Book of Lost Threads (22 page)

That was one of only three occasions when his mother had entrusted him with a secret. The second time occurred when he was about fourteen, and she was helping him to pack for the new school term. The Major, of course, was nowhere to be seen.
There’s women’s work and there’s men’s work
, he always said.

‘Sandy,’ his mother approached him timidly. ‘I need to ask a favour.’ His nod was neutral, but she continued. ‘I’m afraid it means keeping a secret from your father.’ Sandy’s reading had recently taken on a racier tone.
Good Lord
, he thought,
was
his mother going to confess to an affair?
He foolishly hoped she was. These romantic hopes were dashed when she gave him a letter to be sent to the Melbourne Hospital for Women, in which, she told him, she was making enquiries as to the possible whereabouts of Lily’s baby’s grave.

‘Men don’t understand these things,’ Rosie said. ‘I’m afraid your father might think I’m an interfering fool.’ She looked steadily at her son. ‘I’ve asked that the reply be sent care of you, at school. You can give it to me when you see me at half-term. Will you help me, Sandy? It’s for Aunt Lily.’

Sandy was really afraid of his father by that time, and he visualised the consequences of participating in this deception. He wanted to say no, and that she was a fool to risk discovery.

What made her think she could trust him not to tell? But she did trust him, and after all the times he had implicitly or explicitly sided with his father, this was a rather wonderful foolishness. For once he felt worthwhile.

‘Okay,’ he said roughly. ‘Give it here. I’ll post it from the station. It’s alright, I won’t tell the old man.’ But he pulled away as she kissed him.

The third time, just before her death, Rosie told him about the books in the window seat. ‘My journals,’ she whispered, still afraid. ‘I had no-one to talk to, you see. Please destroy them for me.’

Again, ‘Okay, Mum.’ But his voice was kinder. ‘I’ll do the right thing, I promise.’

When the time came, though, Sandy couldn’t bring himself to destroy the journals. They were all he had left of his mother’s life, and he safeguarded them from all prying eyes, including his own. So they lay where she left them: under the cushions in the window seat. Biding their time until her son came, screwdriver in hand, to retrieve them.

Sandy hadn’t made this decision lightly, and had set himself some ground rules. Firstly, he would only access the book or books from around the time the letter was sent to the hospital. Then he would scan the entries as quickly as possible, looking for keywords like
baby
,
Lily
,
hospital
,
letter
,
grave
—words that would point to the information he was seeking. In all other ways, he would respect his mother’s privacy. He was only doing this to help Aunt Lily, he told his mother.

There were nearly thirty books in all, stacked in three neat piles; some were covered in black or green or blue cloth, others were no more than exercise books, but all were meticulously dated. Some were tied with ribbon. Sandy’s hand hovered over these. They were the earlier ones, when Rosie was still a hopeful young girl. He picked up the top book and, despite his vow to the contrary, couldn’t resist reading a little of his mother’s early married life. The first book was marked 1936, and Sandy was surprised at the emotion he felt as he scanned the first page.

12 March. Arrived home today. Our honeymoon was
wonderful but I can’t wait to settle into real married life. Father and Lily met us at the station. Lily had prepared tea
but George said we had to go straight home. I think they were
a little disappointed, but George was understandably eager
to bring me to our home. He’s so practical. I asked if he was
going to carry me over the threshold and he said that it was
all women’s nonsense. But he kissed me and called me his little
duffer. I can’t believe that I live in such a fine house. It needs a
woman’s touch, though.

13 March. George was gone when I woke but last night he
was very masterful as we . . .

Sandy snapped the journal shut and mentally begged his mother’s pardon. He felt he might be on safer ground in the war years and shuffled through the pile to find 1943.

12 May. George has returned to camp, and I feel such relief. It is a sin, I know, to feel so about one’s husband. He has very little patience now with his little duffer. I feel he has lost all
affection for me, and if it weren’t for the conjugal act I fear
he would barely tolerate me. Thank God I have been able to
provide him with a son.

