Pearl in a Cage (15 page)

If not for his mother, Norman's solid reliability, his methodical habits, may have carried him far in the railway department. By the age of twenty-eight he was employed in one of the city offices. His wage now adequate, he paid the rent and careful shopping allowed him and his mother to live well enough. Then he met Sarah, a girl employed by the railways for her typewriting skills. In time he made the mistake of bringing her home.

His mother had not been fond of the common people. At their first meeting, she labelled Sarah common. ‘If you have so little respect for me and for your dead father's name to attach yourself to the daughter of a common butcher, then it is time for me to die,' she'd said, and she'd taken to her bed to do it.

After a month or two, the family became concerned for their sister's wellbeing. Given another month, the railway bigwig found a vacant position in Woody Creek, a three-bedroom house supplied. The application was made. Norman got the job.

The town surprised him, as did the residence. It shared a fence with the post office. The station was sixty-odd yards from
the back door, the police station a similar distance from his front door, and the C of E church not much further away.

His mother was not impressed, but she had room to move, and by that stage of her life she had required considerable space to move in. Also, Norman would now be spending his working days within earshot.

‘Norman!'

‘Norman!'

‘Norman!'

On their first Sunday in Woody Creek, he walked her to church where they were introduced to the congregation. He'd heard Amber's laughter, then sighted her, and who would not have sighted that pretty, laughing girl. Twice more he sighted her at church before Maisy and George Macdonald made the introductions.

His mother, always intrusive, asked what her father did.

‘He's a doctor,' Amber said.

Some time passed before the Morrisons became aware that Amber had barely known her father, that she lived in a two-roomed hut two miles from town, that her mother wore trousers and was rumoured to be on with Vern Hooper, but by then Norman was obsessed and determined to wed her.

For two years he had pursued her doggedly, had defied his mother for love of Amber. And he had won her. But what had he won?

She confused him, confounded him, and since his mother's death she had threatened time and time again to leave him and take Cecelia with her, her threat initially chilling his very soul. Now? Now, when she had perhaps left him, he was . . .

‘Happy,' he said. ‘Are we happy, Jenny-wren?'

She nodded adamantly.

‘How happy are we?'

‘Dat big,' she replied, her tiny arms spread wide.

‘My word we are,' he said. ‘What shall we cook for dinner tonight?'

‘Gwanny eggs.'

‘And where do Granny's eggs come from?'

‘Fwom da chook.'

‘My word they do.'

 

Amber had not penned a line in the weeks she'd been away. Charles wrote regularly of appointments, of doctors, of the weather. June came in bitterly cold, according to Charles. Jenny and Norman were not feeling the cold.

In late June, Charles wrote again, this time of an English doctor, a specialist in the problems of the female, who would be visiting Melbourne through July and with whom an appointment had been secured for Amber.

. . .
on Thursday 21 July. I suggest your wife and daughter spend the first half of the month with you, then return to us . . .

Norman scanned the rest, then fetched his equipment to reply.

My dear Charles,

Rather than suffer the long journey home, only to return for the July appointment, I suggest my wife remain in your care.

Please find cheque enclosed.

Sincerely, Norman.

Charles was appreciative of the cheque. He replied the following week, expressing a genuine concern for his nephew's situation. He agreed that Amber's visit might be extended, but added:

. . .
I cannot but stress the importance of a child's early education, nephew. Your aunt also wishes me to convey her concerns regarding Cecelia's interrupted schooling . . .

Cecelia's interrupted education concerned Norman. He wrote two replies but shredded both. That night he lay in bed mentally planning a trip to the city so he might bring his daughter home. Come morning, he placed that plan on ice. He would make the trip in July with Jenny. He would be at his wife's side at her specialist appointment, and if she was pronounced well, then he would bring both wife and daughter home.

Or would he?

For the first time in years, he was not awakening each morning with an acid stomach. The last time he could recall eating a fried egg for breakfast had been at his Box Hill cousins' home, but Jenny loved eggs so he fried eggs.

