Jacaranda Blue (30 page)

The doctor rode around to the Templeton house that evening. The Packard was in the drive and he could hear sawing coming from the shed. He crept to the closed door and stood listening, then he crept around to the small window and climbed to the fork of the overgrown apricot tree. It was high enough for him to see inside the shed where Stella was squatting, sawing at something deep in the earth. Sawing through metal, with a hacksaw.

He watched her for minutes. He watched her until a small piece of curved metal came free. He watched her stand, her face pleased with her labour.

Only then did he rap on the window. ‘Digging for gold, Mousy Two?' he asked.

She spun around, looked up and saw his face amid the bare branches, then she dropped the piece of bike wheel to the floor, and with her shoe kicked a heap of screening back, burying the metal, and what she had cut the metal from. By the time Parsons crawled down from his perch, and untangled his beard from a twig, the door was open and she was in the Packard, moving it back to its rightful place.

He stood at the driver's side, preventing her escape. ‘I thought the old girl had cracked up,' he said, fingering a scratch on his face.

‘It needed a new battery, so I bought one.'

The old battery was on the bench, ready to be put back into place when she was done. He saw it. He saw much. A bike man from way back, he knew a piece of wheel when he saw it too, and he was pretty certain what bike it was she'd been cutting into.

She slid across the seat, opened the opposite door, and hurried to the storeroom where she began tidying the bags of knitting wool, sorting through them, matching colours. He followed her and stood watching.

‘As I was saying today, we got a sample of the rapist's sperm, lass. Thought you might like to know. I got his blood group from it. Got my own idea of who it was. I reckon I've solved a couple of mysteries here today.' There was no reply, no sign that she had heard him. ‘I've had my own opinion of what might have happened to our rapist, lass. I reckoned someone with a daughter might have a fair idea of what happened to him.'

A breath drawn slowly, held, she worked on, her head low.

‘Now, my money was on the Murphys,' he said. ‘On Spud, young Kelly's old man. Only trouble is, those who threaten murder, rarely do it. Spud would have thrashed him within an inch of his life, fixed him so his voice went a few octaves higher. But murder. That's not the Murphys' style. Murder is usually a hot-blooded thing. A lot of people might threaten to do it, but we usually have to be pushed into a corner before we kill.'

Still she made no reply, but her hands were shaking out of control, her stomach, her mind, her heart was shaking.

‘Young Spencer came by your place, didn't he, lass?'

‘Leave me alone. Go away and leave me alone.'

‘You're pregnant. I'd say, fourteen, fifteen weeks. Not a day less.'

‘You're wrong. It is less. It's much less. I . . . I met a traveller at the motel in Sydney. I told Father about him when he was in hospital. An American tourist. His name was Wayne. Wayne Lee.'

‘Taking a page out of the old lady's book now with your mysterious lovers. He wasn't a relative of John Wayne by any chance, was he? I know him well.'

‘Ask Father if you don't believe me.'

‘Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And pigs might fly, Mousy Two, but in Maidenville they rarely do. Did young Spencer call on you?'

She turned away, spilling the wool to the floor. ‘Damn you,' she said, attempting to pick up the scattered wool, but dropping more. ‘Damn you.'

He squatted by her side, gathering up the colourful balls, dusting them on the leg of his baggy shorts, before handing them back to her to place into their bags.

‘I've been doing my arithmetic. Miss Moreland has been dead for close on four months, and young Thomas Spencer, missing since four days after her funeral, and my interfering eye says you were impregnated around the time he took off. Now that's an equation Johnson could have a lot of fun with, I reckon. Add to that young Spencer's blood group, which I happen to have on record. The sperm fits, lass, and when you pop his infant, I can get some of its blood, check his DNA. I'm God in this town.'

She flung the bag of wool to the floor, kicked it at the wall. ‘Damn you. Damn your God, and damn the wool, and damn this bloody-minded town, and damn your probing doctor's eyes, and damn your interference. Damn you!' And she walked to the Packard, where she stood, her head against its cold metal.

He stood behind her, a hand on her shoulder. ‘They don't make them like they used to, do they?' he said. ‘A little bloke like me could set up house on the back seat of this old girl.'

‘Nothing is like it used to be,' she said. ‘Nothing. I am not like I used to be.' She turned to him then, her eyes holding his. ‘I rarely look to the past, Doctor. As you no doubt remember, I learned early to put each day behind me and to never look behind. I look ahead to each dawn, to a better dawn, and that is what I am trying to do now.'

‘And what about that future dawn, lass? What about tomorrow?'

