Pearl in a Cage (69 page)

‘She had the world at her feet.'

Jenny looked at the bare boards beneath her feet. She hadn't thought about court cases and newspapers. She hadn't thought about anything except what they'd left inside her. But singing lessons. Singing lessons in Melbourne. That had been her dream a while back, and singing with a band in pretty dresses and high-heeled shoes.

She lifted the green curtain and walked to the kitchen door. They were standing beside Vern's car. He was smoking, Gertrude was rubbing her brow.

‘Given half a chance, she'll buy and sell this town before she's done. And to tell you straight, the way I'm seeing it tonight, her father is trying to give her that half-chance.'

‘Where is the useless sod?'

‘Drunk,' Vern said. Then he saw Jenny, or saw her shadow.

‘I'm having singing lessons in Melbourne, Granny. Let him cover it up,' she said.

 

Time is slow in passing once you can no longer deny that your belly is full of rapists' leavings, when you can feel their leavings seething inside you, feeding on you like maggots feeding on the carcass of a dead rabbit.

Jenny felt dead, spent her days lying on the bed like the dead. The New Year came in hot. The temperature on 12 January 1939 was the highest on record. The state was burning. Towns were burning, people dying, while Jenny lay on that sagging bed.

Gertrude spoke to her of the baby, that dear little baby which had no more say in its beginning than she.

‘It's not to blame, darlin', like you're not to blame.'

‘Stop!'

‘It's a part of you. Your blood is feeding it.'

‘If I could stop my blood from getting to it, I would!'

Caged now, caged by that swelling belly, denied the cool of the creek by that belly, denied Joey's company and playing cards. She hid from Joey, hid from Harry. Didn't want them to see her shame.

Didn't want to see herself. Couldn't stand to think of her flesh mixing with their flesh. Couldn't stand to think of Norman's mixing with Amber's, to think of herself swelling up Amber's belly. Couldn't stand to think of how she'd got out of Amber's belly. Wanted to vomit. Wanted to vomit out what they'd put inside her. Stuck her fingers down her throat some nights, and thought of them and their filthy hands down her throat. Vomited her heart out, vomited until there was nothing left inside her — except their maggots.

The nights were longer than the days. Her head went crazy at night with telling her things she didn't want to know. Knew too much now. She knew why Amber had moved back into Norman's bed. Couldn't block those thoughts. Tried to write mind letters to Mary and ended up thinking of Dora telling her that babies got started by married people rubbing bellybuttons together. Thought about Sally Fulton telling her you got babies by kissing a boy with your mouth open.

Now she knew. Knew everything. Knew they got out the same way they got in. Granny had told her. She'd run away from that. She'd hidden from that.

Recognised every sound in Granny's house, every board that creaked. The boards warned her when someone was coming to lift that green curtain.

‘You have to eat to live, darlin'. Come out and have some tea with me.'

‘I'm not hungry.'

If she couldn't stop her blood from feeding it, maybe if she stopped feeding herself, it would starve to death.

Birds ate to live. They pecked insects from the roof of the lean-to. She could hear their peck-pecking, hear the scraping dance of their feet as they ran for their next morsel. Hear their happy chirping before daylight, their different calls at sundown.

She knew Elsie's soft canvas-shoed tread. Knew the way she lifted that green curtain just enough to pop her head through, lower down than where Granny's head popped through.

‘How are you feeling today, lovey?'

How was she feeling today? Worse than yesterday. Worse than the day before yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that.

She hadn't known that what they'd done to her could make a baby. When she'd come down here the morning after they'd done it, come while it was still dark, come shivering through that frosty pre-dawn with that borrowed sandal rubbing a huge blister, she hadn't known. She'd seen dogs doing it, but hadn't known that's what made pups. Just felt dirty, filthy, like a dog, and hurting, hurting everywhere.

