Henry’s Daughter (16 page)

The kids are woken early by her banging around. She's wrecking the house, searching again for her chequebook and her telephone charger. She's tossing all of Henry's books and papers and photos around, leaving junk where it falls. She can't find her chequebook but she finds an old withdrawal form and takes it out to the kitchen.

Lori picks up some of the junk, mainly the photographs.
Henry's photograph is there. It was taken before he left England. There's also one of his parents, Daniel and Kathleen, and a really nice one of a girl, probably one of Henry's old girlfriends. She puts them back in their box, back safe on top of Henry's wardrobe.

In the kitchen, Jamesy is looking at two typewritten pages he has slipped from a brown envelope and Lori knows what it is.

‘You're
not allowed to read that,' she says, claiming one page.

Jamesy shrugs, grins. ‘He didn't have to be dead. He didn't die of old age, did he?' he says, like, so why shouldn't I look at his stupid secret papers if I want to?

She shrugs, glances at the typewritten words that give up Henry's BIG secret.

Who was he, anyway? Who was he really? He could sing. He could cut hair. He could spell every
word in the world, but was he anyone real?

That's who Henry was. That's all Henry had behind him. A Mary, a Woden – no surname. A Lily, whereabouts unknown, and a boy called Henry who worked for Mr Howie. Poor little boy baby with Matty's pneumonia and Alan's ear infection. Poor little lost Henry
no-name.

Lori puts the papers in the stove. Henry had no use for these papers, and as sure as Bert Matthews grows wormy little apples, Martin doesn't want them. And Mavis is not going to have them. Lori lights one corner with a cigarette lighter, watches it flare.

Child [Henry]
sort of glows red for a moment then turns to ash. And Henry is gone.

‘Goodbye, Daddy,' she whispers, and she rounds
up the kids, herds them over the road for breakfast, and this morning she pure hates doing it. Hates eating Nelly's Weet-Bix, eats one fast, then she and Jamesy go to school and leave the little ones watching Nelly's television.

School is useless; the high school teachers might just as well be talking Chinese for all that gets through. Lori is thinking of
Child Henry
, which leads her to thinking
of his funeral and the boys carrying him from the church. Vinnie and Donny up front and crying, Martin and Greg down the back, stone faced. That makes her sad, so she forces herself to think about Mavis's coffin. Who will carry it from the church? Not the boys. They'll have to hire a forklift and drive it down the church aisle.

She giggles, sees a forklift trundling down the aisle and giggles
more. The teacher tells her to stop or to leave the room. She nearly gets control, until she pictures the forklift crying big drips of black oil, then doing a back-flip and turning its wheels up. It cracks her up, like totally.

Old Crank Tank can get madder than most of the teachers, and she gets so mad, she sends Lori to the vice principal again, who is sick of the sight of Lorraine Smyth-Owen.
Lori decides to give her a break and go home early.

It's raining again and before she's left the school grounds she looks like a drowned rat, her long hair dripping around her face and down her neck. She walks up back streets, forgoing the shelter of shop verandahs so she can dodge the stares in the main street. Everyone stares. Everyone knows her, thinks, she's one of
them
. She considers going
to the supermarket where Donny used to work. It's on the next corner and it would be warm in there – but too many people would stare, or feel sorry for her, so she keeps walking, turns down another back street.

Her socks are soaking wet, due to there are holes worn right through the soles of her shoes so they squelch with every step. Her head down, she's looking at those squelching shoes – and
she sees it!

She wasn't even looking for money. She nearly stepped right over it. It's like fate turned her shoes down this street. She never comes down this way because no tourist would be seen dead down here, but she snatches that coin not caring who dropped it. No one is staring at her. No one around. Nothing much in this street – except the op shop.

It's Henry! He made her come this way,
and that two dollars is a sign from him because it was practically out front of the op shop where he used to do heaps of shopping. She used to come here with him sometimes and find hidden treasures.

No one is in the op shop except the saleslady, so Lori walks in, wanders around a bit, then sort of casually asks if they might have an old parka for two dollars, please.

The saleslady is one of
those white permed hair grandmothers. She looks at Lori's sweater that's halfway up her back, and at her wet dress hobbling her knees, then she goes to a bin and she takes out a navy parka with a hood, and she says, ‘Do you think this might fit you, love?'

‘Is it two dollars?'

‘Twenty cents is near enough,' the lady says.

Lori takes off her wet sweater and tries the parka. It's big but it's
warm. She stands looking at a smaller parka in the same bin. ‘Are all those . . . are all of those items twenty cents?'

