Time's Long Ruin (36 page)

Mum had worked her way through the list, ticking each name, scribbling:
No, last seen just before Christmas at
Arndale shops
.

Liz pulled out another sheet of paper, neatly folded in half. She opened it and read.

Little Women
. Reviewed by Janice Riley 5C
After reading this book, I now think it's my favourite. It is set
a hundred years ago in America in a town where it is always
snowing and people are having fun throwing snowballs.

Liz could remember being woken by a noise and walking into the girls' room to find Janice beneath the sheets with a torch reading
Milly Molly Mandy
. She could remember pulling back the sheets and standing with her hands on her hips, saying, ‘This is why I can never get you up for school.'

‘Only four more pages.'

‘No.'

The four sisters live with their mother. Their dad is
off fighting in the Civil War – a little like my dad, off
selling linen in Keith and Ceduna. But at least my
dad comes home after a few days. Then he unloads the
stuff he couldn't sell from his boot and stores it in the
back shed.

Liz smiled. She could see them, a flannelette chain gang – Bill and their kids with their arms full of sheets and curtains and pillowcases, walking down the drive towards the back shed, as Bill whispered, ‘Now, don't tell anyone I'm storing them here.'

Anna asking, ‘Why not?'

Bill smiling. ‘They're gifts.'

‘For who?'

As he put a finger on his lips. ‘Loose lips sink ships.'

The story is by Louisa May Alcott, who was a lady writer
when there weren't many around. There are many more today
but that's a different story. I'd also like to be a writer, but I
doubt I could write anything as good as this. I did have a story
read on the ABC once. Dad says once you've been read on the
ABC you can call yourself a professional.

Liz smiled again, and then breathed deeply. She could see Janice at her desk, writing, throwing down her dictionary and then standing and dragging Gavin out of her room, saying, ‘Writers need quiet!' She could see Gavin hitting the door and Janice opening it and screaming, ‘Go away!'

She could remember saying, ‘Janice, there's no need for that.'

Liz folded and replaced the review under a few loose Lifesavers. This is where Janice kept them hidden, where she kept everything hidden from her family. She kept the drawer locked and hid the key under her mattress. But everyone knew where it was. Still, no one ever tried to have a nosy. No one dared. Maybe, even as a kid, there were parts of people's lives you sensed you had to leave alone, names you couldn't mention, topics you couldn't discuss, emotions that shouldn't, or couldn't, be fathomed.

Liz picked up another sheet of folded paper.

Dear Henry,
You are probably wondering why I'm writing you a letter,
seeing how I see you every day (and all day, sometimes). Well,
some things you can't say out loud. It's best to write them
down. And if you write them down, or read them, that doesn't
mean you have to talk about them . . .

And that was it.

What could she have been going to say? Liz wondered. You're my best friend? I really like you? I love you (what I mean is, like Beth loved Amy, and Jo loved Meg).

No, she mused, Janice would never say that.

And I can vouch for that. Janice wouldn't even touch me, and if she did she'd wipe the affected area back onto me and say, Ugh, boy germs. She'd never smile too wishfully or say anything that could be taken the wrong way. Her way of being my sister was by being with me. She never let me know how she felt, at least not in so many words – she never told me about how she used to threaten kids she'd seen doing an imitation of my limp.

So what could she have been going to write? Granted, it was a locked drawer, but Janice getting mushy?

There were other things in Janice's drawer – hair bands with long, brown hairs (Liz pulling them out and laying them across Janice's communion certificate, placing them carefully, individually, equally spaced – until a breeze scattered them everywhere). A list of toys (
Kathrin Whele, Stove set,
Tipe writer, Cards, Lewdo, Bombars
) and a recipe for chocolate crackles. There was a design for a billycart she'd always been talking about building, and some Cat's Eyes and Tom Bowlers, a list of books she'd always been meaning to read (
The Borrowers
and
What Katy Did
), paperclips, a ruler with a hole in the middle so she could spin it like a helicopter, a page of mostly correct long division (from when she'd first worked it out, years before we did it at school), a list of pet names (
Phantom,
Chief and Paddle Pop
– for the dog that Bill had been promising her for years), a melted Laxette, and a piece of paper that had been torn from a school reader:
Possible gifts for Mum – Night
at the Movies (I watch kids), Platters record, Diary, Foot powder,
Egg timer, Apron.

Liz stopped to think. Janice had never given her any of these. Maybe she'd changed her mind. Maybe these ideas had been superseded by the brooch she'd given her for her birthday – green, blue and white glass forming a picture of Mount Kosciusko.

I remember going with her to buy it, walking all the way to the jewellery shop at Arndale one rainy Friday afternoon, Janice asking the jeweller, How much for this, and how much for that, eventually just getting out her money and saying, What can I get with this?

A glass Kosciusko.

Janice clutched it in her hand as we walked home, wet from the rain, preparing to get in trouble for being nice.

Liz could remember meeting us at the front door. She could remember throwing open the flyscreen and growling at her daughter, ‘Now you'll get a cold, and you'll be off school for a week, and who'll look after you?' She could remember Janice producing a red satin bag with a gold drawstring, and grinning, and saying, ‘Happy birthday, Mum.' She could remember Janice's victorious expression. Then (yes, it was all coming back to her) she sighed and let her shoulders drop, and Janice said, ‘Mum, you're only a kid once, and for a very short time.'

Liz heard singing. She placed the drawer on Janice's bed and went to the window. Looking across the road she saw Rosa kneeling beneath the healing tree singing ‘Ave Maria', her head bowed, her hand resting on the altar.

The music continued, not with words (Rosa couldn't remember many) but in a sort of throaty vocalise. There was a soft, long roll of thunder that receded towards the west and faded. And again, Rosa's voice, howling, falling quiet and becoming loud, growling, breaking, stopping short of notes she couldn't reach.