The water in Granny's tank had felt warm. It was so strange. She'd half-filled a bucket so she could wash them off her and that water had felt . . . felt almost warm. Got herself clean before Granny got up. Got her hair combed. She should have told her. Didn't. Just told her she'd had a fight with Amber, told her about dyeing that old dress, and about Amber ripping it half off her outside the hall, and about her father taking Amber's side and locking her in. Told her enough, but not the worst part. Too ashamed of the worst part.

Harry had picked up her clothes from Maisy's on the Saturday morning. He'd said that Maisy was hopping mad — not about him wanting her to pack up Jenny's clothes, but about the twins. They'd drained the petrol out of her car and gone back to Melbourne.

And thank God, Jenny had thought. Thank God that no one need ever know anything about it. She had her clothes. She had Granny. She had Joey and Elsie. It was over, and Granny had said she could live with her, and Joey said she could ride his bike to school.

She hadn't worried when something went missing that month, just celebrated because it had gone missing. Hadn't known why it had gone missing.

Now she knew. Now she knew everything.

Time is slow in passing when there's nothing to see but timber walls, nothing to do but think, nothing to think about other than a belly that keeps blowing up even when you starve it.

In February, Elsie came in her canvas sneakers with the green wraparound dress she'd worn when she was carrying Teddy. It was too short but nothing else fitted. Jenny had to wear it. It had a belt that tied at the back and she looked like a green spider, all belly and skinny limbs. Felt like a spider, paralysed by a hornet's venom, fresh food for the hornet's maggot when it hatched, just lying there, just waiting to be eaten alive.

Recognised Vern's heavy footsteps on bare boards. He knocked before he lifted that curtain and he spoke about a place he'd found, full of good Christian people who would look after her and find a good home for her infant.

Her infant. They kept on saying it. Your infant. Your dear little baby. They kept on at her, on, and on, and on, and on. As if she cared about it. She hated it. Hated them. Hated Amber.

Dear Mary . . . my dear Mary, it has been so long since . . .

Dear Mary, I have not written in recent weeks because . . . because . . .

The ink of her mind wouldn't stick to her mental page. It was disappearing ink, or maybe her brain was disappearing. Everything was gone, every dream she'd had was gone from her head, like it had been sucked out by Maisy's electric cleaner, like someone had put the hose to her ear and sucked everything good out.

She'd always had Mary Jolly when she'd been lonely. Whenever she'd felt sad, she'd been able to write in her head to Mary.

Up until Christmas, she'd written to her on paper, and called into the post office after school to read Cara Jeanette's mail. She'd written about the ball, or about Cinderella's ball, and about what really happened to those glass slippers. Hadn't been into the post office since a week before Christmas . . .

My dear Mary, thank you for the beautiful . . . for the delightful Christmas card . . .

She roamed in the early morning while the maggots in her belly were asleep, before the birds began their chirping. She borrowed Gertrude's writing tablet on a February morning.

My dear Mary,

I am so sorry I haven't written for so long, but since my mother was arrested for murder and my father's fatal heart attack, I have been forced to seek employment, under an assumed name. I am now delighted to tell you that I have found work as a governess on a large property many miles from town . . .

She wrote three pages, was still writing when Gertrude came out to light the stove. She offered an envelope, so Jenny addressed it. Harry posted it the following day.

Mr Foster's side fence was a bare five feet from Norman's house. For years he had spent more time than he should hiding behind that fence, listening. He'd seen and heard more than he should, which of course had encouraged him to return, again and again. A single man, now approaching fifty, he was aware that he had no right to spy on his neighbour, that he'd had no right to befriend his neighbour's daughter, nor to encourage her in a deception. He was nobody's hero, had not been built to perform heroic acts, but he believed, rightfully or wrongfully, that he had saved her infant life, and daily since her mother's return, he'd kept an eye and an ear to that fence.

