The Home Girls (9 page)

“You're the gardener,” he said.

It became easier and easier as the evening ended not to talk about the visit or Annie and Peter.

“Do you want coffee?” she said when she was in her dressing gown and he had finished listening to a news commentary on the radio.

To herself she said: “It will be better than the stuff they gave us.”

She made the coffee as she usually did stirring a little cream in at the end and dusting it lightly with cinnamon.

“Soon be time to light a fire,” she said. “I'm dying to try out the fireplace.”

They have one too, she thought and saw in her mind the child sitting looking at it from the floor with its big red cheeks getting redder.

I wonder what he thought of the baby, she thought.

She stood up sharply and rinsed her cup at the sink.

“Do you have anything planned for tomorrow?” she asked.

In the silence before he answered she wondered if a free agent that he was in his job he would drop in on them without mentioning it.

Before she fell asleep she thought: The whole night passed without a word about them. Remarkable.

Even more remarkable was the weeks that passed after that without a word about them.

By then Louisa had put them quite a distance from her mind and ceased to look out for the truck when shopping in the town.

On a sunny, windy Wednesday she went off to post four letters she had written that morning.

They were long owed and she had written at length with some of her phrases still going round and round in her mind.
Frosts are beginning to breathe on us
, she wrote to her Aunt Cissie.
Little knife blades are coming up in the lawn. I can't wait to see what prize will be spiked on the end
.

Aunt Cissie would enjoy that. Louisa saw her showing the letter around and saying that Louisa had a way with words. “It's her way of describing her bulbs coming out.” Aunt Cissie would say.

Louisa in her oldish overcoat with the belt swinging ran up the Post Office steps and stopped dead when she came face to face with Annie standing near the post boxes.

Annie in a peaked tweed cap, thick sweater and nicely cut brown trousers had a large manila envelope in one hand and her child held on her hip by the other.

Louisa saw the address on the envelope. The Department of External Studies, University of —. The baby's leg covered the remainder but Louisa guessed it to be the University west of the range about two hundred miles off.

Something for him, she thought. No, it was a feminine hand, almost certainly Annie's.

“Hullo, Poppy Cheeks,” she said to the baby. Annie looked pleased, the baby moved its leg and Louisa got another look at the envelope.

The address of the sender in the top corner was Mrs Annie Pomfrey.

She was at University when she was engaged to Jim, Louisa remembered. She left when they broke it off. Now she is studying again.

Both women continued to look at the baby as if he were the only subject they had in common.

“He loves an outing,” Annie said.

The baby jigged as if in agreement and Annie laughed with pride as if here was further proof of his brightness.

“We must have you over,” Louisa said after a moment realizing it must be said.

“Thank you,” Annie said, hitching the child perhaps to say he was heavy and she wasn't going to stay there too long.

She turned to slip her letter into the post box and Louisa went into the office to buy her stamps.

I should have said goodbye or something, Louisa worried when the porch was empty of the two of them on her way out.

Even the truck was gone from the main street and Louisa felt a strange rejection as if Annie had cut short her stay in the town to be rid of her.

She fought an urge that night at dinner to bring up the subject of the Pomfreys.

I have held out this long why spoil it now, she thought wondering what there was to spoil.

She watched Jim eating his dessert noticing when his spoon cut deep into it how perfect was the layer of cake, jam, more cake and custard topping.

“Very nice indeed,” he said when he put his plate aside.

Pleased she got up and made up a plateful of cheese and crackers.

He went ahead of her into the living room and she carried in the coffee and set the tray on a table between their two big chairs. A lamp was on and the room looked homely and intimate with floorboards polished to a high shine under her scatter rugs, pottery jugs filled with berries and dried leaves, several small tables, the old-fashioned chiffonier and pictures grouped on the walls. Nothing expensive but tasteful and with an invitation to relax. She did, sipping her coffee and running her eyes over her possessions, resting them on the bookcase with books tightly packed on the shelves. Two were out, sitting on the cabinet below the shelves. Did she not put them back when she was dusting?

She stared obeying an impulse not to get up. After a while she could read the titles. A volume of Sheridan's plays and
The History of Greece
. A feeling washed over her. She looked at him but he was innocently reading the newspaper, a morning one printed in Sydney but not reaching the little town until later afternoon.

He folded a part he had read and put it aside.

“I read the paper more thoroughly now I don't see it till night,” he said.

She did not speak.

“I've finished with the news part,” he said.

She finished her coffee and went to the kitchen.

He is happier now, happier than he was before she thought looking around the kitchen trying to draw comfort from it but it seemed to recede from her. She filled the sink with hot water to wash up.

“Like some help?” he called out as he usually did.

“I'm OK,” she said, keeping her answer as brief as possible.

She always washed the dinner set herself, not trusting anyone else to handle the treasured pieces.

She got into her nightwear soon after that and only went once into the living room to collect his coffee cup and the tray.

“An early night?” he said seeing her in her gown over the edge of his paper.

He's become quite talkative, she thought in bed with the paper not so much to read but to coax on sleep.

The books were still there next morning after he had gone to work.

Just before he was due home for dinner she put them back, closing the glass doors and rubbing her duster around the wood.

She stared at the lock thinking of taking the key away, aware that she was not the kind of person to lose keys.

“Don't be foolish,” she said going into the kitchen.

The books stayed in their place the next day and the day after that.

After the weekend they were still there.

I must suggest going somewhere for a weekend or joining a group she told herself as if she were fighting some sort of nervous disorder.

