Absolution Creek (14 page)

M
eg ran her fingers across the springy grass and pulled her knees tight beneath her chin. The scent of salt drifted up on the wind from Willoughby Bay as the many homes skirting the shoreline came to life. Primrose Park remained her favourite place since childhood. As a young girl she would scramble from her home down the hill after school, ignoring her mother’s instructions to keep away from the park with its sewerage works history. Yet what child wouldn’t want to run across spongy grass down to the shore, where the comfort of land met the unknown expanse of the sea. This was a place of butterflies and seagulls, barking dogs and fruit bats, driftwood and a cliff face of dark, dream-harbouring trees. Meg recalled collecting shells in the winter, when the cold sea breath had stung her neck and ears. There was a mossy log near the base of the tree-covered cliff. Beneath, in a shadowy depression, lay her most favourite shells; the skeleton of a baby bird thrown from a tree; and a piece of china stained blue like a baby’s eyes.

Meg walked slowly back to the flat she shared with her mother, husband and children. Her aunt’s letter sat tucked in a top drawer of her dresser. There were only a handful of days before they left. It was funny. Having been so excited at her aunt’s offer and then thinking it would be dashed by her married state, now she felt nervous as their departure neared. At the stone wall marking their block of flats, Meg paused. She had a mind to find her special log and dig up the shells, the dead bird and shard of hard-baked china. The cliff beckoned as Meg lifted the latch and walked through the gate. Everyone needed a special place, even if it could only be reached by way of memory.

‘You sure you want to do this?’ Sam asked Meg. He was sitting up in bed smoking, waiting for her to finish brushing her long hair. ‘It sure came out of the blue. Who would have thought the old sheila would have picked us.’

Me
, Meg corrected silently. She tied her hair back with a scarf, checked on the sleeping twins and climbed into bed beside Sam, wrinkling her nose up at the smoke.

‘You know we’ve got a roof over our heads and food.’ Sam puffed out a perfect circle of smoke, grinning at his creation.

‘Thanks to my mother taking us in, Sam. And it’s my job that’s feeding us.’ Meg adjusted the bed covers irritably.

‘Want a smoke?’ he asked quietly. ‘Always settles me for the night.’

‘No thanks.’ Meg could never be certain where her husband’s good moods would lead, especially when the whiff of rum escaping from his skin was stronger than the tobacco smoke hugging him like a cloud. As she wriggled down beneath the covers a tail of smoke wafted into the air above her. Her aunt’s letter was so unexpected that she’d hugged it to her chest in wonderment before giving thought to its ramifications. Her carefully written reply, which revealed her married state, was sent immediately. For two weeks her correspondence remained unanswered. For two weeks Meg bit her tongue, scared that if the offer was so much as uttered aloud a letter would come immediately, withdrawing the chance of a new life.

‘Don’t you think it’s too good an opportunity to refuse?’ she asked. Sam’s eyes were glassy. ‘Sam?’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I ain’t been much good to us so I reckon we should have a go.’ He sat the ashtray on his chest. ‘Besides, it’s a bit late to be talking yourself into it now she’s said yes to our moving up there.’ He gave a chuckle. ‘From what I hear the bush is full of toffs. They all made their fortune from sheep in the fifties when the boom was on. You’ve heard the stories. The papers were full of it. My pa still tells tales about the squatter who walked into the Hilton Hotel and offered to buy drinks for the bar. All them suits, can you imagine it? Course, next thing the squatters are all buying Rolls Royces. Country people ain’t like us any more, Meggie. We’re poor and now they’re the toffs.’

‘So you’re saying my aunt could treat us like poor relations?’

Sam yawned. ‘Who knows?’

Meg turned to her husband. ‘Well, I think she sounds really nice in her letters. It’ll be such a big change, but I think of the girls and the space and the chance to have a place of our own eventually, and a job for you . . .’ She said this quietly, the words trailing off into the room.

‘She hasn’t actually said she’d leave the place to us, Meg,’ Sam reminded her. ‘Glorified housekeeper and companion is the role you’re setting yourself up for. Looks like I’m along for the ride.’ He gave a rum-enriched belch.

‘She said that the property was beautiful and that she had no other relatives.’

‘Well, she can’t turf us out when there’s a couple of ankle-biters in tow – her own blood – and we’ve given up our lives in the city for her.’

Meg figured her aunt knew they weren’t giving up that much. ‘Mum never talks about her, you know. Never did, not even after Dad died and it was just the two of us.’

Sam dragged on the butt and then stubbed it out, wincing as heat met his fingers. ‘My grandfather had a farm, out Windsor way.’

Meg sat upright in bed. ‘You never told me that. So, you’ve had a bit of experience then? You know what we’re in for?’

‘Sure. Sure thing, love. I might be an unemployed mechanic but I’ve seen a bit, you know. I’m a good five years older than you.’

Meg lifted her hand to cuff him playfully on the shoulder, before thinking better of it. ‘Well, aren’t you the cagey one.’

Within minutes his breathing changed and the snoring began. One of her girls gave a whimper in her sleep.

The next night four of them sat in silence around the yellow laminated table. Meg’s mother continually glanced towards Sam’s vacant seat as if she expected the occupant to materialise at any moment. The two adults and two children chewed their way through sausages, potato and cabbage. The sound of their swallowing and gulping seemed inordinately loud within the confines of the small kitchen. Jane Hamilton’s flat only boasted two bedrooms and a sitting room, kitchen and bathroom; Sam’s first comment on arrival was that the place wasn’t big enough to swing a cat.
Or a punch
, Meg’s mother retaliated. Although her son-in-law rarely raised a voice indoors, he was not averse to fighting and one such incident had ended Sam’s job as a mechanic, eventually rendering her daughter and grandchildren homeless.

