The End of the World (11 page)

‘No more stories,’ I say.

‘You need to know about—’ she protests, and again I hold my hand up. She lifts a scone to her mouth, leaves a rim of cream around her lips. She shrugs.

‘You could have it, I suppose. Of course it would ruin your life.’

‘I could go back to the father.’

She laughs. ‘It would still ruin your life. Fathers are no help.’

I breathe deeply. My stomach is finally settling.

‘Maybe I don’t need a man if I have a baby.’

‘Darling, you have no idea. Children aren’t like that.’

Jacinta pushes the last of the scone into her mouth. She wipes the cream from her whiskers with a napkin. She opens her mouth and I think she is going to tell me another story. Perhaps it will be the one about her career in theatre, the career cut short by marrying my father. They threw roses on the stage! A department store heir asked me to marry him! I remember at school when I first learned about the exclamation mark, I knew it belonged to my mother.

The café owner goes outside with a tray of bird seed and the rosellas burst into the air. They settle on her shoulders and arms but fly up again when she puts the tray down on a table covered in bird shit. They twitter and squabble over the food, flinging seed across the balcony.

‘See? They can’t survive on their own now. They’re totally dependent on humans,’ Jacinta says.

‘My father was really my father, wasn’t he?’

Her eyes widen.

‘Of course he was,’ she says as if all her stories, all her dreams never existed.

My muscles are twitching because I have missed my morning run. I shift uncomfortably on the chair.

‘Did you wish you hadn’t had me?’ This is the question I’ve wanted to ask all along.

‘We didn’t have any choice in those days.’

I had always thought the stories were for me. That she told me the stories so I would interpret them some way, a way I never understood. I kept trying, though. I kept thinking about them, hoping for a way in. What was she really trying to tell me?

‘Mum, do you wish you hadn’t had me?’

This is my mother sitting opposite me. Of that I am certain. She is cunning and lustrous. A fox who gave birth to a wolf. Her bright eyes, usually darting around the room, look straight at me.

‘You were a surprise. So late. Your father was already like an old man. I raised you on my own. I felt more for you than I ever felt for your brothers. I wanted to protect you.’

I think that is all I need. Jacinta takes a deep breath. I can see she is about to start another story. Each story contradicts the last, but they are not lies because she never tries to be consistent. What does it matter if the stories are only for her? And I wonder what stories I would tell a child of my own.

‘Have the baby,’ she says. ‘Why not? After all, you were a wild thing and you turned out all right.’

Her fingers press the scone plate, picking up the last crumbs, and her small pink tongue licks them from her fingertips. I can see the beginnings of grey in her hair. I want to reach over and run my hand across her soft cheek.

The Litter

I never understood why so many animals found their way under our house to give birth. If it was the neighbour’s dog or cat we gave the litter back, but it was usually strays that crept into the dry dark corners under the floor. I’d hear snuffles and squeaks in the quiet of the night and I’d sneak outside with a torch and squeeze under the house. When I picked up the newborns and sniffed their silky curled-up bodies the mother would hiss or growl, its eyes glinting yellow in the flash of the torch beam. The animals smelt of blood.

Gran said animals were dirty, filthy things. She often said ‘certain people’ were dirty too, but animals were worse. If she found animals around the house, she would send Pop after them with the hessian bag that she kept in the boot of their old Humber. Sometimes he left empty-handed, winking at us on the way out the door, and saying, ‘That one was too fast for me.’ Other days he would carry the wriggling hessian bag at arm’s length through the house and out to the car boot.

Even though I knew that Pop drowned the animals, my fourteen-year-old brother Gary was trying to convince us kids that Gran killed them with a hammer. Gary was waging war against Gran. His usual strategy was to tell scary stories about her. She was a witch who put children through the clothes wringer and gave them back to their parents with all their guts squeezed out. Then she ate their brains and liver and kidneys for breakfast.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ I used to say to him, then turn to the other kids. ‘He’s just making it up. He’s just being stupid.’

Gary would tell us how Gran made Pop wrap the animals in old rags so that their limbs were strapped tight to their bodies. Then Gran would lay each bundle down on the concrete under the apricot tree and smash in the animal’s head. When Gary described a cat bound up like a mummy on the concrete, struggling inside its bandage and looking up at Gran with its pupils round and black, I could picture the cat’s face, its open mouth with the lips drawn back, tiny white teeth and the burred tongue peeping out, the tremor of its throat fur as it made a deep, rumbling sound of fear. I could even smell the apricots, the ones that had fallen and rotted on the concrete in the hot sun. And see Gran, afterwards, rinsing the blood off the hammer in the gully trap.

Now Gran was due to arrive and there were two litters of kittens under the house.

‘We’ll put one litter in a box in the oven where she won’t hear them, and we’ll shut the rest in the toilet,’ Mum said.

‘But what if she wants to cook something? They’ll die!’ I shrieked. ‘She cooked scones once, remember? And she always inspects the toilet.’