And then Mum was beside Liz, putting her arm around her shoulders. ‘Come on,' she said, smiling.

They walked in step over the dry grass and crossed the road. Then they went into the Pedavolis' yard and knelt beside Rosa. She looked up, momentarily, and then took Liz's hand. Mum took her other hand. As for me, I wasn't budging from the lounge room. It was bad enough you had to sing along at church. An old woman in a smocked frock walked past carrying a string bag full of shopping. She stopped at Rosa's gate and watched them. Then she put her shopping down and walked into the yard – kneeling beside Liz, touching her on the shoulder and bowing her head.

It was a melody in four different keys, but it didn't matter. Everyone knew the tune, and that was enough. As the others continued humming and singing, Rosa started talking over them. ‘Lord, keep the children safe,' she said. ‘Return them to their mother. Tell them to hold each other, and protect each other, and smile and laugh and sing, wherever they are. Keep them together . . . in your arms.'

The thunder was getting louder. Liz stopped singing and started crying. Mum and the stranger tried to hold her.

Rosa continued invoking names. ‘Janice and Anna and Gavin, Alex and Kevin, Maureen and Sally and Beverley . . .' Children that none of us had met but maybe, she supposed, needed our blessing; children who fell from the branches of her healing tree, twisting and turning in the breeze and eventually settling on her path.

‘Hail Mary, full of grace,' she began, and they all joined in as best they could. Even me, getting it down pat by the fifth round.

‘Now and at the hour of our death.'

Dad and Bert pulled up outside 7A. I could see Bill in the back, sitting forward, looking over towards the healing tree. Before Dad had the handbrake on Bill was out, storming across the road in bare feet, his pants still rolled up, his face red and angry and tough like old mutton.

‘What good's that gonna do?' he asked, looking at Liz.

She looked up. ‘Have they found anything?'

‘What do you think? There's hundreds out lookin' and what are you doin'?'

Dad, leaving his door open, walked over to Bill and said, ‘Come on, let's go in and get cleaned up.' He touched Bill's arm but he shook it loose.

‘Why'd you let them go?' he asked.

Liz couldn't answer. She stood up, faced him and held out her hands. ‘Sonja was in the hospital, Bill.'

‘So what? So bloody what? You got any sense? What were you thinking?'

‘Bill . . .'

‘I don't want to hear it. I don't want to see your lousy bloody face. All you had to say was, No, you're not going. How hard's that? You're their mother.'

‘Bill . . .'

‘I never should've trusted you. You don't know what people are like. Even that fuckin' . . . bitch Sonja.'

Seeing as how it wasn't the first time.

It had been a hot December day, just after school had broken up, but before Christmas, when Sonja had taken Janice and Anna shopping in Rundle Street. They'd eaten a lunch of toasted sandwiches in the Myer cafeteria and then Sonja had said, ‘I need to look at some shoes. I'll be back in fifteen minutes, wait here.'

Fifteen minutes, an hour, two hours. Eventually the girl cleaning up the lunch dishes asked them, ‘Who are you girls with?'

‘Our aunt. She's looking at shoes.'

The girl returned to the servery and talked to her boss and they both looked over at the Rileys. An hour later a pair of young constables sauntered into the cafeteria. ‘You two look lost.'

The girls arrived home in a police car. Bill apologised, explaining, saying how it would never happen again. Then he got in his car and drove to Sonja's. He waited with Sonja's boyfriend until they got a call from Liz saying that Sonja was at their place. He drove home, shot into the driveway, slammed the door and stormed inside. ‘What the hell were you thinking, Sonja?'

‘I went back to look for them.'

‘Three hours later. Where were you?'

Crying, screaming, slammed doors.

Bill, still standing in Rosa's front yard, grabbed the afternoon's
The News
from Bert. He held it up and showed his wife the front page, the photo of their kids with arum lilies. ‘What do you think of that?' he asked her. ‘Now all of Adelaide knows. Now everyone's saying it, What the hell were their parents thinking? Well?'

Liz turned and ran up the path.

‘Well?' Bill called, throwing the paper after her. The pages scattered, floating and settling across Rosa's front lawn. Liz opened Rosa's front door and went inside. Rosa stepped forward, her face red and tight as she searched for words. ‘Bill, that doesn't help anyone.'

‘She shouldn't have let them go,' Bill repeated, pointing at the front door.

‘And if it had have been you?'

‘I wouldn't have let them go.'

He stopped, running his hand across his glowing forehead. ‘I use my judgement,' he whispered.

‘We all do, Bill.'

Bill shook his head. He wasn't convinced, but Rosa had the upper hand. Bert and Mum and Dad, and even the stranger, were with her. He turned and walked across the road, looking back as he entered his family home.

‘Nothing?' Mum asked Dad.

‘Bugger all,' he replied. ‘Apart from this fella in the blue bathers.' He picked up the front page and started reading the article aloud.

As he read, Liz, sitting in the front room on Rosa's bed, listened. She barely breathed, sensing it might distort the meaning of the words. For a while, as Dad read out the man's description, she didn't know what to make of it. Then she saw him, tall and bronzed, standing on the beach in his brief blue bathers. ‘Jesus,' she muttered, before slipping from the bed, collapsing onto a worn rug with a thud. Mum ran inside, and Dad slowly followed, wondering how he'd explain.

Rosa was left alone with Bert and the stranger. Together they started picking up the pieces of paper. ‘That a stew you got on?' Bert asked.

‘Would you like some?' Rosa replied.

He smiled. ‘Would I? Ha!'

Bill was watching them from his lounge room. He stood silently with a beer in his hand. Now the breeze was cold and it smelt of rain. He closed the window and sat down, looking at his reflection in the grey-green television screen.