have achieved quite remarkable results and returned formerly demented women to their homes and families where they continue to lead useful lives.’
Norman stood too quickly. This was not why he was here. His chair fell to the floor. He picked it up, stood it on its legs, his own legs trembling with the need to run. But he could not run. He had come here to make a decision and one must be made.
Always decisions. He did not make them lightly.
‘I have . . .’
I have heard enough. I have done enough.
‘I want . . .’
I want to run. I want to return to the place of peace I have found.
Like a hamster surrounded by killer dogs, his eyes darted from door to doctor, Gertrude to door, from the doctors to the medical forms Gertrude had brought him here to sign.
‘If she’s left in that place untreated, she’ll be dead in six months,’ Gertrude said. ‘She’s sick, she’s angry, but she’s not mad. She shouldn’t be in that place.’
‘I don’t . . . I don’t . . .’ His eyes pleaded with her to release him.
‘I don’t know either,’ Gertrude said. ‘All I know is that I’m paying these two men to tell me what can be done. If the operation is as safe as they say, if there’s one chance in a hundred of it getting her out of that place, then you have to sign those papers and give her that chance.’
‘Take . . .’
Take this cup away from me and from my children, Mother Foote.
‘She’s thirty-seven years old, Norman.’
And I am not yet fifty, but today I feel . . . I feel that my life is ending.
The red-faced specialist of the mind was offering his pen. Gertrude took it. She offered it to Norman. It was a very fine pen. He could not refuse it. He studied it a moment, glanced at Gertrude, at the doctors, then sighed.
Knew he was signing away his life, and the lives of his girls. He knew it, but he signed. N.J. Morrison. N.J. Morrison.