Jacaranda Blue (13 page)

‘Mrs Morris doesn't look at all well. Did she say what was ailing her?'

‘Her hubby is going for the invalid pension. He's ten years younger than her. She's here to prime old Parsons before she sends her hubby to him.'

‘What's wrong with him?'

‘A bad back, or so she says. Not that you'd guess. He was helping his son fell that big gum tree over her fence. They cut it into foot blocks and stacked it up against my side fence. It's got a terrible lean on it, and I can't afford a new fence, not now that Dave has retired.'

‘He could be going for the carer's pension, dear. She's been on the pension for years. I've often wondered why he isn't on the carer's.'

‘She doesn't look at all well lately – that terrible complexion.'

‘She's five years older than I am, you know.'

‘She looks it too, dyed hair or no dyed hair. Not that I'd say that to her. Of course, her mother died young. A growth in the breast if you remember.'

‘Yes. It's in her family. She's very pasty-faced lately. Oh, look. Here comes Reverend Templeton. I wonder what's up with him?'

At fifteen minutes to twelve, Martin Templeton bumbled his way through Parson's entrance hall to the waiting room, hoping it had cleared. The room was still full. His expression, not pleased, he hid it with his white handkerchief. He hadn't been inside Doctor Parsons' rooms since he sprained his ankle fourteen years ago. Looking around him now at the staring faces, he pondered their possible diseases. It would be just his luck to go down with some virus after posting off the cheque, but the tour organiser suggested he have a flu injection. He hated injections. Didn't want to be here.

‘Good morning.' Many voices muttered, and many eyes measured him for a box. He was more than old enough, but God help his pallbearers.

He nodded, and spoke his communal, ‘Good morning.'

‘There's still seven before you. Do you want to wait?' Sister, safe behind the glass window that sealed her into her tower of power, asked.

‘No. No. I certainly do not want to wait. Thank you. Thank you. If you could tell Parsons that not everyone has the time to sit and await his pleasure, and that if he is prepared to run his business in a businesslike manner, to make an appointment for me, then, and only then will I return.' He turned his back on the room and departed, relieved to be away. Shooting slightly disabled germs into one's arm had always sounded like an admirable way to catch disease, rather than a prevention. He'd do well enough without it.

Martin had learned long ago to wait for the last day of the month before making withdrawals from Stella's bank accounts. By doing this, he neither missed out on interest for the month past, nor for the following.

From the stove, where she was cooking his breakfast of lamb's fry and bacon, Stella watched him place two slips of paper on the table, tucking them beneath her bread and butter plate – as he always did – as he had with her mother. Without a word, he walked out the back door.

‘Father. Don't go away now. It's almost ready.'

‘Two minutes,' he called.

‘You'll get sidetracked in the shed like you always do,' she warned, but Martin was back within less than a minute, a huge and dusty leather case in hand. She frowned as he took up the clean dishcloth and began wiping the dust to her newly polished floor.

One eye watching him, she served his meal, buttered his toast, poured two cups of tea, then served herself a small bowl of cereal.

‘Father. Your breakfast is on the table getting cold.' She sat, moving the withdrawal forms to the side as she set her bowl down. He was usually seated first, his knife and fork raised in expectation and ready to pounce when she placed his meal before him. He has been behaving oddly for several days, she thought, or am I behaving oddly? Am I seeing him and the world through different eyes?

She had done the flowers for the funeral on Monday, but had not attended. Instead, she'd packed a small case, planning to leave on Monday night, to take the car and drive, but her father had sat watching television until eleven. Tuesday, he usually spent at his desk. She'd decided she would go before lunch, but Tuesday came and went, and by Wednesday, she wasn't certain that she wanted to leave.

Since Sunday, Stella had not been beyond the cypress hedge. She had not seen Bonny – or Marilyn; had spoken to no-one, other than her father. It was he who telephoned the church guild ladies on Wednesday afternoon, explaining, that as Stella was unwell, the Thursday meeting would be held at Bonny's house. He had taken the boxes of wool and clown parts to Bonny in the late afternoon and Miss Moreland had caught a lift back with him.

They'd found Stella on her knees before the sink, tacking down the edges of a new tear in the linoleum.

‘So this is what Parsons prescribes for illness?' the old woman had said. ‘You're flogging a dead horse there, girl.' Then she'd turned to Martin. ‘Why don't you do something with this room? It's enough to depress a saint with a gold pass to the hereafter.'

The minister had cut the conversation short. ‘Quite functional,' he'd replied, making a fast exit to his study. But he rarely gained the last word with Miss Moreland.

‘You can't take it with you, you mean old coot.' She had laughed then, and she'd walked to the open window, reaching out to touch a jacaranda blossom that brushed at the window sill.

