Hope Farm (28 page)

The laugh, as it echoed off the tiles, took on a strange, wretched quality. The cloud of tension intensified.

‘Don't be ridiculous,' she said, after a few moments, and then she sighed and turned sideways, angling her head in a show of not-looking.

I took off my clothes and got in, facing away from her. I lathered the soap and washed myself, and the surface of the water clouded with grey scum.

The room had a window, but the glass was frosted. Through it a brick wall was discernable, very close. Pigeons were calling somewhere, and a tram rattled down on the street.

‘This is where I stayed,' she said. ‘When I came last time.'

I knew what she meant, but I didn't answer. I wasn't going to help her.

She said it so quietly I almost could have imagined it. ‘For the abortion.'

My knees stuck up out of the soapy water, two pink islands, slicked with milky tide lines. I took the flannel and wiped my face with it. My eyes stung and I kept them closed — and there it was, the tiny foetus, floating against its wet black background, its eyeball showing under the film of skin.

‘You wanted to know,' she said, the words stronger now, the effort in them audible, ‘why I didn't get an abortion when I was pregnant with you.'

I kept my eyes closed. The creature twitched a flipper, bobbed in its glistening darkness.

‘Like I said,' her voice went on, ‘I couldn't, in Brisbane, back then. You couldn't get one. Or if you could, I didn't know where. Or how. I was only seventeen years old. I didn't even know how you got pregnant, if you could believe that.' She gave a faint, weary snort.

The small room held its damp breath. The bath was the same temperature as the air, and with my eyes shut I couldn't tell which parts of me were under and which were not. When I spoke, the words seemed to dissolve almost as soon as they came out. ‘But what if you could have got one?'

‘You mean if I could go back and have that choice now?'

‘Yeah.'

Then there was a sudden movement and she was kneeling beside me, both arms around me, sleeves in the water.

‘No. Of course not. I've got you now. I couldn't go back and undo you.'

That was our chance, I suppose. To reconnect. To take the stiffened hinge that joined us and wrench it into mobility. When I go over it all in my mind, that's the part I imagine changing, doing differently. I imagine turning to her, sitting up in the water to return her embrace, pressing my face into her neck. That, I tell myself, was probably all it would have taken.

But that's not what happened. I wasn't strong enough, or brave enough; the accumulated resentment was too firmly rusted on. She stayed like that for a while as I lay limp and unresponsive, and then she let go again, and I got out and dried myself and put on the only nightclothes I owned — a cotton slip that was far too small and reached just halfway down my thighs — and went back to the room and got into bed, leaving her still sitting on the chair.

The next morning we had breakfast in a coffee shop. The city was trussed up in tinsel, pointy gold and silver stars hanging from the tramlines. I'd missed that somehow, in our exhaustion-fogged arrival. Also, overnight it seemed to have filled with people — crowds of them now flowed up and down the footpaths. It was like a completely different place.

Ishtar ate in silence. I wasn't hungry. My egg was overcooked, the yolk splitting to show its hardened inner. I left it and drank my glass of orange juice, but it went down too fast and sloshed around in my stomach. I'd slept like a stone on the hotel mattress, which dipped in the middle, keeping me immobile on my back like an overturned beetle. Ishtar had had to wake me. But still I felt soaked with a deep tiredness, pulled low in my seat.

She leaned across, put her hand by mine on the tabletop. ‘You okay?'

‘Yeah.' I ignored her attempt at eye contact and squinted through the window at the tramping figures criss-crossing in the glitter and glare of the hot morning.

After a few moments she appeared to give up. She sat back and looked around the room, and I turned from the window — and at the same moment both of our eyes fell on a folded newspaper that lay on the counter. Imaginary headlines flew through my mind:
Dead man found. Murder victim in mineshaft. Girl suspect sought.
I pictured the plump man behind the counter opening the paper and reading, then lowering it and frowning at me. I tried to summon Ian in my head:
Don't be ridiculous. Nobody knows.
The juice began to feel like it was crawling back up my throat.

Ishtar got up and went to pay for the food, and I sat, replaying Ian's words:
Just don't say anything and it'll be okay.
‘It'll be okay,' I murmured to myself, but I didn't feel any better.

When she had finished Ishtar walked to the door, and I started to get to my feet, clattering the cutlery. My chair got stuck and I struggled to get out from behind the table. I caught sight of the newspaper again and with a snap the anger was back, the urge to attack her with words, to force something on her, or out of her.

