Henry’s Daughter (21 page)

In the next days that diet book takes over their lives. They become experts on what's good and what's not. Like grapes, even though they are fruit and good for her, a dieter can't eat them by the bunch. They are full of sugar. And bread – a dieter can have only four slices per day, and if she has a potato or rice, then she
only gets three slices of bread. There's new stuff to cook in the book too; it's got a heap of diet recipes in it with coloured pictures of how they are supposed to look, like a pink pudding made of low-calorie jelly beat up in half frozen low-fat yoghurt. Eddy makes it one day while he's on duty. And there's chicken pieces that you take all the skin and fat off, then boil up with zucchini and celery,
carrots, onions, curry and stuff, and it tastes like the best food, and there's hardly a calorie in it. They all diet on chicken stew night.

No one has ever eaten celery before, except Eddy and Alan, but you get a heap for two dollars and it's got almost no calories. Lori starts putting it in all of her stews, and if you can make stews out of chicken and minced steak, then you can make them out
of anything, fat sausages, baked beans, pasta. Tomato and Worcestershire sauce were Henry's favourite flavourings for his stews, and curry, so all that stuff goes in with a bit of ground ginger, because Eddy found the jar of ground ginger when he was cleaning out a cupboard and Lori didn't know what else to use it for. The pasta stews turn out excellent, but the pink sausages that swell up to twice
their size get to be the most popular stew. Everyone loves it. Mavis only gets one sausage, because of the fat, but they give her a ton of raw celery, cut up with apples and cucumber and sprinkled with Weight Watchers dressing. She eats the apple and throws the cucumber and celery at them, usually while it's still on her plate, but they keep giving it to her, because it makes her plate look full
and also, the diet book says, dieters have to learn new eating habits whether they like it or not.

They're now giving her the Valium in her cocoa, the Aropax in apricot jam, the fluid pill in Coke. She only gets one fluid pill every second day, due to the last time Eddy gave her two she was up all night, and also due to the fact that they can't get the potassium pills into her because they are
hard as marbles, and if they crush them with Henry's hammer, they taste like yuck. The book says bananas are full of potassium, so she gets a banana on her fluid pill day. They still need to make her a medicinal custard if she's throwing one of her rages, and that adds the calories up. So do bananas. They are all experts on calories. That diet book has got every single bit of food listed on six
pages at the back, like a whole slice of bread has only got seventy calories and a little chocolate biscuit has got about ninety-nine. Also butter – one tiny teaspoon of it has got thirty calories. Mavis is going to have to learn to eat her toast without butter.

There's no regular attack on the door any more, and the abuse is probably halved at certain times. Like when the quiz shows are on,
she turns her abuse on the intellect of the contestants.

The kids used to love watching the quiz shows. They stand outside the window listening one night and Mavis would have beat the lot of the contestants. She's not dumb and she's not mad, just sick in the head about something. God knows what.

It's weird, though, how she has taken over their thinking. For months Lori and the kids stayed out
of her way, tried to pretend she wasn't there. Now it's Mavis this and Mavis that; everyone is doing it. Like, the nights are starting to get cold, so on the Saturday, when they see one of those sealed oil heater things at a garage sale, they buy it for Mavis, then Mick finds an old extension cord with four power plugs and he takes off the skirting board in his room, drills out a square in the bottom
of the outside weatherboard, from his side, not Mavis's, and after a lot of wriggling, they manage to poke the power plug through to the brick room, then plug its end into Mick's power point, which will give Mavis a power point for her television and her heater with two left over. They are actually getting organised.

It's late on the Friday evening, just past dusk but not quite dark, when they
see the top of Nelly's head trying to creep past the west window. Lori races out back, heads her off before she gets around the corner. And she just hates doing it too, because Nelly has been so good to them.

‘What's going on over here, Smithy? Something is going on.' Her voice is loud, it's always loud, and Lori wishes she'd learn to whisper.

‘It's better if you don't come in, Nelly.'

‘Yeah,
I've latched on to the idea that you don't want me coming in, all right, but what I want to know is, why you suddenly don't want me coming in.'