‘It's late, isn't it? Should be thinking of dropping its leaves, not flowers.'

‘Very late. I've never known it to bloom in February.' Stella had placed her hammer on the table before joining her friend at the window. ‘I believe it is attempting to come inside, my dear – trying to brighten up this terrible, terrible room.'

‘Great minds think alike.' She tossed a plastic department store bag to the table. ‘I thought it might brighten you up a bit, girl,' she'd said.

The bag had contained a delightful blouse, all blues and greens and lilacs, and this morning, Stella was wearing it in celebration; she'd woken around midnight to the familiar stomach cramps, and never before had she welcomed them. Relief. So there was to be no testimonial to that day, a day she could now truly put cleanly away. Place it behind her with other days.

She looked down at the blouse, delighting in its colour. It was like wearing her garden on her back. Wrapped safe in her garden, neglected these last days, as had been her other duties since the rape.

The weather remained fine, and not too hot. Today she would spend outdoors with her flowers. It was a place of memories, where old blooms and the surprise of new blooms, from seeds long buried, or blown in from other gardens, never failed to please her. She would pot out the little jacarandas for the fete, and some of the smaller oaks. It was not the right time of year to disturb them, but she trusted her green thumbs.

And the tomatoes. They were rotting on the vine. She must get to them, pick them, give some away. She had seedlings to plant out too – and the couch grass beside Wilson's fence to spray. Perhaps she'd reach over and give her neighbour's forest a few bursts of weedkiller too, she thought.

Her eyes turned to the window now as memory of the child she had been, came from a place too long put aside. She had spent her childhood in that garden, or in the shed, or up a tree. It was a good place to hide in, and large enough to deter the most determined seeker. Her hands went to her face, covered it, and she breathed deeply between her fingers.

Put it aside, she warned. Don't look at it.

Her maternal grandfather had died many years before Stella's birth. He'd had this house built in the centre of two large country blocks, which left an abundance of space for the garden – space that had not been put to good use until Stella began tilling the earth. She had told Bonny once that her garden, to some small degree, compensated for her lack of a child. Perhaps it did. It was certainly her creation. Seeds were sown, and watched over, small plants nurtured, and she gained so much pleasure in watching small sick plants grow strong and tall.

The three jacarandas were her adult children. Almost thirty years ago she had purchased them at a church fete.

She smiled, remembering that day – her father hurrying her from the house, handing her a brand new five-dollar note; it was so new, she hadn't wanted to spend it.

‘Poor Father,' she whispered, and again her hands went to her face, covered it, but her mind was wandering back now, back to the day of the crisp five-dollar note.

‘Off you run, Daughter. Quickly now. Have a day in the sun,' he had said. ‘They'll have food there. Buy your lunch today.'

It had been a wonderful day of freedom. For hours she'd wandered the stalls, eating hot jam-filled donuts while trying to decide between a small figurine, five second-hand books by Agatha Christie, and some writing paper. Then she had come upon the three sickly little trees, their roots restricted in small clay-filled pots. They were marked at fifty cents each.

She planned to keep money enough aside to save one, to take it home and free its roots to the earth, but she had not been able to decide which one's need was the greatest, so when Mr Scott offered her the three for one dollar, she was jubilant. She had handed over her dollar note and, while he placed the sickly trees in plastic bags, she'd run back and bought the books.

Steve Smith was at the bookstall. He'd helped her carry the trees home, and he'd stayed on to dig the holes beside the shed.

‘The shed and the house will give them a bit of protection from the frost,' he'd said. ‘I'll build you a bit of a frame around them – that's if you like.'

Each winter for three years she had covered the trees with plastic bags stretched over taller and taller stakes, but soon the jacarandas had outstripped their planter. Now they no longer needed her care, but cared for her, supplying shade with their graceful foliage, adding their colour to her life, giving shelter to her birds.

There were birds out there this morning. One was only inches from the window. Head to the side, it looked directly at her, winked.

She smiled. I will find a way to survive, she told the bird. Haven't I always found a way? Soon I will return to my meetings and to my responsibilities. When I am ready, but until I am ready, my garden and my birds will support me, and as Miss Moreland says, Maidenville will do well enough without me.

 

‘Father. Your breakfast. It's not nice, cold. What on earth are you doing with that old monstrosity?' she asked, eyeing the case again, frowning over the dishcloth, new yesterday, now only fit for the rubbish.

‘It is a little antiquated. Its clips don't appear to hold. What happened to the small leather case?'

‘It's . . . perhaps the budget could be stretched to supply some new luggage,' she replied.

He walked away from the case, leaving it on the floor, tossing the soiled cloth to the sink before taking the seat at the opposite side of the table. He picked up his knife and fork and stabbed at a slice of liver, chewed on it. ‘You cook well, Daughter. A mite more pepper perhaps.'