Every Sunday afternoon Gran and Pop dropped over to help Mum around the house, which meant we spent every Sunday morning cleaning and tidying so the house was spotless when they arrived. It was the worst day of the week. Mum couldn’t relax until Gran had pulled away in the car.

‘Well,’ Mum said, ‘she’ll just hear them anyway. Horrible, mewling things. She’ll take them away and drown them and then we won’t have to worry any more.’

‘I’ll put them back under the house. I’ll cover the box in a blanket so they don’t make noise,’ I said, and I ran down the hallway to the verandah where one litter of six kittens, still blind, was huddling in a cardboard box and making squeaky sounds.

‘Pauline, grab the other kittens,’ I called to my older sister, who was sitting on her bunk trying to comb knots out of her long, fine hair in time for the visit.

‘Grab ’em yourself!’ she hissed.

I raced back into the bedroom, put down the box of kittens, punched Pauline in the stomach, and dragged one of the blankets off the top bunk.

‘You’ll have to fix up that bed when you get back. I’m not making it again,’ she shouted at my back.

The Humber arrived as I was throwing the blanket over the box. The kittens’ noises sounded like the far-off cries of babies, like a distant orphanage, but when I crawled out from under the house I couldn’t hear them anymore.

My clothes were smeared with dirt and cobwebs were hanging from my hair. I rushed to the laundry, pulled off my cardigan, combed my fingers through my hair, and tried to brush the dirt off my skirt. I realised I had no shoes on. Gran would be furious. She said we would catch worms if we didn’t wear shoes. She said there was a kind of worm that had a hook instead of a mouth, and it used the hook to attach itself in between your toes and burrow inside your foot. The worm would travel around your body, making more and more worms until you were infested. Then the worms would come out in your poo.

Under the ironing board I found an odd pair of thongs, way too small for my feet, and put them on.

I crept into the kitchen and joined my place in the inspection line. Gary was next to me. He only came to Gran’s Sunday inspection because of Mum.

‘If you’re not all here,’ she said, ‘your grandmother will think I let you run wild. And you know what that means–more visits.’

First thing when Gran and Pop arrived, Gran would call the kids to inspection. The seven of us lined up with our chests puffed out and our shoulders thrown back like soldiers standing to attention, and Gran walked along the line, poking us with her finger. Grubby collars, scabby knees, biro marks, all got a poke. Sometimes she would poke us for no reason at all. She’d say, ‘I don’t know what you’ve done wrong this week, but I know none of you is perfect.’

This day she poked me three times, hard.

‘You look like something the cat dragged in,’ she said.

I watched through lowered eyes as Mum’s feet did a two-step at the mention of the word cat. Her varicose veins flexed underneath her stockings like muscles.

Gran poked her way to the other end of the line.

‘Where are the other kittens?’ I whispered to Gary.

‘In a drawer in Mum’s wardrobe,’ he whispered back. ‘Gran never goes into Mum’s room.’

Pop passed by the side window, carrying a ladder. He was going to fix the laundry roof. Three days before, Willy had been sitting up there reading a book. He climbed up to the laundry roof to read books because he knew that no one would follow him there and disturb him. Not that we didn’t all climb on the roof, but the others preferred the roof of the house–steeper and higher, much more slippery.

Willy had been catching up on the grade-four school reader when Seana threw a rock at him to tell him to come down to dinner. She said she meant to hit the roof beside him, but the rock cracked him on the head and he overbalanced and slid down the roof to the edge. As he was about to fall he lunged for the guttering, caught it, and rode it down to the ground as it tore away from the wall.

Three of us went out after dinner and tried to bend it back into place, but the metal had twisted too badly, and we left it hanging in mid-air like a knuckleduster. That night, when Gary was sneaking out in the middle of the night to meet some of his mates, he walked straight into it and nearly sliced off his eyebrow. Mum told Pop that possums had been at the house again.

‘Now, let me have a look at this eye,’ Gran said.

Gary turned his face away from her and wrinkled his nose as she eased the bandaids off his eyebrow. The cut was swollen and jagged and oozing thick, yellow pus. Mum gasped.

‘Gary, why didn’t you tell me it was like that? You said you were cleaning it every day!’

‘Because he wants a big, nasty scar,’ Jimmy called from the end of the line. ‘He told me.’

‘Get to the bathroom,’ Gran ordered. Gary sauntered away, poking at the cut with his little finger. Gran turned and looked at Mum, who started to follow Gary as if she was the one who had been ordered to the bathroom.

‘Sit down and relax, Libby,’ Gran said to Mum. ‘I’ll look after this.’

Gran stamped off to the bathroom. Mum sat down at the kitchen table. She pulled a tea towel off the table, tucked it into her skirt, then folded her hands in her lap, leaned against the back of the chair and closed her eyes. I’d seen her do it a million times. She’d say, ‘You’re making my blood boil,’ and send us out of the room. I had to stand guard at the door and tell the other kids they couldn’t go in until Mum’s blood stopped boiling.