‘Pass the salt, Meg,’ her mother said archly. She doused her sausages liberally and then watched the twins poking at their food. ‘Jill, Penny. Stop that.’

The five-year-olds jolted to attention, all sausage-grease smiles and swaying legs, their focus directed at Meg.

‘Time for bed,’ Meg ordered, ushering the girls from the kitchen.

‘You’ve made your mind up then?’ Jane asked, her eyes never leaving the food on her plate.

‘Yes.’ Meg collected her plate, tossing the uneaten food onto a sheet of newspaper on the sink. ‘Sam will be back later. We’re leaving early in the morning.’

‘I’ve asked you not to leave and you’re just ignoring me.’

‘It’s for the best, Mum. We both know that. And Sam –’

‘He’s a handy one, isn’t he? Just follows you about waiting for everyone else to do the providing.’ Her mother squished sausage meat and potato onto her fork. ‘You can bet he’ll be out drinking now.’ She chewed thoughtfully. ‘I wouldn’t bother waiting up for him. If you’re off tomorrow he’ll be on a right bender tonight.’

‘Knock it off, Mum.’

‘Don’t speak to me like that just because you managed to get yourself caught up with the likes of him. My heavens, marrying the first boy you had a liking for and then getting with child, all when you’d barely turned of age. It’s not right.’

‘Neither is sending a girl to work instead of letting her finish her schooling. And you wonder why I was married at nineteen.’ Meg watched her mother scrape her plate clean with a scrap of bread.

‘Well, as it happens you didn’t need much of an education. Once you leave here you’ll be in the back of beyond.’

Meg turned the hot water tap on, and the water spurted out, hitting the plates in the sink and splashing back to burn her hand. ‘Damn.’ She faced her mother. ‘There’s no point you being angry about this. You could have helped us. You had your chance but you rented the upstairs flat instead of giving it to Sam and me and the kids.’

‘And what am I?’ her mother asked loudly. ‘A goddamn charity? I’ve looked after you, haven’t I? I’ve raised you, haven’t I? Just because you go and marry a no-hoper doesn’t mean I have to pick up the mess.’ She waved her fork in the air. ‘And what about payment? Do you think that husband of yours would’ve kept the rent up? No. How could he? You’d be stacking the grocer’s shelves and scraping to feed your young’uns, and the rest of it he’d be spending down the pub.’ She fumbled a cigarette from the packet on the table and lit it. ‘No point all of us being homeless, just because you were too scared to go it alone for a while. Wait for the right man.’

‘And was your man the right one, Mum? There’s not a single photograph of him, not one letter, not even his dog tags.’

‘You leave your father out of this. He’s dead, and the dead deserve respect.’

Some days Meg wondered if she’d ever had a father in the truest sense of the word or if she was simply the product of passion during the terrible war years. Her father was just a telegram on yellowing paper. Another soldier missing presumed dead, a man unknown to her, his whole family unknown to her. Meg snatched a cigarette from the packet, lighting it with her mother’s discarded box of matches. She wasn’t having this argument again. She wasn’t going to ask for the hundredth time why there was no contact with her paternal grandparents or aunts and uncles. It never got her anywhere. ‘Well, maybe if you’d been a bit kinder I wouldn’t have felt the need to marry early.’ She regretted speaking the moment the words spilled from her mouth.

‘It’s a weak person that blames another for their choices.’

Meg took two good drags and stubbed her fag out in the sink. ‘I just don’t understand why you’re so upset about our leaving.’ Jane was in her late fifties, yet life had left its mark on her in the listless way in which she moved, and the half-tilt of her head as she stared vacantly into space.

‘I told you a dozen times, she’s no good, that woman. Tricking you to go north to some property. What property? I say. Cora Hamilton doesn’t want you, girly. She’s only sent for you because she’s decided it’s time for a little payback.’

‘Payback for what?’

‘When you do get up there she’ll set about telling you a lot of things that simply aren’t true. She’ll make me out to look nasty, when it was her that always had the bad blood.’ Jane slammed the table with the flat of her palm. ‘How her father ever bred a girl like that I’ll never know.’ She pushed her plate aside. ‘You shouldn’t be going.’

This was the nearest they had come to an amicable conversation in a fortnight. As mother and daughter they’d never been close. ‘You have to explain why you dislike her so much, Mum, and why you’ve suddenly decided that you don’t want us to leave. I know you haven’t liked us living here for the last eighteen months, and the kids can be difficult.’

Her mother stubbed out her cigarette and reached for another. ‘I’m past young’uns. Leave that husband of yours and I’ll evict one of the tenants early.’ She clamped the cigarette between her lips, lit it and took a drag. ‘Give the place to you and the kids.’ The cigarette dangled from her mouth.

‘I can’t leave Sam.’

‘You don’t love him,’ Jane said bluntly. ‘You
depend
on him. There’s a difference.’

Meg opened her mouth to argue.

‘Anyway, no good will come of moving to be with that woman.’ Jane scratched her neck. ‘I should’ve known she’d come back into my life. Those sort of people can never be trusted.’

‘Why can’t she be trusted?’

‘The years pass and you think you’ve done enough to be rid of them.’

‘Mum!’ Meg said, horrified. ‘How can you talk about Aunt Cora that way? She’s your own sister.’

Her mother stubbed her cigarette out absently in the leftover cabbage on her plate. Lifting her head she looked Meg directly in the eyes. ‘I should know then.’