Pearl in a Cage (31 page)

‘Not much of it.'

‘My word,' he said. ‘My word.'

He made her a cup of tea, offered his station biscuits, while she spoke a while of Africa, mentioned Spain, Japan, Indian
trains, then the letter was read again, read aloud, studied — each word of it, each full stop, the signature.

‘It makes no mention of what his estate might be worth,' Norman said.

‘A two-bob watch and a bill for its repair, knowing Archie. He wasn't the type to die before his last penny was spent.'

‘It suggests you send your marriage lines . . .'

‘Damn fools,' she said. ‘They address the letter to me, I receive the thing, and now they want me to prove I'm who my name says I am. I doubt I've still got them, and doubt it's worth the trouble of looking.' She folded the page into its envelope. ‘Have you heard anything from Vern?'

‘Only that they have arrived safely and that the car went well.'

 

Vern had bought himself another new car, a Hudson this time, big, solid, reliable and needing a long trip to run it in. Sydney was far enough. Jimmy rarely asked for anything. He'd asked if they could take Cecelia. Vern told him that the girl couldn't travel up there without another female along, so Jimmy asked Margaret if she'd go, and yes she would. Then Lorna, who was not fond of car travel, condescended to accompany them. What had started out in Vern's mind as a father and son trip, a chance to spend some time with that boy, had been waylaid by woman. And an uglier bunch of mismatched human souls would be hard to find, but a bloke down the far end of the newly opened bridge wanted to take their picture.

Vern stood back and lit a smoke while the three girls and Jimmy were photographed. As pre-teenagers, his daughters had looked as good as they ever would. They were in their twenties now, more than old enough to be wed and giving him grandchildren, but the likelihood of either of them doing it was nil minus ten.

Lorna had the Hoopers' dark colouring and too much of their height. She could look him in the eye without raising her chin, and she had a chin you could hang a coat on, her mother's acerbic tongue and hawk nose — which was still growing. Only
a father might consider that girl less than ugly. There was no denying Vern was her father, but by the living Christ, there were times Vern might have liked to deny it. Along with her general ugliness, she had an ugly nature. She couldn't stand Sissy Morrison. Not that Vern blamed her for that, but a woman of her years could have made a better attempt to hide it.

Margaret had taken the girl under her wing, and by the seventh day of that trip from hell, anyone not in the know might have considered those two much of an age. Margaret had never looked her years; she'd rarely had the chance to be a child, having spent her life stuck to Lorna's elbow. She had her mother's pretty silver blonde hair but more of it. It was eye-catching. Her features were small, sharp, like her mother's, other than her eyes, which were a watery blue and too large for their sockets. She'd had the look of a pinch-faced, traumatised rat when she'd arrived home after the fire. She still had a rodent look about her, but one that was having a damn good time in a cheese larder and she didn't look as bad with Sissy walking at her side. If he could prise her away from her lamppost sister, she may have a chance of catching herself a man.

Lorna was a lost cause. She walked like a man, dressed like a man, apart from her too long skirts. She knew the latest cricket score, knew how many runs Bradman had made before they got him out, and how they'd got him out. She followed the Melbourne football teams, knew the names of the top players.

Jimmy barely knew a cricket ball from a football. Vern had bought him a cricket bat and stumps, had bowled a few balls at him. Jimmy dodged them. Vern had bought him an expensive football, taken him out on the road in front of the house to have a few kicks. He'd stood off at a distance, arms by his sides, waiting for the ball to fall on his head. He liked driving that car, though. He'd driven it a good third of the way to Sydney. He seemed to be enjoying himself too, and tolerating the crowds better with that girl and Margaret at his side.