13 August. I went with Father to visit Lily today. My sister
is so unhappy in that place. If ours were a different household I
would bring her straight home and care for her here. Why must
good men like Arthur die in this horrible war while George . . .

14 August. I am so ashamed of my entry for yesterday. George
is an excellent provider and we want for nothing. I pray that
he will return safely.

Be careful what you pray for
, Sandy thought grimly. So it had taken only five short years for his father to reduce his new bride to the timid, apologetic ghost he remembered. He was sickened, but a dreadful fascination impelled him to continue. He picked up the next volume and opened it at random.

19 June. I couldn’t go to church today. My back still aches from
George’s blows. He would have forced me to go with him but
my cheek is bruised from where he pushed me down the steps. He’s usually more careful. Now he blames me for bruising
where it might show. I’m not able . . .

Sandy sat in the room that had been his mother’s refuge and felt a terrible desolation. There, in his mother’s handwriting, was the truth he had always denied. For the first time since his father’s death, he looked, really looked, at his childhood. He saw his mother’s pretty face become more ravaged, more haggard, as she strained to please her jeering, violent husband. He saw the warning in her eyes, felt the protective hands tighten on his small shoulders, tasted the treats she offered to sweeten the bitterness of their lives. Ashamed, he heard his youthful self speaking to her in his father’s voice. He saw the bruises and the tears he’d chosen to ignore. Yes, he had been a frightened child at first, but as he grew older, he’d joined the oppressor. He could have found a job and taken his mother away, but he was too craven, and in the end too complicit, to challenge his father’s power. And now, he realised, he was planning to build a memorial to the war hero who abused his own wife and all but stole her child.

Sandy had disciplined his memories for years, refusing to face the truth of his past. Occasionally dreams or rogue memories breached his defences, but he learned to put them aside, unaware of a slag heap of suppressed emotion that was becoming dangerously unwieldy. Now it collapsed, and he was horrified to see the slimy, eyeless creatures that lay hidden there.

Unable to continue reading, he went down to the kitchen and made a coffee laced with a generous portion of whisky. Then he sat on the sofa and had three more whiskies, neat this time. Finally, he went to bed with the bottle and fell into a drunken sleep.

The next day he awoke with a dry mouth and throbbing head, cursing the whisky, which always gave him a hangover, even when drunk in moderation. He made some strong coffee and went outside. The morning was crisp and clear, with some frost evident on the ground, on which there were pathetically few green shoots. The sky was cloudless: a hard, uncompromising blue. A flock of marauding galahs was attacking the old wooden shed by the home paddock. He thought of getting his shotgun—
I’ll blow them to pink and grey pieces
—but he was too weary to move. Instead, he sat on the verandah and gazed out at the dry, flat terrain.
I
am
a great galah. You were right there,
Dad. Maybe I should use the shotgun on myself. I’m just a great,
useless galah.

Staring out across the paddocks, he ignored the phone the first time it rang.
I’ll tell you one thing, Dad: there’ll be no Great
Galah now. When I die, you’ll be forgotten, you fucking bastard.
Anger energised him and when the phone rang again ten minutes later, he got up to answer it. It was Moss.

‘Sandy,’ she said. ‘I’ve been thinking. I’d like to help Finn the way you’re trying to help your Aunt Lily.’

Sandy was puzzled for a moment. He’d actually forgotten the reason he’d looked at the journals in the first place.
That’d
be right. Too busy with my own problems
.

‘Sandy? Are you there? I want to find out who Amber-Lee really is . . . Sandy?’

‘Amber-Lee? Who’s she?’

So Finn hadn’t confided in anyone else. ‘Just someone Finn knew once. She was buried at the City General,’ she said vaguely. ‘How are you going with Mrs Pargetter’s baby?’

‘Nothing yet,’ he replied. ‘I’ll get back to you if I have any news.’

‘The least I can do for Mum is to finish the job,’ he muttered to himself as he hung up. ‘I owe it to Aunt Lily too. I think she was the only person who really loved Mum.’

