A Descant for Gossips (26 page)

‘I hate you!'

‘All right, Ruth, think of that next time you pass Nev's and book up lots and lots of cosmetics. Have a wallow. And I swear I'm not going to argue any further or answer one more damned question.'

‘It's rather squalid, isn't it, Frank? I mean being caught up at the Bay like that. And don't forget Harold saw them together in Brisbane.'

Frank Rankin heaved his feet on to another chair.

‘Poor show, with his wife ill, too.'

‘Think she'll get better?' Freda asked. She didn't really care one way or another except as the fact affected the scandal.

‘No hope.' Rankin loved definite diagnosis. ‘The paralysis is too advanced. Three months maybe, if she's lucky.' He called it being lucky in spite of knowing the whole progress of her illness. ‘Certainly no more.'

‘I suppose Herc's really laying in stock for the lean times.'

‘Oh, I think the whole business – between Herc and Striebel, that is – has been going on longer than we suspect.'

‘Frank, you know we make a point of suspecting back further even than that.'

‘Witty old thing,' he said admiringly. ‘Pour another for yourself, darling.'

‘Do you think so?' Jess Talbot countered. ‘Alec, did you ever notice her hands? And so often had half an inch of slip dangling. That's unforgivable, in my opinion.'

‘Couldn't I please hear the Vivaldi? Please?'

‘Well, they're reaping their reward.'

‘Please, Jess.'

‘They might have been interesting to a Bohemian clique, but they certainly weren't the type I'd ever have chosen as friends.'

Alec Talbot snapped the radio switch down. ‘There,' he said. ‘Satisfied?'

‘You're being bad-tempered and inconsiderate, Alec,' his wife said. ‘And you know I like Vivaldi.'

‘That's what I said a while back, Robert. I can hardly wait for our separation because the waiting itself is so painful.'

Moller had not let her go once as they lay in the darkness. He spoke with his lips placing words like kisses in the hollow between jaw and ear.

‘Aloneness. A very special problem,' he said. ‘No carrion comfort until we met. Ah, my dear. The aloneness is going to make our togetherness an extreme of pleasure.'

No answer in the dark, in the dream within shadow and the warmth in his arms.

‘Who's crying now?' he asked, suspecting. ‘Don't let's talk any more, Helen. Not for a while.'

Twelve

Road into town once more on a Saturday of sunlight; and hope was the straw clutched at, the ticket in the lottery, the six chances for a shilling with the bamboo hoops. Hope kept the head raised and the eyes observant of the town-dwellers shopping and post-lolling, restored the senses of sight and hearing and taste and smell, sweetly, temporarily until hope secured the prize for itself, the fact in the pocket for the homeward journey.

Vinny had lived since Thursday hope-buoyed and fed, waiting for Saturday with an impatience that was almost pleasant. She had not gone to school on Friday, the fact that she had fainted the previous afternoon being sufficient argument for her mother, but had stayed in bed alternating moods of despondency with cheerfulness, picking at meals and dozing into calm from which she invariably awakened with a tug of apprehension. She tried not to worry. She tried to give herself respite from her panic by holding off all thought of her problem until Saturday should resolve it one way or another. She was only partly successful. Her hands kept creeping fearfully to her stomach and feeling it with a controlled dread. Friday was a no man's land, the time between despair and hope in their essence, the waiting hours that do not exist even in memory, once they have been crossed.

On Saturday morning she came to breakfast more nervous but happier than she had felt for days. It was only days, she had to keep assuring herself. It felt like weeks and months and years. Her mother looked at her closely as she turned the chops frying in the pan. They made a heavenly smell and sizzling noise and Vinny realised with surprise that it was the first time for nearly a week that the sight of cooking food had given her any pleasure – or that she had even noticed what she would be eating, for that matter.

Her mother drained the fat expertly into a tin.

‘You look a whole lot better, Vin,' she said. ‘There's no denying a day in bed sets you up when you feel no good.'

Royce grinned as he spooned huge mouthfuls of cereal, and began to speak when a glare from his mother silenced him.

‘I'm okay, mum, thanks,' Vinny said. She ate her breakfast without saying any more, wondering anxiously how she would be able to go to the township without her mother probing her with question upon question. Cunningly she decided not to mention it until that exact moment when she was preparing to leave, and then to give away nothing of her actual purpose. After she had finished her breakfast she filled in the morning doing her home-lessons, wrestling with the abstraction that was now an accustomed part of her. At half-past eleven she went to her bedroom to change into a clean dress. The quilt, the dressing-table, the wardrobe, and especially the stared-at ceiling and walls, all seemed to bear the imprint of her pain. She felt that never again would these four shabby walls hold her in quite the same innocent way, they would remind her again and again of the tears shed, the sleeplessness, the insanity of shame and guilt.

‘Where are you off to,' Mrs. Lalor asked when Vinny came back to the breakfast room, ‘all cleaned up and smart?'