The lady nods. ‘Take whatever you need, love.'

‘What about shoes?'

‘Twenty cents.'

Most of the shoes are dressy ladies' shoes. Lori isn't game to take off her own shoes to try any of them but she finds a pair that look as if they'd fit. They've got little heels and buckles
instead of laces and they are brown instead of black. They'll do. She finds a pair of sneakers that should fit Jamesy and some tracksuit pants for him, and it's like the old treasure hunt with Henry, and she keeps finding treasures until she's spent the whole two dollars. Two other ladies walk into the shop then, so Lori has to go. She offers the bundle she's been holding in her arms, and the coin,
hot from her hand. The grandmother lady smiles, stuffs everything into two plastic bags. She doesn't want to take the coin. ‘Have you got a winter uniform, love?'

‘No. Yes. But . . . but it's at the dry-cleaner's at the moment,' Lori lies. She pushes the coin across the counter, runs. Pity is hard to take and lying isn't good when someone is being nice to you.

That lady must know all about fake
pride, and she must have known who Lori was too, because she comes to the front door of the house about two hours later and she's got a cardboard box of stuff that looks good enough to sell, but she says the shop boss was going to throw it out and she thought that maybe Lori would be able to use some of it. There's a high school winter skirt and sweater, and they look almost new and they are going
to fit Lori whether they want to or not. There is a pair of sandals and a heap of old-fashioned underwear, three bras even, and shirts, and socks.

Lori piles the treasure into her drawers then she takes the cardboard box to the kitchen, rips it to bits and gets some chips from the wood heap, gets the fire going just in case Martin comes tonight. Jamesy brings in a few rotten pickets from the
front fence and half a fence-post they can just wriggle into the firebox. It's soaking wet and it juts out a bit so they can't close the firebox door, but they feed their fire with junk mail, keep it hissing.

It's funny watching that fire come alive on the wood. It starts small, a tiny little flame that just keeps going, just keeps smouldering blue around that hissing fence-post, until it catches
one side, gets a bit of colour, then wood starts to glow and the fence-post stops hissing. You can feel the heat. She picks up a cigarette box, tosses it in and watches it burn. Her face is getting warm. She thinks of the uniform and those brown buckle shoes, she thinks of the two-dollar coin, thinks of giggling at school.

Maybe that giggle started up a chain of . . . of hope. Like she saw the
funny side of things, and if you can see the funny side and laugh at it, it doesn't hurt so much. Jamesy has always known that. He probably even knew that the first day of his life when he decided to slip out of Mavis while she was in the old loo and he nearly got drowned.

The fire grows and Martin doesn't come. They watch for him on the verandah. It's Nelly's bingo night and Martin knows it,
and it's six o'clock and why doesn't he come?

Because rotten Karen won't let him, that's why.

Lori goes out to the laundry, scoops up rice from the least ripped plastic bag and stands a long time, picking out the black bits, stands for a longer time washing the rice, which makes the black bits rise to the top so she can rinse them away, and when she thinks it's clean enough she puts it on the
stove.

‘Run over to Nelly and say Martin said to borrow a tin of condensed milk and some sultanas, Jamesy. Don't say we want to borrow it or she won't go to bingo.'

Mavis smells that food when it's ready and comes from her bed. There are six plates and spoons ready on the table, but she goes for the saucepan.

‘Don't you dare!' Lori yells, runs at Mavis, bumps her so she has to grab the wall
instead of the saucepan. And Lori has got the rice.

‘Run,' she yells.

The kids are well trained since they came home from emergency care. They run while Lori faces Mavis across the table, spoons one dollop of the mixture into one plate, then dodges left, but runs right, right out to the brick room, gets half the kids in and bolts the door. Jamesy goes after Matty, who ran too far; he lifts him
in through the window then comes in behind him while Mavis belts on the door.

She won't get in. Lori knows just how strong that green door is. That's not Mavis banging on the door anyway. That's a bogyman who hates everyone's guts.

They've only got the big stirring spoon between five so they sit in a circle on Greg's old mattress and take turns at passing that spoon, dipping it into the saucepan,
eating rice and sultanas and sweet, sweet milk. It's a spooky game in the dark while outside the rain pelts down and the bogyman belts on the door. The little kids love it, and the rice fills everyone up, tiptop full. They couldn't stuff in any more if they tried, but Jamesy and Neil are trying hard. Those two are not going to leave one scrape for the bogyman in that saucepan. Not one scrape.

