Between My Father and the King (14 page)

‘It's my engagement ring,' Naida said. ‘From the pig boy. Lofty. I'm seeing the doctors and getting out this weekend. Lofty is getting a special licence, for it isn't right for engaged couples to wait. He saved up his canteen money to buy this for me — he hasn't had tobacco or cigarettes for weeks. It's sapphire, with one diamond. The diamond makes the most sparkle. Lofty is my true love.'

The nurse looked at Naida's shrunken body, and the curled little hand with the top-heavy blue-stone ring burning on the third finger, and the silver key brooch that was now pinned to Naida's child-woman breast.

‘You'll enjoy yourself today,' Nurse said. ‘What would you like to eat in town?'

‘Sponge cake with four layers, and a dry Martini.'

Outside in the world, it was not springtime, but the hills and paddocks were lit with bursts of gorse flowers, and the heavy drunken perfume came blowing through the open window of the car.

‘What is it?' Naida asked.

‘Gorse. The farmers' curse.'

‘Is it always there, yellow like that?'

‘As far as I know. It has no definite season — no birthday, so to speak.'

Naida was delighted. ‘No birthday,' she repeated, fingering the brooch on her breast. ‘It's out in the paddocks there without a birthday.'

She leaned out the window and stared at the happy chickenlike ruffles of colour; the day was warm and sunny, yet with a thin cotton twist of cloud sewing together the blue gaps of sky, and a quick wind gulping down its own breath, and the sweetness of the gorse.

Naida looked around her suddenly at the cruel, caging, black body of the car.

‘I want out,' she said, pointing to the hills. ‘There. I want out there without a birthday. Silly old car.'

The nurse caught her wrist. ‘Don't, Naida,' she said. ‘You'll spoil everything. And remember — it's your birthday. You can't go out there, in all that gorse.'

Naida grew calm.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘It's my birthday and I'm twenty-one.' She unsnipped the key brooch and clasped it in both hands. ‘I've got the key of the door.'

Yes, they had sponge cake, only it was three layers, not four: the top chocolate, the second plain cream, the third raspberry. They drank not dry Martinis but milkshakes whipped white and red out of tall silver cannisters; Naida twiggled her breath through the straw at the bottom to get the last drops. Then a machine in the corner played ‘Walkin' My Baby Back Home', at Naida's request. It was the song the baker used to sing to her when she collected the bread; if the nurse wasn't looking, he would take Naida into the small room off the room where the ovens were, and, putting his cigarette down, probably on the buns, only that didn't matter, he would kiss her and squeeze her and croon in her ear, ‘Walkin' my baby back home'.

Naida felt lonely, hearing the song coming loud and wild out
of the machine. The baker had promised her a ring with seven diamonds, and a necklace with thirty, if she married him. But Lofty, the pig boy, was taller, like the man in the serial, Margella Lucia's beloved. And you had to decide sometime.

‘No. I don't like that song,' Naida said, when ‘Walkin' My Baby Back Home' had finished. She puckered her face. ‘That song brings memories,' she said.

The nurse was sympathetic; she had never heard Naida speak of her home, or of her mother and father and sisters and brothers, none of whom ever came to visit.

‘What memories, Naida? Does it remind you of your mother and father, of being at home?'

Naida looked at her seriously.

‘No,' she said. ‘Silly. It's memories of love.'

So they walked up and down the streets, eating ice creams, and looking in shop windows at the frozen ladies with dolly-pillow breasts and long pink legs, being dressed by smart men with flat black hair and striped suits. They watched a toy engine moving clickety-clack around and around, being waved on by a man with a green flag instead of a hand; a tall man riding nowhere on a bicycle; and, best of all, in the window of the hardware store, four puppet men who were laying bricks to build something, a house or a church or a bathing shed or a place where airplanes are left to sleep. The first man jerked forward with a brick, and the second took it from him, leaving the first man in an anguished pose, with his hands praying in the air; and it was the same with the third man, until the brick reached the fourth, where you would have thought something peaceful would happen, but oh, no. Just as the fourth puppet prepared to lay the foundation, some electric
device came into play whereby the brick was sneaked back to the first man, who jerked himself to life once more, and the building began again. Naida was fascinated.

‘Except,' she said, ‘it doesn't build.'

Nurse looked at her watch: it was time for the interview.

‘We have to go, Naida.'

‘Once more, to watch it being built.'

‘But the same thing happens. It won't end, unless the electricity breaks down or the battery runs out. They'll be there forever, doing the same thing in the same place.'

The nurse waited outside. Naida sat in the room and faced the three men. Naida liked the tall, dark one immediately, because he smiled at her first, and offered her a cigarette. She took it, her fingers trembling, for the time had come that she had awaited and talked of for years, and marked on the calendar. It seemed incredible that perhaps next week she would be sitting in a luxury hotel in Hollywood or Mexico City (she and the pig boy would have to decide quite soon, so they could book tickets on the plane), eating sponge cake with four layers and drinking dry Martinis. Naida sighed with bliss and impatience.

