Lilian's Story (16 page)

But what is it, Duncan?
I asked.
What does it mean?
In the beginning the words had been enough, but after a while I wanted to know what they meant.
Well, Lil
, Duncan would finally say in a thin voice, trying to be matter-of-fact,
it's
when they do it in your arsehole.
I had to keep asking,
Do what,
Duncan?
because Duncan could not believe I remained so ignorant at twenty.
Oh, come on, Lil!
He would shake his head like a reluctant animal.
It is just that you want me to
talk dirty, eh, Lil?
His grin up at me from under his sandy eyebrows was the nearest I had ever been to intimacy.

I had words for Duncan, too, that he enjoyed, and understood as little as I understood his.
I do not know one
of my sex! no woman's face remember, save, from my glass, mine own;
nor have I seen more that I may call men, than you, good friend, and
my dear father.
Duncan watched my mouth carefully as I spoke and nodded and nodded, so that his branch shook under him.
That is beaut, Lil
, he would exclaim when I had finished.
Just beaut.

When we slid down the trunk at tea-time for scones and lemonade and I prepared myself for all the comments on the rip or stain that was inevitable on my dress—
Oh,
Lilian, and it was so pretty—
it was reluctantly, drawn only by those scones, those crisp Anzacs, the succulent cream pie.
Bit of a let-down, eh?
Duncan said when we stood together at the table, eating steadily. It was unusual for us to speak together, though, unless we were in the tree.

Sometimes I met Duncan under the arches of the quadrangle at the university, but so much stone and so much tweed, all those purposeful scholars striding along the paths, made us uneasy.
They make me feel dense, most of
them
, Duncan confessed,
with their long words and Latin.
His smile stunned the too-green when he spread a large hand over his heart and exclaimed,
I am just a simple bush bloke, you
know, Lil,
and that smile stayed with me through a long afternoon.

A Jealous Beau

I was too large and loud for those studious young men with a row of fountain pens in the pockets of their jackets, and heads full of facts. They looked around like startled birds, and were careful not to meet my eye when my laugh echoed under the clock tower or among the cloisters. I walked with my books in the company of others who did not want to be rude to the fat girl, and who let her walk with them to the next lecture, and sometimes they laughed in a discouraging kind of way at my jokes, but mostly they smiled without showing any teeth, and began to look around for rescue.

F.J. Stroud seldom laughed, but I could tell he was often amused.
What are you, Lil?
he asked one day out of a long silence in which we had fed pigeons our crusts.
I am
a fine figure of a woman
, I said without hesitation, and laughed so that pigeons scattered into the air. F.J. Stroud sucked a knuckle.
And what am I?
he asked.
Am I a fine figure of a man,
like that f lannelled fool you speak to?
Surprise silenced me and pigeons took advantage of my absence of mind.
Stop
, F.J. Stroud said finally, grasping my hand and sandwich.
That
is your lunch.

An ugly childhood is a bad preparation for success. I did not know what to say to F.J. Stroud about that flannelled fool, Duncan.
Duncan?
I said, and F.J. Stroud blinked.
With
a name like that
, he began, but did not go on. I heard him gulp, and stared at the possibilities of the sky.
You are a
fine figure in your way, too
, I said. If my hair had been long and silky enough, I would have tossed it as I had watched Ursula do, being a coquette.
But he is no fool.

F.J. Stroud showed me swans as though they were his, and picked forbidden flowers and thrust their stems into my button-hole.
My estate
, he said, and swept a thin hand around the gardens to include the swans, the palms, the view of the blue harbour, gardeners kneeling in soft earth.
Feel free, won't you, to suggest alterations.
He went down on a knee so that I could see only his dun hair.
One day
this will all be yours.
His laugh made a gardener stare with suspicion. He spoke recklessly:
I would like not to be poor.
Even poor and honest, much less simply poor, which is what I am.
He could not stop the flow of words. It seemed he had unlocked a torrent when he had spoken the word poor for the first time. He ripped a red bloom from a shrub and tried to force it behind my ear. When a gardener approached and spoke, F.J. Stroud replied in Latin until the gardener was driven to snort
bloody dagos
, and walked off with his fork over his shoulder.
I have no beef
, said F.J. Stroud, watching him go, and I wondered how he had found out so much about Duncan.
But I have beauty, and
beef is not beautiful.