‘It's just . . . just better if you don't. For Mavis. I was going to come over and visit you and ask you if I can please sew up the bum of Jamesy's tracksuit.'

‘There is nothing going on in my house that I don't want you to see, Smithy.'

‘There's nothing
going on here either. Not really . . . or not much different to what's always been going on.'

‘You could have fooled me.'

She goes after a bit and she's not happy. The kids talk a long time about if they should tell her what they've done, and what else can they do but tell her?

‘Fix the gate,' Mick says.

‘What good is that going to do?'

Not much. Most of the picket fence has been used for
firewood, though the rails are still there and the gate itself is okay.

‘We have to tell her.'

‘And she'll tell Bert Matthews and he'll tell his wife and she'll tell Australia.'

‘We'll do something. Tomorrow we'll do something.'

They start early by removing the gate from the corner post. It's one of those big old-fashioned gates, made of pipe and wire, and wide enough to get a car through.
It's also heavy as lead, but they haul it down to the second-last verandah post on the west side. The hinges are rusty and useless but they've got no gatepost to hinge it to, anyway, so they find some wire in the potting shed, choose a fence-post almost opposite the verandah post and they wire the gate between them; it's not as if they ever want to open that gate, just close a gap. And it's done
in an hour and when it's done, the old gate stands up strong, but it's not going to stop people from walking down the verandah, so they start on the fallen lattice, which isn't as easy.

Wood is funny stuff. It might look rotten but most of that lattice isn't too rotten and in the places where it is, Mick strengthens it with wood glue, front fence pickets and a few screws from his collection,
then he wires it to the same verandah post, wires it to the old support against the west wall and, just for good measure, wires it to a verandah rafter. And there is no one not equipped with wire cutters or an axe who is going to get down that side of the house.

The two-foot gap between the brick room and vacant block fence won't be so easy to close off, so they eat an easy lunch, feed Mavis
a boiled egg, which she hates, and a pile of greens, which she hates more, but that's okay; the electric drill is noisy and it's complaining louder than her about having to chew a hole into a brick wall. It's not a big drill, probably only meant to drill wood, but Mick gets three holes in the mortar joints, then he hammers in blue plastic plugs and screws on a length of four-by-two, which used to
be part of the rail that held the pickets. He screws up a frame between the vacant block fence and the wall, then screws on overlapped sheets of corrugated iron which totally seal that space. It's so successful, Lori suggests they extend the vacant block fence the same way, at least the bit between the brick room corner and the old laundry, which might stop Bert Matthews and his wife from seeing the
kids passing food through to Mavis.

There is still a pile of corrugated iron on the junk heap, which used to be the walls of Henry's potting shed before he got the fibreglass. It's hard, noisy work, and it takes the rest of the day, but they extend the length of two fence-posts, screw and wire a rail along the top of them, supporting it with any bits of old timber they can find on the junk heap,
then they fix corrugated iron to posts, rails and fence palings and it's done. The wind probably won't blow it down, and as long as it doesn't, no sticky-nosed neighbour under nine foot tall is going to be looking over that fence again.

It's funny, though. They worked all day just to keep people out, but when it's done, they see what they have achieved. They've made themselves an escape-proof
back yard where the little kids will be able to play safely. The big ones are all getting sick of rounding up those wandering little buggers.

It's better. It's so much better. Everything is better.

Except Mavis. She's getting worse – like, she doesn't want her steamed European carp and the two tablespoons of peas and rice, so she throws it at them, and half of it doesn't make it through the
window.

‘That was your dinner, Mavis, and you're not getting anything else. And if you don't pick that fish up off that floor, then it's going to stink as bad as you do. Have a wash,' Lori yells, which doesn't help matters.

At nine they have to give her a double medicated cocoa, due to they gave her an apple but no sharp knife to peel it.

As if they'd give her a sharp knife! She's dangerous
enough with a fork.