You know Miller went to the hut. You know something happened. You saw the mess. You didn't even ask me where I was.

She had stopped in the doorway. I got free of the furniture and stepped towards her, staring into her face, my eyes so wide they started to water.

Ask me what happened. Ask me.

The door opened and she went out.

I followed, bumping into a man, then a woman with shopping bags that banged at my legs. ‘Sorry.' I dodged round her and darted after Ishtar, who seemed to glide with rapid ease through the crowd. Lunging, I caught the back of her shirt.

We stood, facing one another, joggled by the streams of passing people.

‘Ishtar.'

‘Yeah?'

The straining, desperate rage wobbled. I swallowed. I thought of Ian shaking his head, his voice, gentle but firm:
We don't say anything about him
.

‘Silver. What is it?'

I looked down at the pavement. ‘I need to make a phone call.'

She didn't ask any questions, just led me to a phone box and gave me some coins, then stood outside with her back turned.

I pushed the door closed and fumbled my way through the phone book until I realised it was only for the city and surrounding suburbs. Then I found a number for directory assistance and called, and got the listing for Munro in Kooralang.

Ian answered, and at the sound of his voice I started to cry, the same mortifying crying that had happened with Dan — loud, wet, and obvious.

‘Silver? Is that you?'

‘Yes,' I managed to blub.

‘Are you okay?'

‘Yes.' I took the receiver away from my ear for a few moments and put my face in the crook of my arm, wiping it and trying to breathe evenly. The tears didn't stop completely, but I did manage to regain some control over my voice. I lifted the receiver again. ‘I'm scared.'

‘Right.' There was a warning in his tone.

I glanced at Ishtar, who still had her back turned, and lowered my voice. ‘I'm not saying anything. I haven't said anything, don't worry. But I'm scared.'

This time his voice was reassuring. ‘It will be okay. I promise.'

The tears kept running down my face. The phone box smelled of newspapers and urine. I pressed the earpiece close. ‘How are you?'

‘Oh, I'm fine. You know, school holidays.' He spoke as if from the depths of normalcy, from a place so mundane and settled as to be boring, as if nothing bad had ever happened, and I strained to catch every word, every nuance of his rusty voice. ‘I'm
slaving
for the parents, painting the verandah. I am
heartily sick
of the colour brown, let me tell you.'

A brief laugh erupted through my tears; I felt the pop of a snot bubble and scrubbed at my face with my sleeve again.

‘So where are you?'

‘In a hotel. In Melbourne.'

‘A
hotel
. Sounds exciting.'

‘It's not. It's pretty crap, actually.'

‘Where will you go from there?'

‘I don't know.' The red light on the phone was flashing. ‘I think we're about to get cut off.'

‘Silver, tell me your address when you have one.'

‘Okay.'

‘I mean it. We can write to each other.'

‘Okay.'

‘Do it.'

‘All right!' But we had been disconnected. I hung up and let out a long, quavering sigh. My ear was hot. He still felt so close. My snot eruption had made me think of Jindi too, and I pictured her in her stained velour dress and ill-fitting runners, standing with her toes turned out, grubby hands clasped. I wiped my face again and realised I was smiling.

‘Ready?'

I nodded, and Ishtar turned and rejoined the tide of pedestrians, leaving me to follow once more. We rounded a corner, then another, and then she entered a shop.

Travel Agent
, said the sign on the door, which I caught on its backswing. A smaller sign below had come unstuck at one corner:
Budget Deals!
Inside, Ishtar was already taking a seat at one of the three desks. The man behind it motioned me over, indicating a second chair. I went in and sat down slowly. The room was hot; an overhead fan ticked round in a fatigued kind of way, but there was no detectable movement of air.

‘… cheapest tickets,' Ishtar was saying. ‘For me and my daughter. She's thirteen.'

The man nodded and pulled out a folder. He flipped through the pages and then turned it round. ‘What I would recommend …' he began.

His voice seemed to warp in my ears, then recede. I felt dizzy. I held onto the seat with one hand and made the magic shape with the other, fixing my gaze on a poster that showed a guard on a horse outside Buckingham Palace, wearing a red coat and one of those tall furry black hats.

Ishtar's voice droned and wove itself through a space left by the man's, and then the two voices joined to form a fat rope of sound that circled me slowly and began to close its coils like a boa constrictor. I fixed my eyes on the pillar of the guard's hat. My stomach felt strange and my mouth kept filling up with saliva. I swallowed and tightened my fingers into the shape, but it didn't help. The guard's hat wavered; his horse appeared to nod its head.