We walked for hours in the gardens, touching sometimes by accident so that I was afraid of knocking him over like a chair.
Lil, you are so big
, he exclaimed querulously. But he admired my bulk, too.
It would be hard to lose you, Lil
, he said.
There is so much of you.
We walked and walked as if wanting to arrive somewhere, until even my strong feet were tired, and until the Latin labels on the trees had stopped being amusing, even when they were called after someone's wife or mistress.

A Green Thought

Only Duncan could have steered me through that first dance. Dances had been threatened before, and I had felt sweat on my palms at the thought. I had developed rashes, headaches, even once a short-lived loss of voice, in the face of dances, but Duncan's freckles gave me courage.
We will
show them, Lil
, he said.
And you will be the belle.

No yellow
, Aunt Kitty said with decision.
You will be as
appetising as an old f lounder in yellow.
So Duncan ushered into the dance a mass of green,
which young girls do not wear, dear,
Mother had warned, but I had insisted. In the bright room where the dancing was going on, Ursula and everyone turned to look.
It's Lil
, I heard someone say,
in green!
Duncan had presented me with a red corsage which I felt was too small. In the powder room, looking with surprise at the majestic figure in green, my impulse was to brush off her shoulder that accidental debris of red. But Duncan, awkward in a black suit, had whispered,
You look delicious,
Lil
, so I left his corsage where it was.

With Duncan I found dancing possible, but with other partners I became again an ugly blushing girl. Rick was endlessly surprised to be refused his offers of waltzes and foxtrots.
Don't hold all that old stuff against me, do you, Lil?
He was handsome and his smile could have melted stone. He and Ursula were a couple whom people looked at. Duncan did not mind that people looked at us, too, even though he knew their looks were not of admiration.
I do
not care, Lil
, he said, and held me more tightly as we danced. When the music ended and I saw that my pink stocking had slipped down around one sturdy ankle, I could not hide it from him.
That is why they were looking,
I said, and the green dress felt puckered and hideous. I was again a fat red girl.
They were admiring your aplomb,
Duncan said, and I permitted myself to be restored.

No Fury Like a Father's

Duncan did not meet Father, but saw him. From our height in the tree, Father was puny and stalk-like. Duncan was not impressed.
So that's the old bloke
he said, without admiration. It was pointed out to Father that his daughter was in the tree above and he craned up, shading his eyes with his hand. He said nothing, turned away, walked over for a scone, and left.

Lilian, you disgust me
, he said later in his study. He was a cross silhouette in front of his window.
Up a tree with a
lout from the bush, even if he will be rich.
He turned away and opened the small window as if suddenly stifling.
Showing the
world your drawers.
He could not fasten the catch, and flung the window out in the end so that it swung in a frenzy and banged against the frame.
Has someone told you that this
is the way to catch a husband, showing him your vile drawers?
I said nothing and hoped he would lose interest, but he tore at the trousers around his crotch, loosening something, and went on and on.
What do you think you are up to? What are you
up to, up there?
Finally I tried to answer.
I am not up to anything
, I said.
With him or anyone.
But Father could not accept this. He had not heard me, and began to bellow,
I will not have it!
But was there anything he could do?
I could forbid you, Lilian,
to go at all
, he pointed out more calmly, and sat at his desk. I could see the light from the window pink through his ears.
But it is your future at stake there.
If I had thought that was my future, I would have rowed the old boat out into the middle of the bay and somehow made myself sink. I would have needed a few bricks, or at least pocketfuls of stones. But I knew that futures came in all kinds, and would not give up on mine just yet.