Due to Eddy's reduced circumstances he's fallen in love with the Willama West market. Most of his allowance is spent there; he absolutely refuses to step inside the op shop, which is Lori and Mick's favourite place. They saw a sewing machine in there the other day and thought about buying it too. A ton of stuff needs sewing up and Mavis's tents are falling off her, and
they can't ask Nelly to make new ones. Like, you can't dodge people, build a fence to keep them out, then go over the road and say, please, Nelly, can you sew this for me? You just can't do it – or Lori can't. Won't.

They don't plan to go to the market on the Sunday, but when the rain starts falling, Eddy starts nagging, so Lori rides off with him around two. The best time to get bargains at
that market is at the end of the day when the stallholders want to pack up and go home, and if you add rain to that, then boy, do you get some bargains.

And it's fate, because at that first stall, Lori finds two dress lengths, one bright blue, navy and green floral and one orange and pink striped floral. They're dirt cheap and they've got
dress length
pinned onto them. She grabs both and pays
fast.

At the same stall, Eddy, who won't go pure feral, finds three second-hand sheets, two pillowslips, an almost brand-new feather doona and its cover, then he stands bargaining in the rain until the lady says he can have the lot for twelve dollars. And for someone accustomed to being so rich, he sure likes to get a bargain.

‘All of that stuff probably belonged to some old dead person,' Lori
says. ‘She might have died in bed, and you're going to sleep in her sheets and under her doona.'

‘As long as she's not under there with me,' Eddy says, piling his stuff on the handlebars of Jamesy's bike.

They get some cheap vegies and fruit, get four second-hand mugs and two dozen pairs of socks. They find a second-hand sweater for Lori and Eddy gets it for fifty cents. He mightn't be much
good to shop with at the supermarket, but he's super brilliant to shop with at this market. They save a fortune.

It's not that night or even the next that Lori raises nerve enough to go over to Nelly and ask if she'll sew up two new tents for Mavis. Eventually she has to go, due to the buttonholes on both shoulders of Mavis's last petticoat tent now being ripped. Most of the time she's wearing
a blanket cape, which is lucky, and no one looks at her much, they just sort of drop the food and run.

Twice Lori gets as far as the road, turns around and comes back. Eddy says he'll do it, but she can't let him go over the road because he's too confident and too posh talking and Nelly will know he's not Alan and she'll know they are trying to fool her.

Finally she heads off, knocks at Nelly's
door. It was always a good place to knock, always a safe place, but tonight Lori feels like a criminal.

‘What are you doing here, Smithy?' Nelly says, flicking her outside light on but not opening her fly-wire door. ‘I thought I was number one enemy.'

‘You know you're not and you never will be.'

‘Yeah? So what's with your gate and barricades?'

‘It's just . . . just we have to keep the kids
off the street.' It comes out in a rush and sounds like a lie and Lori can't look at Nelly's eyes. She's standing there, the floral material still folded stiff in her hands, like it's been folded in a trunk for thirty years.

‘And what's with young Alan? I seen him out front with the kids the other day, then I seen him again walking out the front door. Am I seeing double, Smithy, or are you trying
to fool a crafty old dog?'

Lorry shakes her head. ‘I wondered if you could please make Mavis some tents, please, Nelly.'

‘So, she's still alive then. Bert Matthews thought you'd buried her. He reckons that's why you built your barricades.'

‘Of course she's alive.'

Nelly opens her door, takes the material. Lori stands back, looks at her feet. ‘What have you done with her, Smithy? You've done
something.' Just a shake of her head, a step away, a quick glance across the road. ‘You know I'm not as silly as I look, don't you?' Nelly says.

‘I know you're not.'

‘That's a back-handed insult if ever I heard one.'

‘I didn't mean . . . it's like . . . I mean, you know what she's been like, and you know I'm not as silly as I look either, Nelly, and things over the road aren't as mad as they
look either, and not as bad as they were either, and it's sort of . . . sort of better for us . . . and for you . . . if you don't know what we're doing over there.'

‘I don't know, and that's the bloody trouble. But I'd like to know. She's still alive, though – if I'm making new tents for her. At least I can tell Bert that much.'