‘Silver?'

Ishtar's voice lifted in a separate, more clearly defined coil.

‘Silver?'

I tried to focus.

She had turned towards me. ‘Are you all right?'

I heard myself make a thick, negative sound.

Her face filled my vision, shimmering. Her mouth didn't seem to be moving in synch with her words. ‘Do you need a drink of —'

I jumped up, knees banging the desk, and made for the door, feeling impossibly slow, my hands outstretched, groping for the handle.

Ishtar's voice behind me: ‘Silver —'

My fingers under the handle, heaving at the door, my arms trembling, then out, and barging through the foot traffic to the pavement's edge to bend at the waist, the blast of watery orange vomit scouring my throat and nostrils, splashing into the grey cobbled gutter. My legs giving, dropping to my knees, the feel of hot concrete on the palm of one hand as I wiped my face with the other.

Ishtar beside me, crouching, her arm around my shoulders, tentative. ‘You all right?'

The raw feeling in my mouth, my teeth furred, acid at the back of my nose. The sun behind her so she was just a shape, huge, dark, taking up all the sky. With a click my hearing returned to normal. A tram bell rang, pigeons rolled out fat calls, footsteps clipped and trudged, each sound moving clearly, spaciously, without limit.

My voice joined them. ‘I don't want to go,' I said, to Ishtar's sun-blotting shape. ‘I don't want to go overseas, or anywhere. I don't want to keep moving all the time. I just want to stay in the one place.'

‘But we don't have anywhere. I mean, we can't stay in that hotel. And this money, it's an opportunity.'

Her hand lay on my back, light as a leaf. I shook myself like a dog and it was gone. I stared down into the gutter, at my wet splash drying already at the edges. ‘It's what you want,' I said. ‘It's not what I want.'

There was a pause and then she touched me again, took my arm, helped me up, and took me to a bench a few shops further along. We sat down. I could see her face now, and she bent and looked directly at me. ‘Okay,' she said. ‘What do you want?'

After

I suppose it was a test. I suppose I wanted her to stay, to choose me, to somehow push through my defences and make me accept her love. To know that that was what I really wanted, even if I'd been unable say it.

I did feel abandoned as I watched her walk towards those tall doors, the vinyl airline bag that had come free with her ticket hooked over one arm, a rude, fresh red against her worn jeans and jacket. The habit of watchfulness and the fear of being left behind must have been so ingrained in me that when she stopped and waved, the urge to run after her — to throw myself at her, to somehow grab on before she could vanish — was overwhelming and I had to get away. While she was still facing me, still looking, her hand still raised, I turned and pushed back through the loose crowd and the tall stranger who was my aunt was forced to drop her own hand and turn also, and follow.

But Ishtar had asked me what I wanted, and I gave my answer, and it's not worth wasting time considering why I wasn't able to be properly honest. In any case, I suspect I had some sort of pre-emptive instinct to get it out of the way, to avoid future pain and further confusion by forcing — sooner rather than later — a separation that was inevitable.

It was certainly an immediate, definitive commitment. I had met Linda for the first time the evening before, in the so-called dining room of the hotel, where the three of us ate dinner, mostly in silence. The other patrons were all boozy-looking old men, and the waitress — who was also the barmaid — was especially friendly to us. When she came to clear our table she leaned over me. ‘Excited, love?' she said, and I gaped, flushing with embarrassment, wondering how she could possibly know about my decision.

Ishtar looked equally as lost, and it was Linda who came to my rescue. ‘About Christmas,' she said, in a low voice.

I continued to stare helplessly at the barmaid, who grinned and reached for my plate. ‘Only two more sleeps!' she trilled.

When she'd finished, Ishtar got up and without explanation also walked away, through the door marked
Ladies
.

Linda folded her long fingers together. ‘Ishtar,' she said, the word slightly off kilter on her tongue, ‘told me what you want to do.'

I nodded.

‘Are you,' she leaned forward, ‘completely sure?'

I nodded again.

She stayed like that for a few moments, gazing intently into my face while I made an effort not to look away. Then she gave a single nod. ‘All right, then.'

The next morning — Christmas Eve — after Ishtar had gone, Linda and I returned to the city in her small, clean car and she took me to Myer, where I chose a fountain pen and a package of ink cartridges as my Christmas gift from her. The fifty-dollar note Ishtar had given me stayed in its blank envelope — no card, no words spoken as she handed it over at the departure gate — in my pocket. I still have it.

