Three Summers (9 page)

She'd never been anywhere and yet when she was a child in the orphanage she'd look out the window at the full moon riding in the sky and felt absolutely certain that one day she'd see every marvellous place in the world, that one day she'd find the real true thing.

As if he had read her mind, the old man rumbled, ‘Are you sure it's not you doing all the wanting, Margaret May?'

Wanting. With startling clarity she saw Don's wrist, the triumphant flick of it, turning the knob of the radio away from the broadcast of
Romeo and Juliet
that she'd been waiting for all week, ever since she'd seen it advertised in the radio pro–gramme. They'd done the play at school, she'd loved it; she could still hear Sister Anselm reciting in her beautiful clear voice, ‘
My child is yet a stranger in the world
—' How those words had struck her then, when she was young. It was how she'd felt, always – a stranger in the world.

The night of the programme she'd got the kids to bed early – they were still little then – and settled down to listen to the radio in the kitchen. The play had got no further than Juliet begging her mother to delay the marriage, when Don had come up from the storeroom and stalked in through the door. ‘What's this?'

‘It – it's a play. It's
Romeo and Juliet
.'

‘Bloody snobs' rubbish!'

Flick.
Tinny dance music had filled the room. ‘There, that's better,' he'd said.

She'd never bothered to check through the radio pro–gramme again.

After a while you stopped wanting things. She didn't want Ruth ever to stop wanting things.

‘Maidie?' the old priest was saying.

‘I want Ruth to have a profession,' she repeated stubbornly.

He shifted in his chair, leaned forward to her again. ‘But don't you see, Maidie, how it makes the man feel shamed when the wife has a job outside the house? People think he can't support his wife and family, they talk.'

‘People will talk about anything.'

‘Ah—' he spread his hands in sympathy, ‘but it makes him feel useless, Maidie.'

‘The more fool him!' she cried. They glared at each other. ‘I want her to get away from all that!'

The priest exploded. ‘Did Our Blessed Lady want to get away?' he demanded. ‘Did Our Lady's mother, the blessed Saint Anne, want her daughter to have a profession? And yet the angel came to Mary, uneducated as she was, and she bore a child, and wasn't that child our dear Lord Jesus, the light of all the world?'

Somewhere in the house the telephone was ringing. Father Joseph stopped shouting and listened. The shrilling ceased, and in the silence that followed they both heard the housekeeper's voice saying, ‘Saint Columba's Presbytery, Mrs Ryan speaking.' Then there was another small silence in which they both heard footsteps approaching down the hall. A tap on the door.

‘Come in,' roared Father Joseph. The door opened and Mrs Ryan's pink face, timid as a sugar mouse, peered round.

She frowned at Margaret May and turned towards the priest. ‘That was Mr Lester on the phone, Father.'

‘Yes, yes,' said Father Joseph impatiently. ‘Tell him I'll call him back later, would you, Mrs Ryan?'

‘He wants to know if you've spoken to the boy.'

Father Joseph shifted his weight in the chair. ‘Tell him I have.'

‘Yes, Father. And would you be wanting tea?'

‘Maidie?' he asked, and Mrs Ryan gave the visitor another frown.

‘No, thank you,' said Margaret May.

‘And you, Father?' the housekeeper persisted.

‘No thank you, Mrs Ryan.'

When the door had closed behind the housekeeper Margaret May said in a low, passionate voice, ‘So this is your kindness!'

He looked bewildered. ‘Eh?'

‘When I was little, at the orphanage, there was this day I told you the nuns were cruel to us—'

‘You were a
child
!' He waved his hand dismissively, but she refused to be put off in this way.

‘You said sorrow makes us cruel, and that one should always try to have kindness in this world.'

‘You've a memory on you like an elephant, Maidie.'

‘I'm glad of it,' she said. ‘It helps when you're trying to work things out.' She leaned forward. ‘So do think spoiling a young girl's great chance in life is kindness, Father Joseph?'

He was ready for her. ‘It's kindness all right, Margaret May, for I'm not spoiling the girl's chances, I'm trying to prevent her
being
spoiled.'

She rose from her chair. ‘
I
was spoiled,' she said bitterly. ‘I was spoiled, Father, and it wasn't education or Sydney University that spoiled me.' She picked up her basket and walked out of the study, straight down the hall.