She's on her couch when they come out, and she doesn't say a word, but behind her eyes a serial killer show is playing. There is hot water in the pipes, though; that stove heats the hot water service fast if you give it decent wood to burn. Lori pushes the fence-post in deeper, then she runs a bath and puts the three little ones in with some dish-washing detergent and all of their dirty clothes.

Little kids are funny things. It doesn't take much to make them happy. A tummy full of rice and a warm bath are enough. They are laughing and stomping and flopping down, blowing bubbles and making noises like washing machines, having a really good time, and they come out shiny and pink and the washing even comes out a bit cleaner. Lori hangs it over chairs in front of the stove.

She's keeping
well clear of Mavis, keeping the table between them, when she sees the withdrawal form on the table.

It's been made out for two hundred dollars. And it's signed with that MSO squiggle.

They sleep late, stay warm in bed until Mavis starts thumping at their door, yelling about that withdrawal. Then they dress fast, in shoes and socks and parkas too, and they all go out the window, Lori first to take the little ones, Jamesy last so he can lift them over the sill. Lori won't let them go to Nelly. She takes them to Henry's potting shed and instead of flowers, she
finds an old hen there, sitting on nine eggs. Silly old hen doesn't know it's not the old days. She's trying to hatch chickens, just as if Henry is still around to feed them.

It's got to be about ten o'clock and the little kids are grizzling. They still expect such things as breakfast at breakfast time.

‘Shut up.' Lori is watering Henry's pots because some have green shoots poking up from dry
dirt.

‘Nelly has got a big new box of Weet-Bix,' Neil says.

‘We're not beggars. Shut up and just wait a minute, will you?'

She's not sure what she's waiting for. Maybe a sign from Henry. Maybe those green shoots are his sign. Maybe she's just waiting until she's hungry enough. Her stomach isn't hungry. It's rolling, paining. She's got that withdrawal slip in her parka pocket, but that's not
what she wants to do. Can't get the nerve to do what she wants to do. It's not legal.

Legal is part of the old world, Henry's world. In his world, Greg might have pinched Mrs Roddie's car but Vinnie wouldn't have gone off with him. In the old world, Martin might have got engaged to Karen, but Donny wouldn't have gone to Albury and Mick wouldn't have been sent to a hostel. This is a new world
so everyone has to make different rules . . . like, even the Prime Minister understands about that.

Her stomach gives in. She has to make a dash for the outside loo, and it's like fate gave her that pain, like when she found the money for a new parka, because just as she flushes the loo, the sun comes out from beneath a cloud and there is this twinkling star of light coming through a nail hole
in the roof and shining down on that black wallet.

Henry is watching her, his eye to a peephole in heaven. Maybe burning those Child Henry papers sort of released him from that mound at the cemetery and now he's up there keeping his eye on things again, and this morning he's saying to her, it's all right, you do what you have to do, little lost Lorraine. It's time.

She's crying again, but she's
up and standing on the toilet seat, reaching into the rafters to where she hid that wallet that contains Mavis's bank things. She's going to go to the bank for Mavis, but not to get two hundred dollars so Mavis can go down the pub and get someone to get her a new telephone charger. That's not what she's going to do.

The sun stays out and it's even hot, and the mud on the sides of the road sort
of starts steaming, trying to dry out fast, like finally the season is turning, finally it's time to move on into the new world.

She walks fast, walks all the kids fast to the main street, tells them to wait on the other side of the road while she runs across. ‘If I don't come back, then go to Nelly and get her to ring Martin, okay?'

‘Okay.' Jamesy is looking at her hard. He knows Mavis has
been searching for weeks for that black wallet full of bank stuff. He's looking at the hand and the wallet, knowing Lori knew where it was all the time. There is not a sign of his twisted grin, he's looking big eyed and worried as Lori crosses the road and walks up to the ATM.

She always liked that thing, the way people push a few buttons and make the money come rolling out, but she's shaking,
inside and out, as she reads the instructions about umpteen times. Mavis kept a piece of paper with a number on it, which is probably her secret pin number. Lori is holding it in one shaking hand while the other one is too slow at keying it in. The machine gives up, starts beeping for help, then it spits out her card.

There is a lady waiting, staring, so Lori snatches the card and steps away,
watches the lady press buttons fast, watches two fifties come out. Lori steps up to the machine again, her heart beating so loud all of Willama can hear it, and all of Willama knows exactly what she's going to do. The cops will come and stop her before she can do it, or the bank will swallow her card this time like Nelly said it does sometimes.