Over tea and sandwiches in the department store's cafeteria — it was only midmorning; we'd had to get up early to be at the airport on time — Linda clasped her hands again. ‘When would you like to leave?' she said. ‘It's a long drive, but it's still early in the day.'

I looked into her grave, waiting face. ‘I'm ready now,' I said.

We were in Sydney, and I was putting my things down on the floor of her spare room, by midnight.

I can't recall much about the early days at Linda's. I slept a lot. I remember her bringing trays of food to me in bed, as if I was sick, and feeling too exhausted to resist, and the slightly removed sense of relief and comfort that came with giving in to her care. It was like those nights in the hut with Dan — some part of my mind switched off and I became an animal, hungry, tired, burrowing into blankets.

My memory clears at the point when she returned to work, and time became more structured. There were still another couple of weeks to go before the beginning of term, when I would be starting at yet another new school, and I spent the weekdays alone. Linda's flat was on the second floor, with large windows; it was a quiet place, filled with light, smelling of laundry powder and books. There were only the two bedrooms, a bathroom, and one living space that was open to the kitchen, but the rooms were a decent size, and there was a sense of space and order.

Once Linda had left for work I sank into the stillness, moving round slowly like an invalid, setting up little nests on the couch or the balcony with my book, cushions, blankets, a cup of tea. Often I went back to bed and slept or just lay, dozing. I watched soap operas on television. I didn't follow the storylines or even keep track of which character was which, but swam into their soft rhythms, the endless interiors, the shifting, bright faces, the gentle sparkle of jewellery, teeth, and hair.

Sometimes, lying on the couch, I would feel as if I had fallen victim to some rupture in time and space, like in a book —
Tom's Midnight Garden
or
Playing Beattie Bow
— and that I should really be with Ishtar, wherever she was, but instead had been transported somehow to the flat of an unknown woman. I would have to get up and look at something of Linda's, and the image of her hands would come to me, using that thing.
Linda
. She was real. I was supposed to be here. There, on the kitchen table, was the sandwich she had left for my lunch, wrapped in greaseproof paper like Ian's mother had used.

It didn't help that the room I slept in still felt like a spare room, with anonymous bedding and a framed Van Gogh print on the wall.

‘It's your room now,' she had said. ‘You can change it around if you like. Put up some posters.' But I was unable to change anything, to make my mark. With my clothes in the chest of drawers and my new pyjamas under the pillow, there was no evidence of my existence. My empty duffel bag lay at the bottom of the freshly cleared wardrobe — every now and then I knelt and reached in to check for it, the familiar thick folds of its worn canvas.

I spent a lot of time looking in the bathroom mirror. I'd never had such free and uninterrupted access to a mirror before — it seemed I'd only caught my reflection in hurried moments, and in mirrors that were small and dark, spotted or cracked. The mirror in Linda's bathroom was a clean wide rectangle, well lit by three small, frosted windows above. In it I could see myself from the hips up. After my shower in the mornings I dried myself without looking, mindful of Linda's nearby presence. But later, fully dressed and with her gone, I indulged in long sessions of gazing. I couldn't get used to the sight of my own face, and examined it from every angle, peering out of the corners of my eyes. I lifted my hair into a snaky pile that left my neck looking naked and skinny, or plaited it into a rope that fell over one shoulder.

Sometimes I lifted my top and looked at my puffed-out nipples and the small pads of flesh that were appearing around them. I did this nervously, listening out even though Linda wasn't due back for hours. I dropped my top again and stood with my shoulders brought forward, hiding the breasts, then back, pushing them out. I smiled, nodded, shrugged. I mouthed words.
Hi, I'm Silver. I'm new. I live with my aunt
.

In the afternoons I would often go down onto the street, and around the corner to a long strip of parkland where I would walk along the paths, dazed in the muggy heat. The spectre of Hope — always ready, just at the edge of consciousness — seemed distant but clear, as if etched with lines that were very fine, glittering and chill. Here trees stirred dully, through thicker air.

Other people passed me, joggers, bike riders, dog walkers, parents with children, their yells and footfalls and whizzing tyres rushing in streaks that stretched and faded. I kept my hand in my pocket, my fingers around the keys Linda had given me, one for the door to the flat and one for the main door downstairs. I felt light on the path, insubstantial. I scuffed my shoes to make a sound of my own. Often I would find myself returning to the flat at a panicky trot, the top of my head burning from the sun, shying at the dark branches of the monkey-puzzle trees. When the key turned and I burst in to find everything just as I'd left it, the feeling of relief was cool and flooding.