Gary told me later what Gran did. She opened the bathroom cupboard, reached up, and took out my dad’s old razor. It was a cutthroat razor with a long blade and a wooden handle. Gary waited while she ran the hot tap and washed and rinsed the blade. She told him to kneel down. When he was kneeling in front of her, she lifted the razor to his eyebrow, but Gary was frightened and started shuffling backwards on his knees.

‘I thought you were trying to be a tough boy?’ she said, reaching around and clasping the back of his neck with her free hand. ‘Can’t you take a little pain?’ She cut open the wound and swabbed the pus out with a face washer, then dabbed the cut with mercurochrome. From the kitchen we heard Gary yowling.

Gran told him that the wound was too far gone to heal properly now.

‘You won’t get blood poisoning at least, but you’ll have that scar you wanted, young man. And when men see that scar and decide you’re a fighter, the pain of their fists will be a lot worse than the pain you’re feeling now. One decision, just one small decision can alter the whole course of your life. Like that.’ She snapped her fingers and mercurochrome spattered over the front of her blouse.

Gary never admitted to crying, but when he came out of the bathroom he was rubbing his hand backwards and forwards hard against his nose. He walked straight out the back door, and I heard the thunk and scrabble as he climbed the back fence, then the soft thump as he landed on the other side.

‘Oh no, look at this,’ Gran said, hurrying out of the bathroom and dabbing at her red-stained blouse. ‘I’ll have to put this in to soak straight away. I’ll borrow a blouse if you don’t mind, Libby.’ She pulled out the front of her blouse and looked down inside. ‘And a singlet.’

Mum didn’t know the kittens were in her wardrobe. She slowly unfolded her hands and stood up to take Gran to her room.

‘I’ll get them for you, Gran,’ I said.

I raced to beat the two of them to the door of the room. When I reached the doorway, I thought I heard the kittens mewing. They sounded so helpless. Gran advanced on me, her bosom speckled blood red, Mum trudging behind, head down, to the slaughter.

‘No,’ I shouted, ‘I’ll get them.’

‘Are you shouting, Anne? Ladies don’t shout,’ Gran said. She stopped in front of where I was barring the doorway. She smelled like disinfectant, sterile, hard as stainless steel.

‘Annie, get out of the way,’ Mum said. ‘Your Gran needs to change in there.’

Gran walked straight to the wardrobe, opened the door, then stopped still. Muffled high-pitched squeals greeted her. She pulled out the drawer and five kittens pushed up their blunt heads, mewing and scrabbling over each other to get out. Mum sat down on the bed and started wrapping her left hand in the tea towel. When Gran stepped back the stink wafted past her and hit me. The kittens must have been sick. Gary had put them right on top of Mum’s underclothes, and now the singlets and petticoats were covered in poo and vomit. Gran was staggering backwards, her hand over her mouth.

She lined us up in the kitchen again. Gary was still out.

‘Who put those kittens in your mother’s drawer?’

‘Gary did.’

‘Gary.’

‘Gary did it.’

‘It was Gary.’

‘I did,’ I said.

Gran had found a cardboard box and put the kittens in the hallway ready for Pop. From the kitchen we could hear the scratching of their claws trying to climb the inside walls of the box.

‘I did, and they’re my kittens, and I’m looking after them, and...’ I ran out of things to say.

‘Well, look at the job you’re doing,’ Gran said. ‘They’re half dead.’

When Pop came in to collect the kittens, I was leaning against the wall, crying.

‘They couldn’t help being born,’ I cried at Gran. ‘They can’t help it. They’re just babies, they can’t help it. It’s not fair.’

‘Fair?’ Gran said. ‘Fair, she says!’

The hessian bag Pop held was already squirming. He had found the box of kittens under the house as well. I started to sob.

‘Why do you have to kill them, Pop?’ I cried.

‘Oh no, we don’t kill them. No, we take them to the cat home, don’t we, love?’ He nodded at Gran.

For a moment I almost believed him.

‘Don’t lie to the girl,’ Gran said. ‘Look around, you silly girl. Does it look like your mother has money to throw away? She’s struggling to feed and clothe all of you, and you want to saddle her with a litter of kittens?’

‘I’ll use my pocket money to feed them. I’ll give them away when they’re old enough.’

‘I know perfectly well what will happen. You’ll love them for a day, then you’ll neglect them. They’ll end up on the streets, fighting and scavenging–vicious wild things. These poor animals are better off dead.’

Mum stood up. Her eyes were red.

‘Your Gran’s right,’ she said. ‘I haven’t got time to look after pets as well. I’m too tired, Anne. It’s too much.’

Mum put her hand over her eyes. She went back into her room and shut the door. Gran frowned, then picked up the hessian bag, gathered the kittens from the box and dropped them squealing into the bag.

‘Like that father of yours,’ Gran muttered. ‘He’s happy enough to father the children but now where is he all day and night? Gary’s running wild and your father does nothing. The social services are knocking on the door. You children don’t realise...’