Pearl in a Cage (54 page)

‘I want to go home.'

‘Can't do that, Tru. You're my meal ticket.'

They'd left Africa soon after. He'd wanted to see Germany. A clever man, Archie Foote, he could make his needs known in the German tongue. She'd spent that year dependent on him. He spoke Spanish too. They were in Spain when she'd stitched up
a gash in his head. He was appreciative. Her son was conceived in Spain and murdered in Argentina.

She hadn't got away from him in Argentina, but she'd grown up, woken up. In New Guinea, she'd grown strong. In India, she'd grown smart—and no longer dependent on his language skills. Plenty of English in India. Watched him closely, watched his eyes. She could read those eyes as her father could read the skies for rain. Watched the ports too. Getting ready, waiting, knowing she'd need to snatch that chance when it came, that she'd need to move fast. Amber was growing inside her and he hadn't known. She got herself home from India, worked her passage home on a boat full of diphtheria, and left him to rot.

His photograph was lying face up where it had fallen. She kicked it. It slid along the floor to rest against the leg of her table. She picked it up, held it close to her lamp and looked him in the eye.

‘You're done with haunting me,' she said, and she smashed the frame down on the edge of her table. He left a dent in the wood. A strong frame; her parents had paid good money for it. She took it to the stove where she slammed it hard on cast iron. And the glass shattered, tinkling as it fell into the metal hearth tray.

‘Now you're dead,' she said, and she walked away from him, walked out the door and into the clean air of night.

The fancy frame had come apart, the photograph fallen free to settle against the bucket Gertrude used for her kindling, to settle upright.

He was still smiling.

Horses had had their day. Like it or not, a man was forced to move with the times. George Macdonald had moved with the times. He'd bought himself a 1935 Chrysler and a nice-looking car it was too, but he could no more control the bastard of a thing than he could his truck.

A man needed to get control of motors when he was young enough to learn new tricks. He needed to breed his sons when he was young enough to learn their tricks too. George was fifty the year those boys were born, and he had less control over them than he had over his Chrysler. He let them drive him around town for a week or two, taking turns behind the wheel, until the little bastards took off in his car one night and he had to put the copper onto them. They were picked up on the Willama bridge. He'd got his car back, little the worse for wear, but thereafter he'd kept it padlocked in his shed—until Maisy decided she wanted to go down to the talent quest.

She was twenty-odd years George's junior. It took Harry Hall seven days to put her in control of that car. It took Denham half an hour to give her a licence to drive it. She hadn't been out of the driver's seat since.

Maisy had never gained control over the boys, but she knew how to thwart them. On the night of the quest, she filled up the rear seat of the Chrysler with daughters, which left no room for their sons. They watched her back out, watched her get the thing pointed in the right direction, then the little bastards jumped on the running boards and clung on. George did his best to knock
one of them off. He tried to wind up his window. The girls did the same on their side while Maisy did her best to keep that car on the road.

‘I only booked seven seats,' she yelled. ‘You won't get into the hall. It was booked out three days ago.'

‘Watch the road,' they warned, in unison, from either side of the car.

They rode the running boards all the way to Willama, but were shaken off when she braked hard to miss a dray at the first crossroads. They were last seen still a good mile from the theatre, one carrying a half-full wheat bag over his shoulder. George hoped they were leaving home again.

The Macdonald party arrived late at the hall. The usher guided them up two sets of stairs to the back row of the dress circle while the master of ceremonies introduced the Melbourne judges. One had sung with Melba—before she was Melba. The pianist who would be accompanying the singers this evening had played professionally in London.

The Hooper party, having booked early, had secured seating on the left side of the hall, three rows back from the stage. They'd booked for four, on the off chance that Margaret might get cold feet. There should have been a seat for Amber, but Margaret, shaking from head to foot, required that seat. Lorna, as was her habit, claimed her aisle seat, Margaret sat beside her. Norman offered his seat to Amber, but Jim had no desire to sit beside her. He said he'd sit down the back where seats were being saved for the contestants who wouldn't be using them for a time. The contestants, on their arrival, had been ushered through a door to the right.