Now the moment had arrived Vinny found that she had developed a glibness for her self-protection that amazed her. Persecution has peculiar off-shoots.

‘I want a new homework book,' she lied. The smoothness of her tongue gave her a feeling of pride. She had never lied deliberately to her mother before. ‘I want to get one before the shops close.'

‘Oh,' her mother said. For the moment she could not put her finger on what gave her an impression of oddness in the girl's remark. She shook her head as if to shake off some of the worries nesting in her untidy hair. ‘You'll want some money then, won't you?'

‘Yes, please.'

‘Well, here's two shillings. And don't be late back. We're having lunch soon.'

Lunch soon can look after itself, Vinny thought. Lunch soon or now or never, and the excuses when I'm late can look after themselves, too. I'll say there was a crowd in the paper shop. Something. Something will come.

Casuarina, fig-tree ramparts along the hill and the rain-brimming creek curling cleanly under the footbridge were unseen landmarks as she hurried towards the morning's comfort. She came up by the hotel just as the rail-motor was pulling in at the station, emptying the bumped and rattled bodies with their stiff legs on to the platform. She did not notice. Purpose propelled her single-mindedly to the hotel where it squatted, roaring like a lion with the morning drinkers, packed with starting-price punters and farmers in for the Saturday beer while their wives did the shopping, under the shelter of the upstairs balcony that projected over the footpath the earth had been beaten flat by at least a quarter of the town. Cars and trucks fringed the road like boats along a jetty, and the patrons spilled their packed numbers out on the path, where they stood clutching their schooners and testing their geniality.

Vinny felt nervous about going into the hotel. The ranks of red faces frightened her in their sacred, packed male preserve. She had never entered the hotel before, though sometimes when the bar was empty she had stopped for a minute to gaze in at the wide dark stairs marching upwards, and turning on the landing and then marching up again. The sombreness of the brown linoleum in the hall, the grey air, and behind the stairs, on the ground floor, the number of doors closed or half-open, impressed her as a kind of magnificence. The majestic backdrop of sin. That was how she saw it.

She hesitated at the door, afraid to enter but longing to achieve her purpose. Mrs. Striebel would be waiting for her with kindness wrapped like a gift for her to take away. Two men standing near the bar entrance were watching her curiously and she turned her head quickly when she noticed them.

‘Hey, girlie, watcha want?' one of them asked kindly.

Vinny looked round unsmilingly. ‘I want to see someone,' she answered.

‘Hey, Joe!' The man stuck his head in the door and roared down the length of the bar, his voice hurtling over the long room of wedged voices and bodies. ‘Hey, Joe! Girl here wants to see yuh!'

Farrelly bustled down the bar, wiping automatically the splashes and wet rings from the wooden counter. He handed the damp rag to the yardman, who always helped out on Saturdays. ‘Keep it going,' he said, ‘and watch that change. I'll be back in a minute.'

He went outside, puzzled when he found a thin, red-headed girl waiting timidly on the footpath. For a moment he couldn't place her, and then he remembered she was one of old George Lalor's brood. Youngest, she must be, he reflected. It's years since George left town. There went a special part of the Railway Hotel income. Ah, well.

‘Yes?' he asked, trying to smile kindly, and not succeeding. He had been a publican too long. ‘What's the trouble?'

‘Please,' Vinny said. ‘Please, I want to see Mrs. Striebel. She asked me to come and see her.'

‘Mrs. Striebel,' Farrelly said. He looked hard at her. ‘Didn't you know? She's gone.'

‘She's gone?' Vinny said, automatically repeating his words.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Gone. Went first thing this morning on the rail-motor. Thought you'd know. You're up at the school, aren't you?'

Vinny didn't answer. The whole morning, the bright, the golden, had turned black as pain, was the straw floating away, the lottery drawn and lost, the hoops flung uselessly with the prizes tantalisingly close and unattainable. She felt nothing but a numbness as the shock of the words spread an aching cold over her body. She became nothing, whirling and spinning round foolishly as a dandelion ball in the wind. She opened her mouth to ask a question and the words squeezed out thin as a dream-cry.

‘Where to?'

Farrelly was startled by the sudden whiteness of her face. She looked as if she might fall over.

‘Are you all right?' he asked, hating her for delaying him, wanting to get back to the bar.

‘Where to?' Vinny repeated.

‘Camooweal. She's been transferred. Didn't you kids know?'

Vinny could not answer him. It would be public admission of Mrs. Striebel's treachery in not telling them. She couldn't understand why they hadn't been told. Everyone liked her. She shook her head silently. Funnily, it wouldn't stop shaking for nearly a minute. She had to make a very strong effort to control its spastic jerks. Farrelly watched her, wondering what was the matter and feeling unexpectedly sorry for her in spite of his impatience.

Vinny raised her pale eyes and looked at his, at the face fatigued with its own striving after money, after the swift deal, the cut here and the gain there.