‘Tell me – you tell me, Doctor Parsons, does my only chance of a tomorrow, of going forward into tomorrow, of leaving some small part of me, of Father, to the future, does it deserve to be gouged from me and flushed down some sewer?'

‘Where is he, lass?'

She pointed with the toe of her shoe to the earth beneath the Packard.

‘Life happens,' he said, dropping to his knees, half expecting to see a corpse in a body bag tied under the chassis. ‘Where?'

‘With the bike. I . . . I dug a . . . a shallow pit.'

‘Shit happens, lass. And when it does, sometimes the best thing you can do with it, is to bury it. How shallow is shallow?'

‘Very,' she replied, eyeing him defiantly. ‘Far too shallow.'

He stood, took a handkerchief from his pocket, and he wiped the handkerchief across her cheek.

‘What?' Her hand went to the place he had touched.

‘You've got butter all over your whiskers, Mousy Two,' he said.

By early November, the jacarandas were a barrier of blue guarding the doors of Templeton's old shed, closed now, locked fast. No wool waited on the shelves, no more polyester filling popped like snow from its bales. The thriving clown-doll business had been moved on to the storeroom behind the church hall. By the same spring, Stella Templeton was bursting out all over. Her waist was lost, and her breasts, once small crab-apples, had ripened into plump peaches.

Bonny had taken her shopping for maternity jeans when they went to Dorby for the tests. ‘Too baggy,' she'd said to the shop assistant, just as she had so many years ago. ‘Show us a size smaller,' she'd said.

She'd driven to the hospital, held Stella's hand while the amniotic fluid was drawn, then she'd prayed with her until the tests came back.

Safe. The tiny being was safe.

They'd watched the ultrasound together, prematurely viewing a new life. Small perfect fingers. Tiny profile. Small mouth opening, closing.

Stella had wept then, wept for a long time, and she wept hard, but Bonny had held her, kissed her, wept with her. Then they'd taken the video home to Bonny's place and since had replayed it over and over.

Bonny was certain it was a girl. Having produced five boys, she knew exactly where to look for a small penis and she hadn't sighted one. They both agreed that the infant had a feminine look.

‘Was he handsome, Stell, or ugly? Was he tall, or short?' Bonny wanted to believe unreservedly in the tale of the American lover who Stella said she'd slept with at the Penrith Motel after a night of drinking peach cooler, but she couldn't quite see it happening. Also, she had her own very good reasons for doubting this tale, though she never expressed her doubts. There had been something going on in the shed the day Tommy Spencer went missing, on the day Bonny had arrived with her apple cobbler. She hadn't told a soul, except Len, but he didn't count because she told him everything, and he had a mouth like a steel trap.

‘I peeped in through that knot hole in the side door, and for a split second, I sighted Stell against the light from the side window. She was as naked as the day she was born, Len. Then she sort of smiled – you know that secret Stella smile, and she put on a man's shirt. A big blue shirt.'

‘So what?'

‘So Steve Smith's a big bloke, and he wears a lot of blue. That's so what.'

 

Mrs Morris also knew about Stella's lover, but her version differed. She'd gleaned her information in the doctor's waiting room, and from Parsons' own mouth. Her voice low and conspiratorial, she was passing on some gossip to Mrs Murphy. Her husband and six or eight neighbours could hear her well enough to get the gist of it.

‘I've known since July, Mrs Murphy, but for my own good reasons, I've kept it under my hat.'

‘She's flaunting it around town. Do go on, Mrs Morris.'

‘Well, you see I went down to the surgery for my blood-pressure prescription on the Monday, early, and I saw Stella Templeton coming out. Parsons had his hand on her shoulder. “
You won't think about it, lass. You'll have those tests and no argument
,” he says to her. Then he sees me, and she sees me, and she scuttles off.'

‘Oh, the poor girl. Is it cancer, I'm thinking. Remember how he sent Mrs Carter over to Dorby for her tests? Dead in six weeks, she was.'

‘I do, dear.'

‘Yes. Well, I was thinking that Stella had been looking too pleased with herself to have a tumour, so I asked him, and he says to me, “I know I can rely on you not to mention this to anyone, Mrs Morris.”

“‘Of course you can, Doctor. Is it cancer?” I say. “We're all so fond of Stella.”

“‘She's pregnant,” he says. Comes straight out with it too. Well, my dear, you could have knocked me down with a feather. Then he takes out my card and walks me into the surgery and he tries to change the subject. “So what can I do for you this morning?” he says.

