The Denniston Rose (19 page)

THOSE WHO TAKE notice of omens would scarcely be optimistic over the birth of Bella’s long-awaited baby. It was only March, yet the air hung dank and chilling as midwinter and the mist so thick you could not see house to house at the Camp. Breathing was like dragging something solid into your lungs: a spongy mass spiced with coal smoke and stale ash from the January fire. Not cheerful flavours.

Yet Bella Rasmussen was cheerful and everyone on the Camp knew it. Lamplight reflecting softly onto the fog from the windows of the log house sent a message to anyone passing close enough to see that warmth and life and hope were not strangers to the Camp. Every lonely passer-by trudging off to work or coming back exhausted from late shift would smile, thinking of Mrs C. Rasmussen humming and polishing away inside that glowing house.

The expected baby was a symbol of respectability for everyone at the Camp. As if a baby could bring that motley collection, scorned and reviled for their incompetence, acceptance in the wider Denniston community. Not a hope to lay on anyone, let alone a tiny child.

And there he was, newborn and perfect, coming with no great difficulty before Con the Brake, coughing and cursing up at the Brake Head, could find someone to spell him. Finally John Gantry Senior came to the rescue and Con charged down through the blanketing fog to welcome his son.

Bella, mountainous as a queen bee and as regal, is lying on the day-bed in the central room of the log house. A fire is roaring up the chimney and Totty Hanratty, heavily pregnant herself, is in attendance. She has removed her bloodied apron, bundled it into a basket, and is now tucking back odd strands of coppery hair, smoothing down the creases in her blue smock. This is the first time Totty has acted as midwife. She cannot disguise her delight. Indeed, the triumph radiating from both women is like a blare of trumpets.

Con’s woven Swedish rug, an heirloom, glows on the polished wood of the floor. Although it is early afternoon, every lamp in the house is lit against the gloom outside and in celebration. The news is out and several well-wishers are waiting outside, fuzzy shadows in the mist, but Bella will let no one in until Con has come.

His boots crash on the porch, one two. The door is almost unhinged as Con roars into the room, bringing fog and a trail of black footprints with him. In four strides he is over to his wife, then midway to reaching for her his hand stops. He stops altogether. Looks from his out-reached hand to his boots, back to Bella again, waiting for the tirade. Con the Brake, straight off duty, is black with soot: damp, clinging soot that streaks his hair, his face, every part of his body. He has forgotten to wash up, forgotten his home
clothes, forgotten to remove his boots at the back door.

Bella and Totty roar with laughter to see his rigid dismay. All Con the Brake’s desire is to hold his wife, to touch his newborn son, but here he is, caught in the spotless room, hardly daring to move. He inches his head around and moans with frustration to see his son’s rosy face, eyes wide open in surprise at this colourful world he has just entered. The linen tucked around the baby is purest white; the carved wooden cradle, carved with designs from Con’s own childhood, is of white kahikitea felled from the gorge below the Camp and dried three years in slabs behind the log house before Con would work it.

Still he has not moved. A black giant, marooned.

‘Bella!’ he moans. He has no idea what to do.

‘Mr Rasmussen,’ says Bella, her eyes alive with love, ‘you would be wise to turn around and walk in your exact footsteps back out the door, locate, if you can, the back of the house, and wash up in the laundry, where you will find hot water in plenty.’

‘My home clothes,’ murmurs Con. ‘My clothes are up at the Bins.’

‘I have a new child to look after,’ says Bella. ‘A second I do not need.’

The fog-shrouded people on the porch see the door open again, a shaft of milky light, and silhouetted against it Con the Brake tiptoeing out like a ballerina. He shuts the door softly behind him and glares at the gathering crowd.

‘I will clobber any man of you that sets foot in my house before I am washed up and dressed and ready to receive. Understood?’

They nod, and wait, coughing and wheezing, as Con roars around the back and flings water in the laundry.

When Totty finally opens the door, and the people of the Camp are allowed to file in with gifts and smiles, they see Conrad
Rasmussen sitting on a chair beside his wife. He is straight-backed and dignified like a prince. He wears the dark trousers of his best suit and a scarlet jacket, gold braided and gold buttoned, its high collar embroidered and embossed in whirls of silver and gold. The bundled baby rests on Conrad’s knee, surrounded by all this scarlet splendour.