Her stomach is rolling; she's going to have to run
for the public toilets in a minute, so she pops the card in and the machine starts working again, asking for instructions. She takes each step carefully, willing her hand to stop its shaking, doesn't know if she should press the savings or cheque account button so makes a guess.

And the cops don't come and the bank doesn't swallow the card. It works. The machine gives up twenty dollars. It's
red and crisp and new and Lori's stomach stops hurting. She looks around. No one waiting, so she does the whole thing all over again, gets another twenty, then she's over the road with the little kids.

‘Come on.' She's pale. Her hands are shaking. ‘Come on, will you? Hurry up.'

They run behind her, away from the busy part of the street, and they go to Mavis's favourite takeaway where they order
a pile of chips and potato cakes and dim-sims. They wait for, like, a million minutes while people stare.

Two cops walk past the door and they sort of look in, look at Lori. Someone has dobbed on her. Her heart is going to jump out of her mouth and land in the fish and chip oil, get fried.

The cops walk on.

Then the lady is wrapping the food, and one twenty-dollar note gets swapped for some
change and a huge parcel, and they are out on the street and there is no sign of the cops. Jamesy takes the food and Lori picks Matty up, walks with him on her hip, crosses the road to the little park near the post office where they eat the lot, every chip, every dim-sim. They pig out on delectable hot greasy potato cakes, and Matty wants a drink, so she sends Jamesy to get milk. He comes back with
a huge bottle and they drink the lot.

It's early and though the sun is out, a wind is blowing, trying to help the sun dry out the mud. They go to the supermarket, get a trolley for Matty and Timmy to sit in while they look at all the food and socks and stuff, look at the books. Lori picks up a twin pack of dummies for Matty because he's chewed through his old one. She tosses them in the trolley.
They look at fruit and vegetables and at chocolate biscuits, then they pay for the dummies and push the three little ones in the trolley to the other supermarket.

Neil wants a lollypop. Lori picks up six, walks to the checkout, but there is a mob of people in front of her with trolleys full of meat and vegetables and food, and one of them is a teacher from the primary school. Lori backs off,
gives her space to another lady.

She's got an idea. She puts the lollypops back and Neil howls and kicks the trolley; she lets him howl and kick while she takes five dollars from her pocket and hands it to Jamesy, sends him back to the takeaway for three dollars of chips and the rest in potato cakes. ‘We'll meet you at the railway crossing,' she says.

Minced steak is, like, only four dollars
for a lump. She tosses a lump in her trolley. Picks up half a cabbage from the bargain bin for 50 cents. Picks up a whole big bag of potatoes for two dollars twenty. She takes one giant carrot, one huge brown onion, two lots of home brand bread, cheap soap and a packet of home brand laundry detergent, all the while keeping the total in her head.

The whole lot only costs a bit over fifteen dollars.
The chips and dim-sims and stuff cost twelve dollars and were gone before you could say fish-'n-chips.

Jamesy is waiting for them at the crossing. He's hugging his parcel of chips and pinching chips through a hole. Lori pinches one for herself and one each for the kids, then she takes charge of the parcel. She's not feeling guilty at all. She's feeling new-world powerful. She's got Matty on
her back and nearly eight dollars in her pocket, which is not stolen. It's pension money from the government so Mavis can feed her kids, and she's going to feed her kids whether she likes it or not. They share the supermarket bags and walk home, just as school is coming out.

Mavis is asleep on the couch; she looks like stale bread soaked in water. The smell of chips and potato cakes wakes her
up, though. She takes the parcel, doesn't say anything, just starts stuffing chips while the little kids watch, their tongues hanging out for one.

Jamesy gets the fire going with pickets, then he runs over to Nelly to tell her that they've got some food. He rips off more pickets on the way back, hacks at them with the axe until they break, and soon that stove is going well. He gets the vegetable
knife and starts hacking up carrot. He can remember what this stuff is for. It's for one of Henry's stews and he wants some.

The meat starts spitting and Mavis never did like that smell. She tosses the chip paper onto the floor, sort of rolls, gets her feet under her. The little ones scatter, but she's not interested in them; she's heading out the back door, holding on to what she can hold on
to.

‘The chips must have gone straight through her,' Jamesy says, watching Neil dive on the white paper, unroll it. There isn't a chip left. His finger wipes at the leftover smear of oil, and he licks. Lori takes the paper, puts it in the stove, then peels seven potatoes.