Mrs Ryan was dusting the statue of Saint Peter that stood by the front door. She glanced up avidly as Margaret May swept past.

Father Joseph walked out of the study. ‘Margaret May!' he called, and then more softly, ‘Maidie.'

The old name got to her. She turned. He was standing there rubbing his hands together, and the rasp of his dry skin was the only sound in the hall. ‘The good Sisters,' he said placatingly, ‘the ones you mentioned back in there, from the old place—'

‘What of them?'

‘Do you know where the poor souls are buried, Maidie?'

She shook her neat head.

‘Way out the back of Ivanhoe, that's where. Ah, it's a terrible spot, Maidie! Not a tree in sight, the wind blowing, and the dust and sand, and those big old tumbleweeds careening across the graveyard like imps loosed out from Hell. You wouldn't wish a resting place like that on any poor soul.'

There was something strangely beseeching in his voice, as if he wanted her pity, not for those long-dead Sisters, but for himself.

‘I'm sorry for them,' said Margaret May. Glancing down at her basket, she noticed the bunch of basil still there, and held it out to Mrs Ryan. ‘It's some fresh basil for Father Joseph's tomatoes,' she said.

Sensing forgiveness, the priest's face lit up with a smile. ‘Your basil and my tomatoes, Maidie!' he exclaimed, rubbing his hands again. ‘A feast fit for a king!'

Over the distance of the hallway, Margaret May looked her old friend straight in the eye. ‘My Ruthie's going to Sydney University,' she told him, ‘and there's nothing you can say will change our minds!' Her voice rang strong and confident, but as she went down the path and out through the front gate a sense of loss gathered in her heart and seemed to fill the very air she breathed, so that sudden tears came welling in her eyes.

eight

When Ruth arrived at Fee's house a little after twelve there was no one at home; Fee hadn't got back from Dubbo, and her mother was out as well. The rain was gone and the sun was blazing; her damp hair and clothes had dried but she could feel the sticky tear tracks on her cheeks. She hurried round to the garden tap to wash her face, then kicked off her sandals and sat on the edge of the verandah to wait, swinging her feet in the ferns below and humming the melody of Tam Finn's hymn which had crept inside her head.

Tam Finn. A small sudden sob jumped up from her throat. ‘Oh, shut up,' she told herself angrily. He'd been teasing her, that was all. Playing with her; spreading his blue shirt on the ground to keep her from the damp, reaching his hand out, seizing her ankle and then letting her go, jumping up so she'd think he was coming after her. He hadn't really wanted to come after her. It was – another small sob burst from her – it was humiliating. Ruth looked out along the empty street. All the way here she'd been longing to tell Fee what had happened down in Starlight Lane, but now she was glad there'd been no one at home. When you were upset and started talking to people you sometimes told them things you later wished you hadn't: like how, when he'd taken that blue shirt off and beckoned her to lie down with him, secretly she'd wanted to, and when she was running through the rain she'd wanted him to be there right behind her, wanted him to catch her; when she'd turned and found the lane empty her heart had dropped like a stone.

What if Mrs Lachlan had been home and heard them talking? What if Mrs Lachlan had passed on the story to Nan? She had a sudden image of Tam Finn from long ago, a small boy in a white shirt standing between his father and old Mrs Finn in the front pew at Saint Columba's. People had loved him then, the little boy from
Fortuna
; they had smiled when he walked into the church, holding his grandmother's hand. Now they hated him, even those girls who'd gone with him for a little while.

‘I hate him, I hate him,
I hate him
!' Meg Harrison had bawled in the washroom at Barinjii High after Tam Finn had dumped her. ‘I hate him more than anyone in the whole world! He's got no
heart
! I hope he goes to Hell!'

‘Oh, he'll do just fine in Hell,' Helen Hogan had said. ‘He'll get on really well with the devil. They're two of a kind, maybe.'

