Gwennie's Girl Page 10

  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 sig
n 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.