Twice Amber left her seat to find her daughter. She stood on Lorna's foot the first time, was near tripped by it on the second occasion, but when she returned, Lorna was in her seat, Margaret in Norman's and the aisle seat vacant. Amber sat, her head turning, eyes searching the exits for Cecelia, who she had to do something about. Norman had sat on those yards of green skirt and crushed the life out of it. The night was hot, the car crowded; they'd driven those thirty-nine miles with the
car windows wide open. Cecelia's hair had suffered. Amber's attempt to remain with her daughter had been thwarted by a black-suited organiser. They had a possible thirty contestants to get through tonight, he'd said, and if one parent was allowed into the waiting area, the rest would want to be in there.

Amber's skirt was crushed, as was Margaret's. And that pretty little bitch standing in the foyer in her narrow skirt, fresh as a daisy, the lights glowing on her hair, glinting on the beads. Amber knew the tale of those beads, knew why she'd been named Amber. Knew her father had bought those beads. They belonged to Cecelia, not to that stray bitch. She'd wanted to snatch them from her throat.

And that great dumb beast of a man standing staring at her knees—couldn't force his eyes higher. Hated him for what he'd done to Cecelia. Hated him. Couldn't stand to sit at his side. Couldn't breathe for the smell of him. And the crowd. She shouldn't have come. Hadn't wanted to come.

She'd taken a tablet before leaving home, and had brought one for Cecelia, wrapped in her handkerchief. Her own need was greater. Handbag opened silently, hand inside it, feeling out the lump of pill, easing it free of its folds. Sat a while then, her bag closed, her eyes fixed on the stage while the first contestant was introduced. She'd have to dry-swallow it. Couldn't walk out now. Got it in her mouth, comfortingly bitter. Held it there while raising saliva enough to swallow. It stuck, and the taste was vile. Swallowed, swallowed again, while on stage a woman screeched.

Hours of this. Hours of sitting at his side. Hours and hours.

Amber swallowed and closed her eyes.

 

Number two was missing. The contestants had been given numbers when they'd arrived; they'd been offered glasses of cordial and told to sit along the sides of the room. A few sat. Most walked, smoked, talked. The room was thick with smoke and tension.

‘Number two, Wilma Saunders. Is Wilma Saunders here?'

Many eyes searched for Wilma Saunders, wanting her to be there, but Wilma must have suffered a bout of second thoughts
and remained at home, so Barry Andrews, number three, would now go on at number two.

‘Grace Jones. Is Grace Jones here?'

Grace Jones was supposed to be number seven. Her number, with its yellow ribbon and small brass pin, waited unclaimed, along with number two, number nineteen, number twenty-six and number thirty—Margaret Hooper's number.

Sissy's frock had a belt. She'd slid the loop of her number over her belt. Jenny had no belt and no intention of poking pins into her borrowed frock. She wore the ribbon around her wrist. Sissy was sitting, Jenny standing beside her. She had to stand somewhere.

‘You should have seen the way Dad was looking at the length of that dress,' Sissy said.

‘You should have seen the way Amber was looking at yours. Go and do something about it—and your hair. There are mirrors in the ladies' room.'

‘Have you got a comb?'

Jenny displayed empty hands. ‘Someone in there will lend you one. You shouldn't be sitting down either. Your skirt looks like you slept in it.'

‘At least I didn't borrow it from a blackfella,' Sissy said.

‘At least it's not brown.'

‘It's years out of fashion.'

They bickered. They always bickered now. The red-headed sisters Jenny had met in the bathroom weren't bickering. They were standing in the corner practising, or at least mouthing the words in practice.

‘Is that her necklace?' Sissy said.

Unaccustomed to adornment, Jenny's hand kept fiddling with the beads at her throat. ‘It's Granny's,' she said, dropping her hand to her side, then turning again to watch the red-headed sisters who had more in common than their red hair. They were the same size, they had similar faces, one older than the other, but dressed tonight in the same green, darker than Sissy's green but uncrushed. They had a comb. They'd combed each other's hair in the bathroom.