She passed the pepper, then pointed to the withdrawal forms beside her plate. ‘Do I have my own accounts, Father?'

‘No need to concern yourself with it, Daughter. Just sign where I have placed the cross. I am using a little of it this month to top up the cheque account.' She continued to look at him, and he turned his attention to his plate. But she made no move towards the pen. Her head down, she stirred the cereal into the milk, waiting for him to continue. Frequently called on to sign his papers, she rarely looked further than his small pencilled cross, placed beside the space for signature. Today there were two forms. Why? Why two?

‘Why the two, Father?'

He swallowed, coughed. ‘I have been meaning to tell you – we are leaving in a little over three weeks. Catching the bus from Maidenville on the twenty-third of March. We fly out on Sunday the twenty-fourth.'

‘We?' she asked with interest. Was he planning to take her away from Maidenville? A holiday, perhaps to a Queensland beach. Had he known what she was planning to do? She smiled. ‘You mean . . . has this bought on your new interest in luggage?'

‘I feel I am being guided by God's hand to return to the old battlefields of my youth. Yes. The tour I was considering back in October. You may remember, Daughter. I've decided to go.'

‘Oh.' Disappointment was cold acid in her blood, but she hid it well – a master of the hiding, practised at the lie –

‘I thought you had made up your mind not to go. You said . . . the weather . . . '

‘Yes. Initially. I felt that the weather might restrict one's movements, and thus spoil the tour for me; however, it has recently been pointed out that we have received off-peak rates. Had we booked the trip to coincide with Europe's summer, the cost would have been considerably more. I also feel that it is God's will that I journey there at this time, Daughter. Perhaps he has a task for me to perform.'

She filled his teacup, passed the sugar. ‘If it is what you want. If you feel you are being led there,' she corrected, ‘then of course you must go. You will certainly need to think of new luggage. Something with wheels on it, and some new winter woollies, and perhaps a new waterproof jacket. A warm cap.'

He nodded. She watched him add three heaped teaspoons of sugar to his cup and stir well. She knew the cost of the trip. In October he had spoken to her about it, discussed it at every meal. Did she have that much money in her accounts? She had always assumed her total worth to be somewhere around five hundred dollars.

‘I know I can rely on you to see to my needs, as always. I'll require clothing for twenty-one days. Unless the hotels have a laundry service.'

‘I'm sure they do . . . at a price. Perhaps you could hand rinse – '

He laughed, interrupted. ‘Laundry is a woman's domain, Daughter. I am, of course, not entirely happy leaving you here alone, but you are looking much improved.'

‘I'm quite well now, Father, and capable of coping alone for three weeks.'

‘If I leave the petrol tank full and a hundred dollars with you, that should see you over the three weeks.' He saw her expression and added, ‘Of course, if you have need for more, then Miss Moreland – or any one of the congregation would not see you begging.'

‘It appears that I have no need to beg.' She tapped the forms with the handle of her spoon. ‘Or are you absconding with all of my worldly wealth? What was the final cost of the tour, Father?'

Her question silenced him long enough to empty his plate, to wipe it clean with a crust of toast, to drain his cup.

She knew he was not pleased. Head bowed over his toast and jam, he ate in silence. Stella pushed her plate to the side, then taking up the pen she signed the blank withdrawal forms. It was easier than arguing.

He had been watching her. Now he stood, took the forms, placed them in his satchel, and without a word he left the room, returning later, dressed for the town.

Stella left her dishes and followed him to the back door. ‘Father?'

‘Yes?' He checked his watch, impatient to be gone. ‘I posted, on Sunday, a cheque to cover the full tour. It is no small figure, Daughter, and at present, not covered by sufficient funds in the cheque account. The postal service to Sydney, being reasonably efficient, I fear the cheque will have been already presented for payment. There is a fee for – '

‘I understand. I understand. Can you also understand my desire to know why you have access to my accounts, but I am denied this same access? Or am I? Can I walk into the bank and make a withdrawal?'

‘Finances are a male domain, Daughter. You have never questioned my handling of these matters before.'

‘No, oddly enough, I haven't.' Why? her inner voice asked. ‘Surely, Father, it would be a simple enough matter to arrange a . . . a small credit card on one of my accounts. I assure you I would not abuse the privilege.'

‘I have no fear that you would. It is . . . is one of these trends of the modern world that I have chosen not to follow. You can surely understand my abhorrence of a world without cash. It is alien to those of my generation.'

‘But a world I have grown with, and not so alien to me. Am I, must I, remain trapped in the time warp of your generation? I am only forty-four. I have, no doubt, many years in which to survive an ever-changing world. I must move with it or . . . or sink. Go down without a bubble, Father.'