There
was
something a bit scary about Tam Finn – the way he'd talked about the snake ring and how he was swallowing himself had frightened her. And those strange rain-coloured eyes: they gave you this feeling there was another person hidden in there down beneath the rain. But that person wasn't the devil, he was more like a shabby importunate stranger waiting outside a door. She thought of his long fingers twisting the ring, his thinness, when the blue shirt had blown back against his chest—

They shouldn't all hate him. She swallowed, picturing the hatred of Barinjii like a great black wave sweeping after him over the paddocks, engulfing him. Someone should love him. Someone should. Not Helen Hogan, but—

A sudden noisy racket filled the quiet street and she looked up and saw Mattie's old Holden lurching down the road. It shuddered to a stop outside the front gate, engine still revving, because if you turned it off it wouldn't start again. The passenger door flew open and Fee burst out onto the footpath. ‘No, no, no, don't stop! You've got to pick your dad up, remember? Go! Go! Go!' The car roared off again and Fee stood waving and blowing kisses till it disappeared around the corner, trailing clouds of gritty smoke. Then she came racing up the path, yellow hair flying, arms stretched out towards her friend. ‘Oh, Ruth! Ruthie! I'm so sorry! We had a flat just outside Dubbo, could you believe?'

‘I believe.'

‘And then Mattie couldn't get it to start again, not for ages. And the spare's nearly had it, and that wheel's got a bit of a wobble anyway, so we had to drive slowly—' She broke off and peered into her friend's face. ‘Are you all right?'

‘I'm all right,' said Ruth. ‘I haven't been to Dubbo in an old, old Holden.' She got up from the verandah and pushed her hair back, smiling – simply to look at Fee, to see her happiness like sunshine, made her feel better. ‘Why did you think I wasn't? All right, I mean.'

‘I don't know. For a moment, when I was coming in the gate, I thought you looked sort of—' Fee stepped back for a moment and surveyed her friend again, ‘different, like something had happened.'

‘Nothing's happened. I went for a walk and got a bit hot, that's all.'

‘You're crazy, going walking in this heat.' Fee swung the door open on a long cool hall. ‘Let's get inside; you lie down on the sofa like a princess and I'll get you a cold drink.'

‘I'm all right, honest,' said Ruth, but already Fee was gone, and from the kitchen came the sounds of the fridge opening and closing, the clink of china against glass; and then a brief silence broken by a small, soft scream. ‘Aaah!'

‘Fee?' Ruth ran into the kitchen, where Fee was standing in the middle of the floor, a scrap of paper in her hand. Her face was white and the band of gold freckles across the bridge of her nose had gone dark. ‘Mum's left me a message,' she said in a low, shaky voice, holding the paper out to Ruth, her eyes wide and round. ‘She says – she says they've
come
! Look! They're there!' She pointed to a long white envelope lying on the table.

‘The results,' said Ruth. ‘Yes, I know.'

‘You
know
? Why didn't you
tell
me?'

‘I forgot.' It was true. Tam Finn had driven all of that from her mind.

‘You forgot!' Fee slapped her forehead. ‘I don't believe it! Ruth Gower forgetting about exam results!'

Ruth pointed to the envelope lying on the table. ‘Aren't you going to open it?'

Fee did a funny little hopping dance on the tips of her toes. ‘No! No, I can't! I can't touch it! You do it, Ruthie, please!'

Ruth picked up the letter from the table. ‘Will I open it?'

‘Open it,' said Fee.

Taking a small knife from the kitchen drawer, Ruth slid the blade beneath the flap of the envelope. There was a soft ripping sound. She drew out the pages and held them towards Fee, but Fee clasped her hands behind her back and shook her head.

‘You're not going to look at it?' said Ruth. ‘Ever? You're going to be this old, old lady who tells everyone, “I never knew the results of my final exams . . .”?'

‘No, I'm not
that
bad. But you read them for me, okay? My hands are shaking like anything, I couldn't even hold it properly. It doesn't matter what's in there anyway, I'm totally, absolutely sure I've failed.'

‘And I'm sure you haven't.'

‘Yes, I
have
.' Fee tossed her head and the heavy hair went
flap, flap,
against her shoulderblades. ‘And I don't care, really. Stupid old exams!' But then she sighed, and her whole body appeared to falter and fold a little into itself, so that she seemed suddenly smaller. ‘Mum and Dad will care, though,' she said. ‘And Gran. Gran especially. She says a girl always needs something up her sleeve.'