“‘Me?” I say. “Don't you worry about me, Doctor. Just give me my pills. I'm more worried about our Stella. I mean, who could she have done it with? Was it Steve Smith?” I thought of him first off, of course – after that night they spent in Dorby.

“‘Shame on you for asking,” he says, and he scribbles out my prescription, his mouth sealed.

“‘I wouldn't tell a soul, you know me, Doctor,” I say to him, and he says back, “That I do, Mrs Morris. That I certainly do. I have always been impressed by your discretion.” He passes me the prescription, but I can see he wants to talk about it, so I keep sitting there. I won't budge.

“‘It was that Steve Smith, I'll give you ten-to-one odds,” I say. “Why hasn't he married her? Is he going to marry her?”

‘He shakes his head and looks at me, real serious. “This is for your ears only. You realise that,” he says.

“‘Of course it is, Doctor,” I said. “I swear on my mother's grave.”

“‘Stella came to me, saying she'd had a strange dream, of a visitation from God. Well, her being a maiden lady, as you know they can be prone to flights of fancy.”

“‘Oh yes, yes indeed I do,” I agreed. Menopause can be that hard on an unmarried woman, I said to him. Then I remembered her telling me about a strange dream that I was in, so I tells him that and he says: “Good Lord. You mean, you are to be one of the chosen?” He comes around the desk and he starts taking my blood pressure, and putting his stethoscope on my stomach. “It's got me beat, Mrs Morris,” he says. “I examined her of course. She's intact as I expected, but undeniably pregnant. Never yet in all the years I've been practising have I diagnosed pregnancy when the hymen is intact – though a few of my patients may have claimed to be virgins. Have you had any dreams yourself? Sexual, I mean?”

‘Well I didn't like doing it, but I had to, you see. So I tell him that dream I was telling you, the one I blamed on the prawn and avocado pancake that we had down at the coffee shop . . . the one about me and young Roy Thomson. Well, did Parsons go off then. He hits his head with his hand. “Good God,” he says. “Good God. Go into the examination room, Mrs Morris. There are eleven pregnant women in town all due around Christmas, and it appears that you are to be the twelfth.”

“‘Be buggered,” I said to him. “Be buggered to that. I'm not going into any bloody examination room. I just came down here for my blood-pressure pills.”

“‘Be it on your head, Mrs Morris,” he says, “But I'm warning you now, keep your eye out for symptoms. In the dream, Stella said there were to be twelve, plus her own. Perhaps I'll just do a pregnancy test, while I've got you here.”'

Mrs Murphy's eyes were wide behind her bottle-top spectacles, her jaw was sagging as Mrs Morris's voice rose.

‘Well, my dear, I said to him in no uncertain manner, “I'll remind you Doctor Parsons, that I had a hysterectomy at fifty-five, as you well know – seeing as you did it.”'

“‘Could be ectopic. God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform,” he said. “And young Roy. I always thought he had an uncanny resemblance to Jesus. That long blond hair. You are certain that it was he, and not – ”'

‘Oh, my God!' Mrs Murphy took three steps back. She covered her mouth as she stared at her neighbour's sagging stomach. ‘Oh, my God. He does look like him, Mrs Morris. He does. I've always said it. You've always said it – '

‘It was young Roy, I tell you. I'll stake my life on it, but it gave me a funny feeling, I can tell you straight. I got myself home in a hurry and took an extra blood-pressure pill and two migraine pills, just to be on the safe side.'

‘My God.' Mrs Murphy's eyes were wide.

‘You said it, Mrs Murphy. I'm willing to swear that it's our own immaculate conception. God has chosen Maidenville, and by the sounds of it, there's a whole clutch of women involved.

‘Young Kelly, Spud's girl. She's due around November. She could be the twelfth.'

‘God wouldn't impregnate a little slut, Mrs Murphy! He'd be a bit more choosy than that. But Stella. Didn't I always say to you that Stella was halfway between saint and martyr? Didn't I always say it?'

‘You certainly said she was a martyr, Mrs Morris. My word, and her an Anglican too. Did he say what religion the other eleven were?'

‘No. I didn't think to ask him. But imagine what a thing like this will do for the town. It will put Maidenville on the map, Mrs Murphy.'

‘Won't it be a real slap in the eye for the Catholics?'

 

Martin Templeton felt as if he'd been slapped between the eyes with a lead-weighted cosh. He was now keeping his head down, and no longer nagging to return to the big house where he must each day confront his own confusion, plus a ballooning daughter, who was showing no shame or remorse at all.