The tranquillity of his breakfast table, the laughter at night while they cooked and ate their evening meal, and later, Jenny sleeping on his lap while he read his newspaper amid the dishes. Had any man ever known such perfect peace?

In late July, he received a letter from the specialist suggesting there was much still unknown regarding the incompatibility of husband and wife, suggesting that for his wife's mental wellbeing Norman might in future consider the use of a prophylactic during intercourse. He enclosed the address of a city establishment where Norman might procure such items. He also enclosed his bill.

Charles wrote suggesting Amber's recovery was something of a miracle, that her visit might now be safely brought to a close.

Norman didn't reply, though he knew he must make some move to retrieve his family. But surely if Amber was well enough to attend the theatre with Reginald, as Charles had stated in his letter, then certainly she was well enough to get herself and daughter home. When she was ready. Far better the decision to return be made by her than to force her home unready.

‘Far better, Jenny-wren.'

‘Far better, Duddy-wen,' she agreed.

‘
Copy cat from Ballarat, stole a hat and wore it back
,' he chanted.

‘
Copy fwog, sat on a log
,' she said and she laughed, and he laughed and kissed her curly head. Was there ever such an exquisite child? Was a man ever as happy as he?

He wrote a cheque to the doctor, then a second, with a brief note, to the supplier of medical equipment in Richmond. He wrote a third to a large city store, enclosing with this one an order form found in a recent catalogue. He'd never owned a bicycle. His mother had considered them both ungainly and dangerous. Frequently now he found himself looking back to
those halcyon days of boyhood, those five months of laughter in Box Hill.

Never had Norman enjoyed Woody Creek winters. They were frosty, foggy and bitterly cold, but surely winter did not come that year? Surely July could not be at its end? A package arrived for him one Wednesday, a not so small square package. His bike arrived on the first Friday in August, and what a glorious month August was turning out to be.

With no train to meet on Sunday, Norman mounted his shiny red bike early, Jenny tied into a child's seat the bicycle company had fixed over the rear wheel. He hadn't ridden in twenty years but, as with poker, he had not forgotten how.

They rode to the bridge that first Sunday, Jenny chuckling when they hit a rut and all but came to grief, her eyes wide with wonder when they stopped to stare at two spoonbills, at a family of musk ducks at play. Norman had made a study of Woody Creek's bird life. For half an hour they watched birds come and go, her little hands applauding their flight.

Near midday he lifted her back into her seat, tied her in, then pedalled off down the forest road to Gertrude's house, arriving pink-faced, bright-eyed and windblown. An enjoyable morning, filled with chuckles and learning, and when he lifted her down from the bicycle, her tiny arms clung a while.

The unlovable who chance on love in odd places find it a soul-cleansing elixir. She was not of his blood, his line, but somehow of him, this magical, miraculous being.

 

They ventured into the forest again the following Sunday and played guessing games when they heard the staccato sound of a hammer echoing through the trees. They found Vern Hooper's car parked in the shade of the walnut tree beside a pile of sappy red timber. Norman leaned his bike against the fence, then, hand in hand, they crept up on the hammerers at the rear of Gertrude's house.

‘Booo!' they cried in unison, laughed when Gertrude dropped the beam she'd been supporting. She and Vern were constructing a lean-to.

‘Amber?' Gertrude asked.

‘From all reports, very well, Mother Foote. It seems that my cousin is now squiring her around to theatres.'

‘When are they coming home?'

‘I imagine it will not be long. Reginald followed his father into the ministry. It seems that he will shortly be heading for the tropics, no doubt to save some black souls,' Norman said. Charles had written:

Your wife has been taking full advantage of her time in the city, however, I would now suggest the time has come to bring the visit to a close. Reginald is leaving for Port Moresby and will be away for six months. As you will be aware, nephew, my wife and I have many commitments
. . .

‘You'll be going down to bring them home?'

He sighed, looked at the construction. Certainly he had considered making the trip. ‘The timing,' he said. ‘Work commitments . . .'