What do you get up to there?
Father asked again,
Lilian, I will
have answers.
The pink roses of the carpet were chaining me to the spot. I held the edge of the desk with my fingers, watching the nails go pale as I pressed harder, and wondered why it was not possible to turn away, leaving Father's questions hanging in the air of this stuffy room, and leave. I would close the door carefully behind me and seal in the unfinished questions, and Father might sit there until he atrophied, waiting for answers.

The silence finally wore me out. I was becoming bored with this room.
We get up to Shakespeare
, I said, and did not expect him to believe me.
We recite Shakespeare.
This was exaggeration, of course, since I recited Shakespeare and Duncan listened, but it saved me having to confront in Father's company the words that Duncan did recite. Exaggeration or not, it was enough to enrage Father. He rose from behind his desk and spilled the paperweights in front of him.
Shakespeare
, he snorted.
Expect me to believe
that story, Lilian?
He looked at me for long enough to realise how funny I was, and began to laugh. His laughter filled the room, flattening the roses, beating at the window to get out, and I stood in front of him.
Come on, Lilian
, he said at last. Tears twinkled in the corners of his eyes and he wiped them away with a sigh.
Wonderful
, he said,
let's hear
you, Lilian.
His rage and shouting could not have made me recite, but his scorn and laughter were provocations of the right sort.

I did not look at him as I recited, but at the window where a branch swung backwards and forwards, applauding. Father did not stop laughing.
Oh, Lilian
, he crowed.
You are
like one of those apes, taught to do things.
Then I could not stop, but felt my mouth shaping word after word, faster and faster, and on those hated pink roses saw page after page slipping over, thick with words.
Stop, Lilian, stop!
I heard Father shouting, and felt his hands on my shoulders.
Shut
up, Lilian.
His voice was only a distant interruption to the words it was vital to keep reading from the roses. When he slapped my face I saw startled points of light before my eyes and a great ringing began in my ear.

I lay with a headache like an axe between my eyes, and did not remember how I had arrived in my own room, stretched on the bed with my toes towards the ceiling, a wet cloth on my face.
You were upset, Lilian
, said Mother from a chair beside me.
And so we brought you here.
Mother's eyes wandered over my face and settled on my chin to speak to. She winked laboriously at it.
I told them it was your time of the
month
, she whispered.
And they believed me.

Healthy girls with broad feet recover from most things. It took a week or two, though, for me to find that the heavy leather Shakespeare that had been a gift from Father when I was a child had been taken away again.
Who has taken my
Shakespeare?
I asked John, and he looked more stupid than necessary in denying everything. I would not cry in front of anyone so dull and mulish and did not bother to hit him. Later, though, he came to find me.
Father took the boat out,
he said,
and drowned your book.
I cried, but it did not matter, because I had enough in my head to last me a lifetime.

Scandals

Lil, they are saying you will do anything
, Ursula said.
They say you
are after him.
Ursula herself was not required to do anything now, and smiled smoothly at the world from safety. There was nothing Rick would not do for her now.
I am your friend,
Lil, and I understand
, she said, and smoothed a wisp of hair.
I am happy, and do not care what anyone else does.
Something in Ursula was ripening and sweetening in the light of requited love.
But others are talking
, she said.
It is the business of
being in the tree with him all the time.
Of course I had noticed the way they looked when we came down. They saw my flush, too, and did not know it was just from all the words I had been taught. Their faces were prettier than mine, but bitter above their voile.

A Mother's Work Is Never Done

So much scandal even reached Mother as she sat with the stop-watch on the terrace.
Sit, Lilian, there is something I must say
, she said briskly, and I sat opposite her in the deck-chair, and watched her face forget what she had had to say. Nodding, she followed the course of a ferry as it steamed slowly across the bay. The chair creaked under my weight and the canvas strained at its stitches, but held. Mother's eyes were fascinated by the crescents of dark cloth under my armpits.
Lilian,
she said, reminding herself who I was.
Lilian.
I could see her labouring to say something more, and at last, smoothing the stop-watch like a cat in her palm, she said,
Your brother is a boy,
and girls are not like boys.
She stared at me closely as if to make sure I was following.
Yes, Mother
, I said, and waited.