She's trying to conjure up the picture of how Henry cooked his stew. The little ones are watching her, watching Jamesy hacking
cabbage, watching that knife work hard. Then the potato saucepan is over the hotplate and Lori is tripping over little ones as she scoops Jamesy's cabbage into a big saucepan, places it beside the stew.

She cuts up the onion, tosses it in with the meat, tosses in the carrot, stirs, stirs and adds water. She's still stirring when they hear the scream.

‘What's got into her now?' Jamesy says.

Lori shrugs, puts the saucepan lid on, thinks maybe it's baby-slipping time. Someone always used to ring the doctor when they started slipping, but the baby was always out before he got here.

The stew is starting to boil. Jamesy is poking in more fence picket when they hear Mavis again. She's bawling. He goes to the green door, opens it slow. Mavis is standing back against the loo and there's
something on the floor.

‘Lori! Lori!'

She walks out to the brick room, the little ones at her heels, and she stands with Jamesy at the door, staring at the floor and at what is on the floor.

It's like an alien baby. Its head is not right. The little kids start trying to get in but Lori pushes them back.

‘Get over to Nelly. Now.' She's shaking worse than she shook at the ATM.

Jamesy herds
them over the road and Nelly rings Martin, then the doctor, who rings for reinforcements, and all the time Mavis stands staring at what's on the floor.

The doctor and his helpers get Mavis into bed, hit her with an elephant dart; they take the poor dead baby away as Martin's ute drives in. He's still in his work clothes, like he dropped tools and ran.

The stew has boiled over. The kitchen smells
of burned fat. Lori lifts the saucepan, and her hand trembles so hard she needs her other hand to help lift it. She moves the potatoes to the side, watching her hands, feeling her knees shaking in sympathy. Salt, pepper and she stirs the stew with a long spoon. No burned bits stuck to the bottom. She tries to taste what is left on the spoon, but it won't find her mouth. Today has been a shaky,
achy sort of day.

Jamesy takes the spoon from her hand. He tastes the stew. ‘It's not burned. Probably too much water in it anyway.' He sniffs the steam then gets the Worcestershire sauce. Lori drips some in. Then a bit more. The doctor, who is finished with Mavis, is trying to talk to Lori but she can't talk, she's got to cook Henry's stew. That's all she's thinking about. Won't think of that
alien, new-world baby. Won't. She turns her back, looks through the cupboards for Henry's curry. Can't find it. She's doing things, just finishing what she started.

The doctor gives Martin a prescription for more Valium and a heap of other stuff. Lori takes the prescription and puts it on top of the cupboard and she finds Henry's curry up there. What's it doing up there? Who put it up there?
It doesn't matter. Got to concentrate on doing, not thinking, let that picture of that baby go away. Got to let it go away.

She adds a teaspoonful of curry to the meat, stirs it. Sees the baby's head in the mince steak and carrot. Sees the rest of that poor baby in the steam.

It was going to be a girl. A poor mixed-up little baby girl. It was trying to be a little sister for her, until Henry
killed himself, then it turned into a monster, like life in this house turned into a monster.

The doctor leaves and Martin looks in the brick room, closes the door and walks back to the kitchen.

‘It didn't breathe,' he says.

How could it breathe? It didn't have a proper nose to breathe with.

He stirs the stew. ‘Have you got any rice, Splinter? It makes the meat go further,' he says. He doesn't
care about the little sister. He didn't see that head that looked as if it was trying to be two heads and ended up as –

Martin goes off in his ute and comes back with two big bags of rice, a huge bottle of tomato sauce, ice-cream, cornflakes, two bottles of milk and some floor-washing stuff, then he goes out to the brick room while Lori tosses a handful of rice into the stew. Jamesy chucks in
a bit more. Lori shakes in a heap of tomato sauce, Jamesy adds a bit more curry and more salt. Lori stirs the cabbage. Jamesy looks at the potatoes, now boiled to a pulp. They've soaked up all the water and almost mashed themselves.

It's starting to smell familiar, though. The smell is seeping into Lori's brain. That baby is dead and it wasn't a baby anyway. It stopped trying to be a baby when
Henry died and the old world ended.

She moves the stew pot over the centre hotplate, gets it boiling again, and she stirs. Stirs. Shadows play out her movements. Arm shadows, head shadows, shaky shadows. Too much rice, she thinks. It's soaking up all the meat juice and looking thicker than Henry's stews. She stirs it, adds a spurt of water from the kettle.