A few days later she was in the kitchen wiping out the refrigerator when Peter appeared in the doorway in his farmer's overalls clasping a large pumpkin to his stomach.

“Goodness! Hullo!” she said opening the screen door to let him in.

The pumpkin wobbled to stillness on the kitchen table.

“For me?” she said “All of that?”

Without being asked he sat on the edge of one of the kitchen chairs with their tied-on frilled red check cushions.

She laid a hand on the grey-blue skin of the pumpkin as she might have touched a beautiful fur wrap.

“Pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup, pumpkin scones! And I'll preserve some,” she said.

“Bottled pumpkin?” he said looking at her shelves of preserves.

She took a knife from a drawer and when she went to cut it he got up and took the knife from her and slapped it through the skin cracking the pumpkin open as if it were some great nut.

The flesh was a deep rich orange running to meet the skin.

Wordlessly they stood admiring.

“Cut a wedge,” she said indicating where.

He did swiftly and cleanly and she took the piece to the sink.

“I'll make some scones now,” she said.

While she peeled the pumpkin she half-turned to continue talking to him.

She switched on the small electric cooker which she used only in emergencies, cooking most of the time on the wood stove.

“This is an emergency,” she said to herself.

“This is nice,” he said lifting his head and looking around the kitchen.

She thought of their place, the toys on the living room floor, the end of the dining room table cluttered and the bench near the sink piled with dishes, washed and unwashed. Wherever you looked there seemed to be the child's clothes.

She put the lid on the saucepan and wiped her hands.

“Come and see the rest of it,” she said.

“Oh, my,” he said looking with admiration around the living room standing in the doorway. When she turned and went into the bedroom he followed.

The bed was one she had bought at an auction sale of dark wood she had polished to a soft, warm lustre. He went to it and put a hand in some carving at the foot, smoothing the edges and glancing at the matching inlet on the other side.

“Perfect,” he said, “Perfect.”

He looked around at the dressing table with her things laid on it and past the high wardrobe to a small window near the ceiling.

He stared long at the frilled white curtains and she did not think it necessary to tell him she had made them.

“I threw out the old linoleum,” she said tapping the floor with her shoe. She had stained the boards and laid a beige-coloured rug near the bed.

Going out and crossing the front verandah he followed her.

She told him what she planned to do with the garden which ran steeply to the road. How she would plant ferns and vines and flowering cactus for colour in the summer and to hold the earth from slipping to the roadway.

“I'll work it all round these rocks,” she said, walking with him over them, emerging now from a mass of uncontrolled growth. As she spoke she bent and pulled at some grass ripping it away to show more rock. He bent and pulled it with her and she straightened holding the long loop of root against her skirt as if it were a bridal bouquet.

They looked down on the truck, its nose pointing to the town.

He started to move to the path leading to the road, head down and hands in his overall pockets.

Come in for a scone on your way home, she called silently to the back of his neck.

He turned his face.

“I'll call in on my way back for one of those scones,” he said.

She ran up to the house.

Oh lovely verandah, lovely old chair she said to herself passing them and hearing the tiny bubbling sound of the pumpkin cooking.

I really need to see more people, she thought tipping flour into a bowl. I'll ask him for some suggestions.

What did he do before the farming? she thought, seeing his hands again. That little scar near his ear. How did he get it? Oh, stop it, stop it, she said to herself slapping the dough harder than she should.

He did not call in on his way home.

She turned the scones from their tray and threw a tea towel over them and went and sat with her book on the verandah surreptitiously to watch for him.

When she went to the mirror later in the afternoon to do her hair she saw her sad eyes and her vacant face.

“Oh, this blasted long face!” she said as if it were to blame and snatching the brush to fluff up her fringe.

Next day he telephoned. She thought about such an event but never expected it knowing them to be still waiting for a phone to be connected.

He rang from the telephone booth at the Post Office.

“I didn't call in,” he said.

“You were short on time,” she said knowing by the silence following this was not true.

“How were the scones?” he said.

“Nice and light, a good colour.”

She heard the noise of a big truck rumbling through the town.

“I rang to say sorry I didn't call,” he said.

“That's OK,” she said, “Goodbye.”

She ran to the mirror and looked at her face.

“It's not too long after all,” she said, brushing the pieces of hair she had trained over her ears and turning her face to admire her jawline.

She lowered her eyes and tipped back her head the way Annie had done in the truck that day.

She darted out of the room smiling.

Next evening carrying the tray of coffee into the living room the books were out sitting on the cabinet again.

She stared at them standing by the table and Jim lifted his eyes from his paper to follow her gaze.

“Those books,” she said, “I thought I put them back on the shelves.”

He slapped his paper, not too hard.

“You're too damn fussy,” he said. “A couple of books out of a shelf!”

She sat and took up her coffee.

She sipped it, seeing Peter in the doorway looking with loving eyes on the room.

“Some people like order,” she said. “I for one.”

Him too, she thought laying the china cup on its saucer wondering if he would like the shape and pattern and when she could serve him coffee in it.

Jim in his chair saw her soft and happy face and felt contrite.

“I'm loaning those books to Annie Pomfrey,” he said.

“That's nice,” she said.

“She's studying by correspondence.”

“She seems clever,” she said.

She is so serene, he thought. Look at her hands, her beautiful hands. She never has to study, she does everything naturally. I've been so lucky.

He put down his cup and looked into the fire she had made with wood she had brought from the bush.

“It's a lovely fire,” he said.

“Yes,” she said staring dreamily into it.

He looked around the room.

“We'll have them over, don't you think?”

She smiled softly, beautifully, without looking at him.

“I think I can bear it,” she said.