Each day, as the time for Linda's return from work approached, a different kind of anxiety began to accumulate. I was no longer afraid of not existing or of being in the wrong place. I was here and she knew it; now the problem was that she was on her way, and we were both going to be here together. What were we going to talk about? What were we going to do? By a quarter past five I would be driven to distraction, unable to read or watch television. I paced, feeling enormous, as though I took up too much space. I sat on the end of my bed, not wanting to be in the living room, the first thing she saw when she walked in.

When she did come though, the feelings of suspension and anxiety — amazingly — lifted. The key in the lock. The door opening. Her level voice: ‘Hello? Silver?'

As I got up and went out to meet her, the drumming of my heart would already be easing, my breaths loosening. After putting down her briefcase she would take off her shoes and flex her long toes on the carpet, then perch on the arm of the couch and look up at me. ‘How was your day?'

‘Fine.'

‘Did you get outside?'

‘Yes.'

The exchange was almost always exactly the same every time. What happened during the rest of the evening was also predictable. If we needed groceries we would walk together to the supermarket; if not she sat at her desk for a while, opening her mail and sometimes looking over work papers, and I went into my room and read. Then I would help her with dinner, and we would eat together at the small round table. After that we played Scrabble or watched television — Linda liked cosy British murder mysteries, but also
Countdown
; any television was compelling to me — until bedtime.

I can see now that this regularity was probably intentional. She is someone who likes order, certainly, but I think she made things even more structured for my sake. The impression she gave at the time was that it was easy for her to accommodate me — but of course it couldn't have been like that. She hadn't even known I existed until two days before I moved in.

The phone rang one evening while she had her hands full in the kitchen, dicing chicken I think it was. ‘You get it,' she said, and I picked it up, feeling clumsy.

‘Hello?'

A woman's voice, jolly and brisk. ‘Hello? That's not Linda, is it?'

‘No.' My answer came out slowly, and sounded very childlike. ‘It's Silver. I'm her — her niece.'

‘Oh yes, of course, well, hello Silver, it's Margaret here from the film club, just wondering when Linda will be joining us again.'

I stood with the phone to my ear, still rattled by the foreign sound of my own words —
her niece
— and the woman's unquestioning response, the recognition in her voice. I don't know what I'd expected. For her to say
Who?
perhaps, or for Linda to wipe her hands and take the phone, explaining in hushed tones. I hadn't expected this casual acceptance, this obvious prior knowledge. I felt my face redden.

‘Silver? Are you there?'

‘Oh. Yes. Sorry, hold on a minute.'

I explained to Linda. ‘Not for a while,' she said. ‘Tell her maybe next month.'

It wasn't until later, lying in bed, that the slightly inflated, pleased feeling abated enough for me to consider what the call had actually been about.
I
was the reason Linda wasn't going to her film club. She was staying home to be with me. Now, of course, I can see the significance in this, how it was emblematic of any number of hidden sacrifices, but at the time, while it made me feel slightly uncomfortable as well as grateful, I was happy to let it go, to retreat into sleep, knowing that the next day would be the same as the others, and that they all were gradually linking into a solid mass.

I rang Ian one afternoon, from a pay phone. He complained at length about the boring jobs his parents had him doing around the farm, and I listened greedily. Then, as my pile of coins began to diminish, with a sick feeling and a querulous, loaded voice, I asked: ‘Any news?'

‘Oh gosh no, nothing's happening around
here
.'

Thinking he'd missed my meaning, I tried to come up with a better way of hinting at what I didn't want to speak out loud, but before I could he spoke again: ‘Well there is
one
thing everyone's been talking about. Did you know about Miller?' His tone was so convincing — serious but slightly salacious — that for a moment I floundered.

‘No?' I managed, weakly, my cheeks burning.

Like one actor covering for another who kept forgetting her lines, Ian forged on. ‘Wow, I can't believe you haven't heard. Well, he went missing. Was seen wandering off into the bush the night of the fire, very drunk, and never came back. Left all his things — there was another building that didn't burn down, apparently, and they were in there. Anyway, they did a big search, police stomping around all through the bush, but they didn't find anything.'

I leaned against the glass. My heart was knocking so hard I could barely hear.

‘Silver?' came Ian's voice. ‘You still there?'

‘Yes.'