Steve Smith and his aging band were still popular with the older generation. They played at the hotel on Friday nights, and they supplied much of the music for weddings and twenty-first parties, but there was little money in it. Steve’s living came from the nursery and gardening supplies. He never went to church, but he drove his widowed mother there each Sunday then filled in an hour at his business until it was time to pick her up again.
This morning he was using his hour well. Having sandpapered the vandal’s handiwork on the church hall door, he was slopping a rough coat of paint over the faded sign when Stella and Miss Moreland returned to the car.
They stood talking with him, and were joined there by the minister and the entire Spencer family.
‘G’day Aunty Stell,’ the rapist smiled his most winning boyish smile.
Stella ignored him and turned towards the car. The laughter had helped, and the Aspro, swallowed with church water, had taken away the ache in her back. ‘Do you have the keys, Father? I need a tissue,’ she said, searching her handbag.
‘One moment, if you please, Daughter.’ He stood with the youth, smiling benevolently. ‘As I said to your father, nice of you to grace us with your presence this morning, young Thomas – and some time, if I recall correctly, since we last sighted you in church.’
‘Yes. It’s been quite a while, sir,’ the youth agreed. ‘I was half expecting the roof to cave in on me.’
Marilyn laughed. ‘Quite some time, Mr Templeton. I was as surprised as you when he said he was coming with us this morning.’ She reached for her son, brushing his long hair back from his brow, but looking by him at the door, the yellow near hidden now beneath a fast coat of brown.
Thomas was looking at it too, a wide smile on his lips. ‘You’ve been stirring up emotions in the old town, Aunty Stell.’
‘That’s not nice, Tommy. Small things amuse small minds, and smaller minds take notice, I always say, Stell,’ Marilyn replied. ‘We were all that proud of the way you just chose to ignore the whole stupid thing, weren’t we, Ron?’
Stella looked at Marilyn, at the prematurely grey hair – hair she had dyed at twenty-eight, and gave up dyeing at forty. She was eighteen months older than Stella, had started school late. Stella had commenced at four. Doctor Parsons saw to that.
She turned to the church where the little doctor was trying to get away from Willy Macy. He caught her eye, nodded, and touched his chin, and she heard his unspoken words. ‘Keep that chin up, Mousy Two.’
Good little man, she thought. Her chin lifted.
‘Tommy was saying in church that he’s never heard you sing better.’ Marilyn was still speaking.
Still she didn’t reply. Ron was standing back, his eyes on her. He smiled. She looked away, felt her scalp crawl. Don’t blush. Please, God, don’t let me blush. Please, please, God. I’ve got to get away. I can’t –
Thomas was speaking again. She turned to him, and his eyes held her own.
‘Except for that day I caught you singing in the old shed. That was really something else, but you were singing a different song that day, weren’t you, Aunty Stell? A more modern song. I’m into modern songs.’
Her face began its burning. She looked at her shoes, rubbed at her brow, her cheeks.
‘You look as if you’re feeling the heat, Aunty Stell? Does she look well to you, Mum?’
‘And you look exceptionally pleased with yourself this morning, Thomas Spencer. Has anyone checked your fingernails for yellow paint?’ Miss Moreland said.
Steve Smith stopped his painting. He turned and stared at the youth.
But to youth go the nerves of steel. Thomas extended steady hands before him. ‘Look, no fingernails,’ he said. His hands were long, slim, his fingers tapered, his nails pared down to the quick.
Miss Moreland took his hand in her own, stared at it, looked at the palm, then up to his face, to his eyes.
‘Well. Well, I never did – ’ she started, then she dropped the hand as if it burned her and quickly turned to Stella, taking her arm. ‘Help me to that car, girl. Laughter might be the best medicine, but it didn’t make it down to my old legs today. Not as spry as they used to be. Maybe I’m getting old.’ Again she laughed, allowing the others to laugh at her great age as she and Stella walked away from the group.
Stella clung to the older woman’s arm, carefully placing one foot before the other, afraid she may fall before she reached the sanctuary of the car. Youth and its certainty, she thought. He is so sure of himself. So obviously guilty, yet so innocent. ‘Feeling the heat, Aunty Stell.’ Just a youth showing concern for an honorary aunt, but his words had been chosen with care.
Clever, handsome Thomas. His jeans were the best money could buy, his casual sweatshirt complimented his dark good looks. He was, if possible, more attractive than his father had been at the same age. Taller too, or has Ron grown shorter, Stella thought. Dear Ron, with his greying beard. Dear Ron, so clever at school, so bright, and able.
Able to transfer his love with his stage kiss to the new leading lady, her inner voice whispered.
She shook the thought away.
Thomas had not inherited his father’s gentle smile. His smile was his mother’s, as were his teeth. He had Marilyn’s green eyes, her smaller, more classic nose, her high cheekbones – and her hair, dark, thick, as Marilyn’s had once been.
This is not a youth who turns to rape. This is the boy who has every girl in town following him with her eyes. How did it happen? Why did it happen? Did it happen? Have I gone mad, and cannot tell where reality ends and mania begins? Is madness genetic?
She turned away, glanced at Steve Smith, still working with his paintbrush, his back again to the group, and she turned her back and looked down at her sensible shoes.
‘What a fine young fellow he’s turning out to be. A son to be proud of,’ the minister said, walking up behind the two women, his car keys jiggling. He opened the car door and allowed Stella to escape inside.
‘Humph. That is a matter of opinion,’ Miss Moreland scoffed.
Stella wound the window wide, and Steve Smith turned, waved his paintbrush. She lifted her hand and waved back.
‘Now, there is a son any mother could be proud of,’ Miss Moreland said.
‘That long-haired lout?’ the minister replied.