They stare at each other for a few seconds, but Lori is saying
no more. ‘What are you standing out here for?' Nelly says and she walks into her sewing room, Lori tailing her.

‘You don't have to do them now.'

‘It only takes me five minutes.' She sets up her ironing board, presses the creases out, almost, then she's cutting one bit in half. She cuts a bit of a U for the front neck, then sits Lori at her sewing machine. She can use that machine, has been using
it for yonks and she doesn't break the needles any more. She sews up the sides of both tents then gives the chair to Nelly so she can do the tricky bits.

It takes more than five minutes, but not too much more. Nelly is starting to make buttonholes across the shoulders when Lori reminds her that Mavis won't be doing any more breast-feeding. Nelly looks at her, nods, stitches up one shoulder, and
halfway across the other one, makes two buttonholes at the edge of the neck, then sews a hem around the neck, sleeves and skirt, finds some buttons in her button tin, sews them on with a special machine foot, stitches a square onto the front for a pocket and in less than an hour, Mavis has got two new tents.

‘Ta for that, Nelly. Seriously, ta.'

‘Seriously, what's with the gate and the fences?
You're locking me out, I know that much, but who are you locking in, Smithy?'

‘We're all right. True. We're better than all right, better than for ages. The chooks are laying like crazy and you know the money we owed the council for last year? Well, Mick has paid it all. And we haven't had to get you to call the doctor for ages. So whatever we're . . . whatever we've done over there has got to
be better.'

Nelly stares hard at her, like, trying to read behind her eyes. ‘It depends on what you've done, doesn't it? But I'll accept that, Smithy – just as long as we both know that we're not as silly as we look, eh?' Nelly says. ‘Just as long as we both know that.'

Lori is halfway out the door. ‘Ta for everything. For every single thing. For before . . . for feeding us, for looking after
the little ones, and for now, for the tents. And one day maybe I'll tell you all about it. Okay?'

‘I'll settle for that.'

‘Tomorrow we'll bring you over some eggs, and Mick's got onions and carrots too.'

‘You don't have to, Smithy.'

‘I didn't ask if I had to, Nelly.'

That night Lori puts a new tent and clean sheets on the windowsill, with soap and a towel, deodorant, a bottle of disinfectant,
some air-freshener, and a loo brush. She tosses in the old jacket, which might be better as a cape than that mouldy blanket. The air coming out of that room smells mouldy, worse than when Greg slept in there. They've talked about cleaning it up while she's asleep but it would be too dangerous.

‘You're the mother, Mavis. You're the one who is supposed to be clean,' Lori says. It does no good,
but when Eddy delivers the breakfast and medication the next morning, he actually gets the dirty tent flung in his face. It goes straight in the green bin. Then a blast of air-freshener hits Lori when she takes Mavis a salad lunch and two diet crackers – no butter. Her eyes sting for hours, but that night two filthy sheets come out.

That's good. That's very good. They go in the laundry, get soaked
in bleach until washday.

No one can see any change in Mavis's brain or her shape. In her new tent she looks twice as big and six times as visible as she looked in her stretchy petticoat tents, but at least the new one is loose and clean and bright.

‘It's got to be glandular,' Alan says. ‘She always said it was glandular. And fluid. She always said that.'

Then, on Friday night, Martin turns
up. He's back from his honeymoon and surely it's not three weeks yet? Maybe he got a brain and left Karen in New Zealand. No one heard his ute, no one saw him walk past the window, heard him climb their gate. He walks in through the back door while they're eating home brand apple pie and ice-cream.

‘Where is she?' he says. ‘What did you do with her?' He's been talking to Nelly! Or maybe Bert
Matthews, like, he thinks she's dead and they haven't told anyone. The television is missing. Her couch is missing. ‘What have you done with her, I said?!' Like what could they have done with her if she'd carked it? Carried her out? Buried her? Hired a forklift and a bobcat digger?

Neil tells him she's playing grizzly bears, that Eddy is Davy Crockett. He sings the song and dances around the
kitchen, and the stupid little coot can sing in tune too. Matty dances with him, tries to sing, his dummy in his mouth, but Martin isn't waiting around to applaud.