But there were moments in each day when he felt tremors of excitement at the very thought of . . . of it. Then there were the other times, the times of acute embarrassment when in town, people looked at him oddly, spoke behind their hands. It was all he could do to get himself away from the smiling faces that had once been so subservient.

Too much on my mind lately – too much and still growing, he thought. Growing bigger daily. Looking at her growth last Sunday, he forgot where he was in the middle of his sermon, and frequently now he found himself in shops or backyards, but couldn't remember why he was there. Baptism? Funeral? Milk? Bread? At these time he was forced to return to his Packard, and to sit a moment, collect his thoughts.

The Packard was the only stability in his life. Stella had registered and insured it for his eighty-sixth birthday. It was parked each night, half in and half out of the small garage attached to his unit.

Each morning he drove it the three blocks to town to collect his newspaper. It was the one joy, the one bright spark in his life. He felt safe in his Packard, even if other users of the roads felt less secure with him back on the road. Still, in the Packard, they could see him coming a half-mile away and make their early detours.

Mrs Morris and Mrs Murphy never detoured. Together they bailed Martin up in the cafe on a Thursday in early November, and he couldn't see a way around them. The milk in one hand, his keys in the other, he glared at the duo, willing them gone.

They remained.

‘So you're going to be a grand-daddy at last, Mr Templeton,' the one with the bottle-top glasses said.

‘A new little angel in our town,' the fat one with the starched hair added.

He nodded. He coughed and he muttered, ‘Life happens, Mrs . . . Mrs . . . '

Life happens. Why did he say that? Because he was seeing too much of Arnold Parsons, that's why. He was being reconditioned, overhauled, re-programmed by Arnold Parsons and . . . and by the future.

‘Life happens. Seasons change. The world goes on,' Parsons said.

And it was true. Although Martin was loath to admit it, in some primitive part of his mind, in a place too long denied, there was a small petal of change opening to life. It was smiling ‘grandchild'. It was thinking of a few years without constant burials and weddings. It was thinking of a life where small hands might again beg to comb his mane of hair, where small hands might lay warm in his own huge hand, and small white things might flap again on the clothesline. It was thinking of the scent of new life, and of being able to hold a new life's warmth to his heart without fear of accusations.

And for the first time in more than forty years he could see a line, a long line extending forward, its unravelled threads, re-woven, re-joined – and by a bloody Yank! Still, there were moments when he wanted to thank, to shake the hand of the unprincipled swine for giving him back a small part of immortality.

A grandson – and a Templeton.

God! What was he supposed to think, to feel? Was he celebrating the fact that his daughter would give birth outside of matrimony?

‘Templeton. Martin junior . . . or John. John Martin Templeton.'

Back in his Packard, he brushed the two women aside as he might two bothersome wasps. It was not minister-like, and he shook his head at his behaviour. Too much on my mind, he told the steering wheel. I will feel better . . . later, when Stella's damnable traveller returns and makes an honest woman of her – hopefully before the event. He'd have to hurry. The swine. Far better that it had been that long-haired, guitar-playing lout.

But then the child would not be born a Templeton. Peter? John? Paul?

Stella had spoken not one word about her traveller since that day in Sydney, and Martin had not dared to ask.

Damn the nineties. What was left of the world he had once known and understood? He'd had the best of it. What we have left for future generations is not going to be worth much, he thought. Women bearing children out of wedlock, and having the audacity to walk around town as if they were proud of it. His own daughter, and during the years when she should have been well past those sorts of shenanigans. What was the world coming to? It was doomed. Doomed. God help this child. What sort of a society would be left for him/her?

Perhaps it would be a girl. Still, he had always wanted a son, his own lost to Angel's knitting needle. A son. Yes. A fine sturdy little boy – although a little girl has a sweetness about her, he thought. What did it matter? Children. Small voices tinkling in the old rooms.

‘Papa.'

If she married the swine, then there may be more than one. Angel had been in her late forties when she bore Stella –

What a mess. What a fine mess it has all become. I can no longer reach a decision as to what my own response to this mess should be. I cannot condone it; I certainly do not condone it; however I cannot deny my . . . my own interest in the outcome. I certainly cannot deny that.

‘Papa.'

But she's spending money like water. What does a woman in her situation want with a confounded computer machine? Three thousand dollars worth of electronics on which to tap out her silly little tales. And what was wrong with the old typewriter? That's what he wanted to know. She had a perfectly good typewriter at her disposal. Angel had typed his sermons up on it for years before Stella was born. It was still in immaculate condition.