And, more importantly, his house, which would require a severe going-over. However, that was a problem for another day. The construction they were adding to the rear of Gertrude's kitchen appeared more problematical. He studied the existing roof, the work already done on the new construction, attempting to make some sense of what they were doing, but finding little. They appeared to be flinging together a shelter, not a room. He watched Vern measuring timber for a rafter.

‘Might I suggest you cut it a mote longer, Vern, if you intend joining it to the existing rafter. Leakage,' he said.

‘We're not joining her in.'

Vern was a farmer. He knew how to fling up a shed in a hurry. He started the cut as Norman knocked on existing wood.

‘You're thinking of cutting a doorway,' Gertrude said.

‘Simple enough, I believe, Mother Foote. Your construction could . . . would then become a part of the house.'

Vern eyed him. He'd planned to have the shed up by nightfall and to have Elsie and Joey installed in it. He stopped cutting and followed Gertrude and Norman inside to take a look at her kitchen's rear wall.

‘If we could do it without damaging my roof it would be a damn sight more convenient, Vern,' Gertrude said.

Not for Vern. He had his own agenda, but he called a smoko and they walked out to look at the pile of raw timber, at the second-hand corrugated iron he'd purchased at an auction. There was more than enough.

He eyed Norman, who was lifting one end of a four-by-two and sighting down it, as his Bendigo uncle had taught him to sight down new beams, seeking out the bow. His Bendigo uncle had taught him the rudiments of measuring, sawing, the basics of hammering. During one of his stays in Bendigo, he and his uncle had built a lean-to onto the milking shed, built it so it didn't leak.

Norman dusted his hands and removed his jacket, aware that he should leave Vern to it, but also aware that with a little time and labour, a useful addition might be constructed.

‘Perhaps I might . . .' He removed a pencil from the pocket of his jacket and sketched the existing building on green timber. ‘With a little effort, the new rafters could be fixed with half-joins and bolts to the existing rafters.'

‘I didn't buy bolts.'

Norman looked at Vern, nodded, then continued. ‘The new roofing could then be slid in beneath the old, which will prevent any leakage. The doorway would be cut between existing wall supports . . . and a solid crossbeam . . . there. If I make myself clear, Mother Foote.'

‘Gertrude,' she said. ‘Trude, Gert. You've known me long enough, Norm.'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘The floor —'

‘Floor?' Vern said. He hadn't been planning to floor it.

‘Could be supported by those four-by-twos. Placed on edge. The kitchen floor, as I recall is . . . as low?'

‘Lower in places,' Gertrude said.

Vern straightened his back and lit a second cigarette. He could see a day's work turning into ten, could see Gertrude's imagination had been captured — and see her bed growing further out of reach.

They found bolts enough in the station shed. They found a near new ladder there, then, armed with Norman's box of tools, the two men drove again to Gertrude's land where they looked at the kitchen roof and decided to wait until next weekend before pulling any nails out. A few clouds had blown in.

The corner posts were in and solid. They could get the walls up, get the floor supports down. The floorboards would wait for next weekend. They worked all afternoon, worked until rain started falling; at six they sat down to one of Elsie's bacon and egg pies and a mound of fried potatoes. Stayed late, stayed until Jenny fell asleep on Norman's lap. They drove home at ten, in Vern's car, the bicycle tied to the trunk.

Norman carried Jenny to her cot unwashed, then fell to his own bed, where he slept like the dead until his station lad came knocking at his door. Grit in his bed when he awakened, more in Jenny's. Grit in her hair when he brushed it.

‘What a fine pair we are,' he said. ‘But what a fine day we had, Jenny-wren.'

The letter came that afternoon.

Dear Nephew,

Your presence in Melbourne would be appreciated . . .

 

Dear Charles,

I have important commitments this weekend. Please find enclosed a cheque . . .

She gave no warning of her intention. When she stepped from the train, for an instant he saw a stranger — two strangers. Cecelia had grown in breadth, and her hair, a functional bob when he'd left her with Charles, was longer and frightfully frizzed. Amber was clad in a smart brown hat and a beige suit he had not previously sighted.