He's in the front bedroom, he's checking the bathroom, all the bedrooms, then he comes back, sees the bolt has been slid on the green door and he knows. ‘Oh, Christ,' he moans, runs to open it, knowing now where they've hidden the
corpse.

They cower in the kitchen until they hear that bolt slide. Then they hear Mavis, hear that green door slam shut. Eddy pushes by Martin and slides the bolt home.

‘You can't do that! You stupid pack of half-witted bloody kids. You can't do that!' They sort of shrink into themselves, except for Eddy. He's mentally packing. Martin doesn't open the door, though. He comes back to the kitchen,
walks in circles for a bit then sits down, shakes his head, keeps shaking it. ‘You can't do it, I tell you. It's illegal.'

‘You sound like Henry doing his illegal. You didn't take any notice of his illegal when you were building that room,' Lori says.

‘You can't do it!'

‘Shut up saying that. And we've already done it and we are not undoing it, and who else came up with a better idea?'

‘Shit,'
he says, then he's quiet for a long, long time. Mavis isn't. She's thumping that door again, turning the air blue again. ‘Are you feeding her?'

‘Of course we're feeding her. What do you think we are? She usually gets a thousand calories, most days,' Lori says. She's not familiar with kilojoules; the diet book is old, printed in the calorie days.

‘She looks as if she's dropped a ton,' Martin
says, sort of quiet, sort of head-shaking quiet.

‘She's got rid of some of her fluid, that's all.'

‘She's dropped a ton. You can see it on her neck. On her chin. She's got one. You can see it on her arms, her feet. See it all over.'

‘We can't see anything.'

‘What are you feeding her?'

‘We've got a diet book, and we go by what it says to do each day. It's for two weeks, so when we get to the
end, we start back at the beginning again,' Alan says.

‘And they make her have celery, and she don't like it, and I don't like it too,' Neil says.

‘It's good for you. It's full of roughage, and you eat it every night in stews and you don't know it, and get away from that cornflakes packet or we'll put you through Mavis's window the next time we feed her,' Lori says.

Martin is leaning, elbows
on the table, head shaking, while he stares at the green door. Alan gets out the new family bible they've stuck together with sticky tape and tries to show him the fortnight diet plan.

‘We give her everything that's on it, mostly, so if it's in the book, it can't do her any harm, can it?'

‘Harm? She's dropped a ton. She looked like death warmed up the last night I saw her. Her feet were footballs.
She could hardly move the last time I saw her, but when she saw me just now, she moved all right.' His head is still shaking from side to side and he's still staring at that door. ‘She got up from that couch like I haven't seen her get up from that couch in months. Shit!'

‘She looks the same to us – except her feet – except the way she gets up.'

‘You're looking at her every day. I haven't seen
her in weeks. How come she hasn't knocked that door off?' Mavis is still thumping it.

‘She's not this bad all the time. She's due for her pills.'

‘She's taking her pills?' Martin has been around this place when Henry tried to get Mavis to take her pills. He's not understanding.

‘We give them to her in her food,' Lori says. ‘And we're going to run out – '

‘What?'

‘We're going to run out of
Aropax soon and we ought to get some of the Valium prescriptions filled too. We're going through an awful lot of it.'

‘You crazy little shits. You can't go around locking people up, drugging people's food with Valium.'

‘Don't you start that again, Martin. Anyway, the doctor said she had to take – '

‘He didn't say to lock her up and feed her the bloody pills in her bloody food, you mob of stupid
little buggers!'

‘Eddy done it,' Neil says.

‘We
all
did it. And keep your voice down.' Lori climbs up on a chair, drags down the pile of dusty scripts. ‘The doctor didn't write out all this stuff for the flies to use as loo paper. He's a doctor and he's supposed to know what he's doing. And we know what we're doing and we're doing it the only way we can because nobody else is doing any bloody
thing at all, are they? Except talk about putting us in homes and letting her die.'