‘She had a book for me,' she said. ‘I came to get the book. Did she give it to you to give me?'

‘No,' Farrelly said, shifting his feet impatiently. ‘What sort of book was it?'

‘Just a book' – becoming once more as cautious as a cat.

A flush of irritability prickled right through Farrelly's being. He really couldn't stay here chattering with kids. ‘Look,' he said, ‘I haven't been up to her room. She only went a couple of hours ago. Would you like to go up and see if she's left it for you?'

Hope flared. Another ticket was pressed miraculously into the hand, the hoops were handed round again.

‘All right,' she said.

Farrelly turned away, relieved at getting the business out of his hands and into someone else's. That was the way he had run his whole life when things were proceeding unprofitably for him. Going inside to the foot of the stairs, he called Allie.

‘Come on,' he said to Vinny. ‘Come on in. I'll get Allie to take you up. You can have a look round Mrs. Striebel's room and see if she's left it for you.'

Allie clumped towards them from the upper storey and stood resentfully on the landing.

‘What is it?' she asked. ‘I was jus' goin' to start the polisher, Mr. Farrelly.'

‘It won't take more than a minute,' Farrelly said apologetically. It wasn't easy to get maids these days. Girls were getting above themselves. ‘I want you to take young – what's your name, girl?'

‘Vinny Lalor.'

‘Here's young Vinny Lalor wants to go up and see if Mrs. Striebelleft a book for her in her room. You haven't found anything, have you?'

‘Me?' Allie said. Her fat, normally good-natured face was oily with sweat, and annoyance pouted her mouth. ‘I haven't been in yet. Too busy.'

‘Well, take her up and have a look,' Farrelly said. ‘I've got to get back to the bar.'

He rushed off thankfully. Saturday serving was a divine office.

Vinny and Allie stared at each other. This was the one, Vinny recalled, who had got into trouble last year. She knew because she had overheard her mother and Mrs. Gilham talking about her going to Brisbane. Superstitiously Vinny decided that some external force had brought them suitably together for this last humiliation.

‘C'mon,' Allie said abruptly. ‘I got too much to do here as it is.'

Wearily Vinny followed her up the stairs, hopelessly hoping. Here was the corridor along which Mrs. Striebel had moved. It meant nothing. It was merely a dim passage running away from her to left and right with lots of little brown rectangles for doors stamped on it. Allie opened one of them – it did not matter which, and inside in the shadow they both gazed at the bare furniture, the bed with its mattress rolled back, and on it a pile of used bed linen all neatly folded. The wardrobe door swung open on three dangling coat-hangers that underlined the emptiness of the room. Everything spelt departure.

‘Have a look inside,' Allie said. ‘It might be inside.'

Vinny moved hopelessly across the room, opened the wardrobe door fully and peered in. Nothing. Nothing but a sheet of newspaper on the floor and some mothballs rolled into the corners.

‘Nothing,' Vinny said. ‘There's nothing there.'

She looked across at the wash-stand, but there was only a soiled runner on it, and on the shelf below a waterjug with a broken handle. She stood dazedly in the centre of the room, tasting a despair so dreadful she did not care how foolish she might appear.

Allie looked at her oddly.

‘What sorta book, love?'

‘Just a book.'

‘Maybe she forgot an' took it with her.'

‘No,' Vinny said. And it was worse remembering this, because it was so true. ‘No, she never forgot anything. She always used to do what she said.'

‘You haven' tried the dressing-table,' Allie said. ‘Try the dressing-table, love. You never know. She might have jus' popped it in one of them drawers.'

Hope flickered like a match and lit Vinny's search in the top drawer. It was empty. So was the middle one, and Vinny had difficulty putting it back in position because the wood was warped. She pulled the bottom drawer out and her heart leapt convulsively, for at one end there was a heap of things shoved to one side. She squatted on the floor and pulled the drawer right out to see better. There was a pile of unmarked geometry papers, a belt, an odd glove, and the china basket of flowers she had given Mrs. Striebel.

Vinny's thoughts were tumbled every way in a sickening incoherence as she looked at it, as she swung in a mental fun-fair razzle-dazzle: Something in her throat seemed to be hitting her violently, bringing her to the point of choking. Her lovely gift – it was more than that – it was herself – had been left behind as a thing of no value, equal with test papers and bits of unwanted clothing. The basket shimmered in the light from the hotel veranda as she and Allie looked into the drawer, and Allie ravished by the gilt cried out with pleasure.

‘Ooh!' she exclaimed. ‘Mrs. S. musta lef' that behind. Fancy leaving a pretty thing like that! Lemme see.'

She edged Vinny aside and bent down to pick up the basket and set it on the dressing-table where it wobbled and fell over.

‘Gee, it's brummy,' she said, but she picked it up again and examined with her head on one side and her eyes taking in every detail like a bird. ‘It's pretty, though. Gee, it's pretty!'