 

They were away for ten days in all and a lot can happen in ten days. The solicitor's letter had set Gertrude to searching for her
marriage lines. She'd upended her house, found a lot of other things she'd misplaced or forgotten, but not what she was looking for. She had a feeling she'd burnt them, or maybe she'd just felt like doing it. They were gone anyway, unless Amber had taken them. She'd have to ask Norman to have a look through her things. Not that it was worth the trouble, not that she would have given that letter a second thought, if Norman hadn't convinced her that there had to be some money or personal effects involved or the solicitor wouldn't have bothered writing. It was something to think about, something to dream about, and when Vern came home, a reason to ride in and get him to place a call to the solicitor's office — place it three times before she got connected to the right chap.

She identified herself, told him she'd received his letter, that her marriage lines seemed to have disappeared. ‘What I need to know is whether it's worth my effort finding them.'

He wouldn't tell her how much was involved, but he told her there were some personal items and that it would be to her financial gain. He said, if she couldn't find proof of her marriage to Dr Archibald Gerald Foote, she would require two letters of identification, from a minister of religion, doctor, solicitor or constable stating they had known her for a period of years. She didn't hear how many years. A flock of corellas chose to fly over at that time, a flock big enough to block out the sun. A distant voice on a telephone couldn't compete with that screeching.

‘To hell with it,' she said and put the phone down.

In June, a second letter arrived from the solicitor. Gertrude didn't get around to replying to that one. He wrote again in August, and to shut him up she told him she was looking into getting her letters of identification. There were no more letters, or not until January of the following year when Mr Foster handed her two. One was from that ratbag solicitor. She recognised his envelope. No pleasant memories were attached to the name of Archie Foote and the last thing she wanted to see was a crate of his personal items.

The second letter was in a small white envelope, also with a Melbourne postmark, and the handwriting on it looked like a woman's. It could have been Amber's handwriting. She worried
it for a time, then ripped her way in and stepped back to the post office wall to read it.

Dear Mrs Foote,

It wasn't from Amber. Relief, disappointment, then a wave of fear passed through her bowel. It was about Amber.

I am writing to you as one mother to another. Ernie feels that you may be better off not knowing the following, but I know I'd want to know, even if the news was bad
.

Ernie has seen your daughter. A woman calling herself Amber Johnson was arrested six or eight month ago for taking to a chap with a carving knife. He ended up with a few stitches. She might have been released if she hadn't attacked one of the jailers. A few days ago, Ernie found out they'd transferred her to an asylum for the criminally insane which is somewhere out west of Melbourne. As soon as he heard the name, Amber, and what she'd done, he thought it could have been your daughter, knowing of that business with your son-in-law. He took it upon himself to make the trip out to the asylum to see her for himself
.

He says she's sadly changed. The life she has been leading can be hard on a woman, though I'll say no more about that, which is the reason why Ernie decided not to write to you. He says that you, her husband and girls are better off keeping the memory of who she was, but as I said before, if it was one of my boys gone off the rails, I'd want to know
.

They are all doing well. Billy's job in the bank was safe. Robert was out of work for a time but he is now working in a menswear shop in Box Hill. The others are still in school
.

As I said to Ernie, if they can't get jobs, then it's no use them leaving school
.

I hope you are keeping well, and I am truly sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I haven't been able to rest easy since I found out
.

My best regards to yourself and family,

Mary Ogden

Gertrude looked at the railway station, took two steps towards it, then turned. Norman wouldn't want to know about this, and his girls were better off not knowing. Maybe she'd have been better off not knowing.

But Amber was alive. Wherever she was, she was alive and being cared for.

I have to get down there. Vern will lend me the money. Or maybe he won't — not if it's going to get me involved with Amber again. Archie must have left something of value or the solicitor wouldn't bother writing. Maybe he struck it rich then died before he could spend it.

She'd been baptised Church of England, but rarely graced the church, and the ministers came and went. The Catholic priest had been around for years. He knew her. He'd write me a letter, she thought. And I've got Ernie's address. I'll get one from him.

She started across the road, wanting to get home and write to Ernie and Mary, then she glanced again towards the station. Like it or not, Norman had to know. He was Amber's husband.