He returned to the sewing room and rummaged through the diaries to find the year he estimated the events took place. There it was: 1954. He opened it at random and then closed it again, taking it out to the kitchen where he made himself another coffee. After yesterday’s revelations, he felt like a guilty child and didn’t want to read it in his mother’s room.

It was the beginning of the second term, he recalled, skimming the pages. They were packing football gear and his winter blazer. His eye caught an initial and he was unable to resist reading on.

9 May. I have entrusted the correspondence to S. He’ll do the
right thing, I know. He has a good heart, despite his father’s
influence. I must be patient and wait. I do miss my boy when
he’s at school, but it’s safer there. G is becoming surlier by the
day and this is such an unhappy house. I’m glad the bruises
were gone by the time S got home for the holidays. He’s so fond
of his father. Perhaps in time he will see things more clearly. I was right to trust him. I’m sure I was right . . .

Such a little thing to ask . . . Sandy felt shame seep out through his pores where it lay, a clammy film on his skin. He read on.

10 June. S came home today for the long weekend. He has
grown even taller in the last couple of months. Bought some
linctus for his nasty cough. I’d like to know if they give him
enough blankets at night but I daren’t ask him.
Sandy winced.
No letter from the hospital. Poor Lily . . .

He moved on to the September break.

22 September. S home tomorrow. Have made cream sponge
and some chocolate slices. G seems a bit mellower at the
moment. I hope he stays that way while S is home.

23 September. S home. Taller than ever. He’s put on even more
weight. I’m sure he’ll grow out of it. Neither his father nor I
carry any weight. His school report was good. Nearly all As. He doesn’t take after me, thank goodness. I never was a scholar. Not sure if S has a letter from the hospital. Will wait until G
goes into town tomorrow.

24 September. The hospital has been no use at all. They say
that the baby would have been buried in the Melbourne
General Cemetery, but have no records of the birth. I was
hoping we would at least know if it was a boy or a girl. Poor
little mite may as well have never existed. I don’t know what
else I can do. Surely there are records somewhere? If only
George were more sympathetic. He has a way of getting things
done. But I daren’t ask.

Sandy sighed and closed the diary. He felt immeasurably older. The temptation was to succumb to weariness and sleep for days, weeks, forever . . . it didn’t matter. But having read her journal, Sandy knew that he owed it to his mother to carry through with his plan. Soft and flaccid on the outside, he had a small, hard core of courage, and he called upon it again now as he had when, as a frightened schoolboy, he agreed to post the letter.

If there were no records in 1954, it was unlikely that there’d be any now. Nevertheless, he fished in his wallet for the crumpled note on which he’d jotted down the phone number, and dialled the Stillborn and Neonatal Death Support group.

The volunteer introduced herself as Eva. ‘Record-keeping was very poor in those days,’ she affirmed. ‘You say your mother tried to trace the baby through the hospital records?’

‘Yes, but with no luck. You’d think there’d be something.’

‘You have to remember that stillborn babies were not really regarded as children by the medical and legal authorities. They had no understanding of how a parent might grieve. We try to support these parents as best we can, but to be honest, it’s very hard to locate babies born in the forties. You can usually only do it through the mother’s medical records, but if you’ve already tried that . . .’

‘What do you suggest, then?’

‘You could take your aunt to one of the communal burial sites at the cemetery. They’re scattered through the various denominations. Did she attend church at the time?’

‘Church of England. She still plays the organ.’

‘Well, perhaps if you took her to the Church of England area . . . She may find some comfort there. I’m sorry I haven’t been much help. I can send you some information about our support groups, if you like.’

‘Thank you. You’ve been a great help. Much appreciated.’

Sandy replaced the receiver and wrote a generous cheque to the support group on behalf of his mother and aunt. He addressed the envelope, began to rise, then sank back into the chair, irresolute. Perhaps he was stirring up things that should be left to lie? There was very little to tell. Lily’s baby boy, or girl, may or may not have been buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery, possibly in the Church of England site. Should he take this meagre offering to his aunt or just let her be? She was eighty-three and becoming frail. He felt unequal to the responsibility and decided to talk to Moss and Finn. They’d know what to do.