The short, sandy-haired man leaned forward. ‘Well,' he said. ‘What's the sigh for, my dear?'

Naida looked at him derisively. Not much of a man there, she thought. He's going bald and he's got no eyebrows. I'll stick to the tall, dark one.

‘I was thinking,' she said. ‘Only thinking.'

‘And what exactly were you thinking about, eh?' the other man, who was quite fat, with a looped moustache, enquired.

Not much of a man there, either, Naida thought, surveying
him. I'm right in sticking to the tall, dark one.

‘Eh?' the man with the moustache persisted.

‘Mind your own business. MYOB,' Naida said abruptly.

‘I should think so,' the dark man said, smiling kindly. ‘We haven't even introduced ourselves, have we? Now, we're three men who want to have a little chat with you and see how happy you are and what we can do for you.'

That's fair, Naida thought.

‘This is Mr Berk, and Dr Pillet, and I am Dr Craig. And your name is —' He hesitated. Naida was sure he knew her name, but, seeing as he was the nicest and the handsomest, she smiled her special smile at him and, tucking her ring out of sight under her sleeve, she said, ‘I'm Naida.'

‘And how old are you, Naida?'

Naida was sure he knew this, too, but she liked to oblige.

‘I'm twenty-one today,' she said.

‘And do you know what being twenty-one means?' the sandy-haired man, Mr Berk, asked.

‘Who doesn't? I can get married. I'm free.'

‘And if you were free, Naida, what else would you do, besides get married?'

Naida was carried away with excitement. It was no use; in spite of being attracted to the tall, dark Dr Craig and feeling that perhaps she and he could be friends quite soon, she could not keep her hand covered any longer. She showed the ring.

‘My engagement ring. Sapphires and one diamond. I'm getting married next week, and going by plane to Mexico City. Or to Hollywood. It isn't decided yet.'

The dark man frowned. Naida noticed this and thought, He's jealous — I can tell.

Feeling sorry for him, she smiled her special smile again. He looked up from his papers.

‘So it's all arranged,' he said slowly, and Naida detected
the sadness and regret in his voice, but she knew it couldn't be helped; you couldn't shilly-shally all your life — you had to decide sometime. Even if the ring she was wearing did have fewer diamonds than the baker had promised, and, perhaps, fewer than the tall, dark man with his fat salary would have provided. Yes, you had to make up your mind.

‘Wouldn't you like to go home, Naida?' the man with the moustache asked.

Naida did not speak. Her lips trembled. She looked for comfort to the dark man, who smiled quickly, giving her all of the smile, from the beginning to the end, and then what was left over in his eyes.

The sandy-haired man, trying to put his spoke in and win favour, split his face into a smile as well. ‘Happy birthday!' he said triumphantly.

The others joined in a murmur of ‘Happy birthday.'

‘You're not very big for your age, are you, Naida?' It was the sandy-haired man again. ‘How will you manage in the world?'

Naida looked defiant. ‘I'm a bastard,' she said. ‘My mother thought me into being small — that's why I didn't grow and have got yellow skin, instead of pink. But I'll manage all right. You'll see.'

Her lips quivered. The tall man offered her another cigarette, and leaned forward with a match for her, so that their faces were quite close together, and she smelled his shaving-cream-and-tobacco smell.

‘Now we're going to ask you a few more questions, Naida,' he almost whispered, looking into her eyes. Her heart tumbled over and over. ‘Your name is Naida, isn't it?' he said.

‘I told you it was,' Naida said, patiently.

‘Well, now. I seem to have forgotten the date. Perhaps you could tell me.'

Naida told him, reminding him also that it was her birthday.

‘Of course. Of course. And this place here where we're having our little chat, what's the name of this place?'

‘It's to do with hospitals — I can tell by the smell,' Naida said.

He smiled once more. Then the man with the moustache pounced. ‘What are seven threes?' he said.

Naida looked at him in amazement, then she faltered, looking down at her sapphire ring.

‘I don't know about those things. I'm not specially educated.'

‘You read the newspapers?'

‘I can't read so well. I like the pictures.'

‘And what did you say you would do if you were free?'

‘I am free. I'm twenty-one, and getting married, and going next week to Mexico City or Hollywood, by plane.' She was saying it now like a charm, for she felt suddenly afraid, and uncertain, as if it wouldn't happen, as if she'd just go back to the hospital and nothing would be any different. But that couldn't be it: she was twenty-one; next week she would be free. She felt for the key on her breast and touched its hard glitter.

‘It's wrong to steal, isn't it?' the sandy-haired man said, sidling up to her.

‘I never stole it. It's for my birthday — it's the key.'

‘Of course you didn't steal it, Naida. We're just talking to you. Why do you think it's wrong to steal?'