He was in his office, sorting through a pile of paper. She didn't beat around the bush.

‘She's alive, Norm. Ernie Ogden has seen her. It's not good news.'

She offered her letter. He turned to his papers.

‘I'm going down to see her. I can't know where she is and not see her.'

‘No doubt you feel duty-bound, Gertrude . . . as I feel duty-bound to protect my daughters.'

Elsie had been eleven or twelve years old when Gertrude brought her home. She was ten years older now, old enough to keep things running while Gertrude was away.

‘Snib that door before you go to bed. Charlie's son-in-law will pick up the eggs on Fridays, and if Mrs Crone wants anything, she knows where to come. If you go easy on the kerosene it should last until I get back. If you run out of anything, tell Charlie's son-in-law when he comes down for the eggs.'

She didn't know how long she'd be gone, didn't know what she'd find when she got down there, or if she'd be able to find anything at all. The city, the world, had changed since a nineteen-year-old girl had moved in with her in-laws back in 1889. Too much to take in, too much to learn back then, and most of what she'd learnt swiftly forgotten. She'd forgotten a weekend spent at Box Hill until she'd read that name in Mary Ogden's letter.

In 1897, when she'd worked her passage home from India on a boatfull of diphtheria, she'd come ashore in Melbourne, but seen nothing of the city. She'd ridden with her trunks from the docks to the railway station, where she'd sat until it was time to board the train home.

Ernie and Mary Ogden had offered her a bed for as long as she needed to stay, which she'd accepted, until Vern said he'd make the trip with her. He knew every inch of that city, knew that Mitcham was miles out the eastern side of Melbourne and the asylum miles out the other side.

‘We'll do less travelling if we stay in a city hotel,' he said.

He had his own agenda. He booked them in as Mr and Mrs Hooper.

They went out to the asylum on their second day in the city and were led into a room housing a skeleton, empty-eyed, sores circling her mouth. Vern didn't recognise her, or not until she spat at her mother. He took off like a cobra leaving a mongoose party. Gertrude wasn't far behind him. It shook them up. An hour later the smell of that place was still clinging to their nostrils. The image of those staring, soulless-eyed women with their grasping, hopeless hands stayed with them longer.

‘It's an offence,' she said.

‘Walk away from her, Trude.'

‘It's an offence. It's an offence to mankind.'

‘Walk away.'

‘I gave that girl life, Vern. I can't walk away.'

‘Christ,' he said and shuddered. ‘Christ.'

They were in for a second shock the following day. Vern had rung through from Woody Creek and made an appointment with the solicitor. They saw him on Wednesday at ten, when Gertrude handed over her letters of identification. There was money due to her. Archie's father had left him five hundred pounds, which had been sitting in the solicitor's account since 1924.

‘There are costs involved,' the solicitor said.

‘And quite a bit of interest,' Vern said.

There are bad shocks, then shocks of the other kind. One can't cancel out the other, but it can take the edge off it. Gertrude walked the city streets that day feeling rich for the first time in her life, feeling rich and sad, homesick and hot, headachy and lost, and not too sure if she was nineteen or sixty.

‘I'm out of balance, out of time, out of place, Vern. Hang on to me, will you? I don't know if I'm feeling faint or if my feet are off the ground.'

‘Your hat's out of its time,' he said, drawing her into a city store and sitting her down while he chose a new hat, black, with a cheeky red feather; a merry widow's hat he named it. He asked
the saleswoman to put her old hat in the box, and Gertrude felt ridiculous, but she walked at his side, her feather bobbing.

He told her she needed a pair of shoes to match her hat and he wanted to buy her a pair.

‘Stop wasting your money.'

‘I'm doing my bit for the retail traders — and I've been wanting to dress you for years.'

‘I thought it was more the other way around.'

‘That too.'

She let him buy the shoes. Maybe she was enjoying herself. He bought her a black suit with fitted jacket and straight-cut skirt that sat halfway up her calf, so he bought fine stockings too.