‘Do you want me to borrow their comb?'

‘It will probably have fleas in it.'

‘Fleas will look better than it looks now.'

‘Mum put one in her purse. She should have given it to me.'

Audience clapping, number four, now number three, waiting at the door to go on, number five being rounded up.

‘They'll be calling you soon,' Jenny said.

‘I can't do anything, can I!' Fact. She was useless without Amber, paralysed by her parasite.

‘You can at least comb it!'

Jenny walked over to the red-headed girls. They lent her their comb and walked back with her, wanting to keep an eye on it.

‘Turn around—if you can stand me touching you,' Jenny said.

Sissy turned around and Jenny did what she could, not out of sisterly love but face-saving and a form of pity—a bare smidgen—about as much as she might feel for a snarling dog, spoilt rotten by its owner then dumped out at the Duffys' to fend for itself.

Amber's fault. Up until yesterday, Norman had tried to talk Sissy out of reciting. He'd said that many concert performances were tolerated in Woody Creek because the performers were known to the community, but the Willama audience, having paid to be there, may not be as tolerant. He'd wasted his breath.

‘You ought to get it cut,' she said, crossing two pins behind Sissy's ear, holding the wind-straightened hair up, back. The other side wasn't bad. She smoothed it with the comb, combed stray curls around her finger as she'd seen Amber do a hundred times. ‘Now stand up and slap your skirt down.' They were clapping again, and calling for number six. ‘And wash that grease off your stocking.'

‘It's from his stupid gearstick,' Sissy said. ‘I was supposed to sit in the back with Margaret but you were there.'

They called for Sissy while she was washing the grease from her stocking. She came, looking more bored than nervous. Jenny
watched her walk to the black-suited man, watched her take her place in line. The organisers were wasting no time. Someone now playing the piano on stage. It sounded good. The audience liked it.

Then Sissy disappeared from the doorway and Jenny stepped back, got her back to the wall, stood head down, playing with Granny's beads and studying the toes of her borrowed shoes, knowing Norman would be sitting in the audience studying his own. Wished her name was Jenny Smith, Jenny Jones, Jenny anything. Didn't want it to be Jenny Morrison. Cringed internally and closed her eyes when she heard Sissy begin, but that was worse. Her internal eye saw too clearly, saw her sister wandering the stage
lonely as a cloud
, saw her floating
on high o'er vales and hills
. Saw her shading of her eyes so she might not be blinded by
a host of golden daffodils
.

‘
Beside the lake, beneath the trees

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze
 . . .'

Saw them breeze in through the waiting area, the contestants making way for the two chunky little men, one wearing an ancient army uniform and cap, one wearing an enamel basin on his head and a khaki overcoat. They scattered the contestants grouped around the door as they ran on stage, one of the black-suited men disappearing with them. Then no more of ‘Daffodils'. The twins were singing of their aversion to daffodils to the tune of ‘The Bold Gendarmes'.

Jenny pushed her way to the stage door, caught a bare glimpse of Sissy's crushed green, a twin holding an arm each, marching her backwards and forwards—or they were marching. She was struggling to get away.

‘
We'll run her in. We'll run her in.

We'll run her in. We'll run her in.

We've had enough of daffodils.

We don't like flowers, we'll take no more, we'll show her out the bloody door, we'll show her what we do to dills
.'

Sissy kicked one, got an arm free and swung at the head of the one wearing the basin. It flew, rolled off stage. The other twin dodged her swinging arm, improvising now, playing to the audience.

‘
She's dangerous and that's no lie, but folk, we're here to do
or die, and rid the earth of daffodils
.'

They were performers. They'd always been performers. They could hold a tune too. The audience was a roar of laughter.

Sissy should have gone while the going was good, but the contestants had been told to exit from the other side, where they'd be met and shown to seats at the rear of the hall. She made her escape towards the waiting room door, where the organiser in black stood with the master of ceremonies and the pianist, all three laughing. She wailed, turned and ran back across the stage. The twins were taking their bows. The roar of applause became thunder, a few wits cheering her escape from custody, a few more yelling encouragement to the twins.