He'd read Jenny's first letters to Mary Jolly. They had been handed to him to fold, to slide into envelopes. He'd supplied the writing paper, the stamps. Through the years, he'd watched a child's handwriting evolve into a young lady's. He knew it well, knew her curled Js, her fancy Ms, as he did Mary Jolly's perfect copperplate script. He'd kept her every reply in a shoebox in his post office cupboard. He saw that script in late February, on a letter addressed to
The Governess, c/o Mrs Foote, Forest Road, Woody Creek
. He took his spectacles off, polished them, placed the envelope on his counter, then reached for the box of her old letters. A random selection set beside the new and he studied both envelopes closely. There was no question. It was Mary Jolly's handwriting.

He'd been told by the stationmaster that Jennifer was studying music in the city, and he'd celebrated for her. When the last letter
addressed to Cara Paris had arrived, he'd held it for weeks while weighing up the breaking of a confidence against the getting of that item of mail to its owner. In the end he'd returned it to Mary with a brief note, stating that Cara was in the city studying music.

Now he knew that Jennifer was not in the city. Jennifer was with her grandmother. They had hidden her down there once before. He'd heard the scuffle on his neighbour's verandah on the night of the ball. He'd heard Jennifer's voice. Then silence.

‘What has been done to that child?'

He worried about her, and the letter, thinking to confront Norman Morrison. Did he have the right? He had no rights.

Perhaps he should speak to Mrs Foote when she came next to collect her mail — or offer her the letter and ask if Jennifer was well. No harm in that. But Friday passed, and if she came to town, she did not come by for her mail.

Mid-week, Harry Hall came to the post office. ‘Anything for Mrs Foote?' he said.

And what else could he do but pass that letter across the counter?

Gone.

But his concern grew. He sat at his bedroom window on Saturday afternoon, sat for most of that Sunday, watching the comings and goings from his neighbour's house. All seemed well enough.

Then on the Tuesday, he recognised the Js, the Ms, on an outgoing envelope, a stamp already attached. All was not well next door. Something was very wrong next door.

He spied more often on his neighbours, his eye to a knothole in his fence, an eye to a convenient rip in the sitting room blind. He watched the wife walk by the post office window on her way to the grocer, watched her hang washing in her backyard.

‘Any news of young Jennifer?' he asked on the Friday when Norman came for his mail.

‘Doing well,' the stationmaster lied, his eyes fastened on two envelopes. ‘Very well,' he said, and he left.

Old images began to haunt Mr Foster's lonely nights. Midway through reading a newspaper, halfway through a meal,
in the dark of his bedroom, in the grey light of pre-dawn, he saw that battered, bruised little face . . . hidden from the town at her grandmother's house.

Pretty little blue-eyed blonde. Battered. Smashed. Broken.

Pretty little blue-eyed blonde, face smashed, slashed —

Imagination is an evil thing when you live alone, but he had seen his neighbour's wife wandering at dusk. And had he not personally witnessed her brutality?

‘You carry this thing too far,' he warned himself.

Then in late March another letter arrived for
The Governess, c/o Mrs Foote
; and on the first day of April, the fool's day, he sat down and penned his own letter to Mary Jolly, uncaring if he were fool or not.

My dear Miss Jolly,

I am penning this line in the hope that you are still in touch with our mutual young friend, Cara.
(The first time he'd written that line he'd written ‘Jennifer'. He would not break that child's confidence.)
I have not seen nor had word of Cara in several months, and am concerned for her wellbeing.

Please find enclosed stamped, self-addressed envelope for your swift reply.

Yours faithfully, Bob Foster

He did not wait long for his envelope's return. It arrived on 7 April, the day Joe Lyons, prime minister of Australia, died. Prime ministers didn't die, they were voted out; and Joe, a popular man, would not have been voted out. The nation in shock, Mr Foster ripped that envelope open.

Dear Bob,

Like you, I am feeling more than a little concern for Cara. Her father died late last year, and it seems that she has tutoring work with the grandchildren of a local property owner, a Mrs Foote, which, she says, is well out of town.

As you may or may not be aware, her letters are often fanciful tales of incredible happenings or odd little poems about her town. One I received recently concerns me deeply.

I am forwarding a copy to you. Your kindness to a stranger in her hour of need tells me you have a good and kind heart, and that your concern for Cara is as great as mine.