When everyone has arrived, even Michael Hanratty and Rose of Tralee, both agape at the fairytale jacket, Conrad unpins a silver and blue star from the pocket of his coat and lays it upon the linen wraps of his son. Then he stands slowly, holding his son out towards the ill-assorted people of the Camp.

‘This is our son, Conrad the Sixth,’ he says, and kisses him. He hands him down, silver decoration and all, to Bella, who is lying there in her earrings and best nightgown as if she were simply resting, not recovering from giving birth for the first time in her life, at forty-one years of age.

Then, while the people stand around, naturally a bit dazed by all this drama, Conrad asks Totty to bring all their glasses from the kitchen and he goes to another room and brings back a dusty green bottle, which he says has been awaiting this occasion for fifteen years. He pours the clear, fiery liquid into the ten glasses, which is eight more than most people possess. Toast after toast is pledged as the glasses are passed around with great sipping and laughing and choking.

Tom Hanratty, who has just arrived, smacks his lips over the fiery liquor, then smoothes his curly beard and moustache with one hand, clears his throat, and solemnly welcomes the newest citizen of Denniston, and they all cheer.

They would have stayed all night in that glowing haven but Con the Brake, back to normal in his shirtsleeves, thanks them for coming, sweeps them with outstretched arms towards the door and chases them out into the cold and the dirty, clinging damp.

ROSE’S MOTHER IS visiting the men’s quarters and Rose wants to come too.

‘It’s no place for children,’ says her mother.

‘I know some of the men,’ says Rose. ‘I could visit too.’

‘Out, out!’ shouts her mother. ‘Here is sun and no washing hung yet. This is your task, madam.’

‘I can’t lift the sheets,’ says Rose. ‘And anyway the sun is gone again.’

‘What has got into you these days?’ says her mother. ‘You’re as surly as a goat.’

‘Why can’t I visit the men too?’ says Rose.

Her mother raises her hand to strike and Rose runs away quickly.

‘Put your boots on!’ shouts her mother, but Rose runs quickly in her stockinged feet.

She runs over to the log house but then thinks she can’t go in with her stockings muddy. Mrs Rasmussen would be cross too. She looks back. Her mother is standing outside Billy Genesis’s house, shouting and waving at her. She runs around the back of the log house and past the men’s quarters so no one can see her. She leans, puffing, against the back wall of the men’s quarters and looks over the bare scrubby patch to where the chimney is standing. Her chimney. Perhaps today she can go there. Twice already Rose has tried, but her legs wouldn’t take her.

She takes three deep breaths as if she is going to sing, but her stockinged feet are stuck like concrete in the ground. She counts to twenty. Then to fifty. At fifty her legs will go. Her mouth smiles just a bit and she starts humming to keep her legs going. Rose walks quickly and looks at the ground all the time. The chimney is frightening, like a man waiting to get her.

She doesn’t look at the ashes of the house, or the ashes of the chicken coop. Her heart is banging in her chest. It is jumping up into her throat.

Behind the chimney wet ferns lean down. She squeezes past them and they dribble on her. She looks at the chimney. She wants to get her treasure and go away quickly, but everything is different. A piece of roof iron has fallen down and is covering part of the chimney. Some burnt pieces of wood are hiding the place where the treasure is. She has forgotten to bring a knife to scrape the stuff out from the bricks.

Something scary is here.

Rose tries to stop sounds coming from her mouth but they keep coming. She breathes fast, in and out, in and out, and the sounds stop.

Rose pulls away the pieces of wood and they crash down. The chimney is all different. Some bricks are lying on the ground and
some bricks are hanging half off the chimney. She pulls at a brick where she thinks her treasure is. It comes away easily. The stuff between the bricks is crumbly and black. It pours down onto her stockings. Rose moans again. She drops the brick and her hands are black too.

There is no hole behind the brick.

Rose tries another place and another. Strange sounds come out of her mouth again and again. She can’t stop them. The chimney is all coming apart; she can lift the bricks off anywhere. Her treasure box isn’t in any of the holes.

Rose wants to scream and howl. She wants to run and stick her face in Mrs Rasmussen’s soft front. She wants to run away down the Track to the railhead and right out to the sea. She looks at her black hands and her black smock and stockings. The cold is coming up through her feet.

Because of her cold feet she starts running. Her feet run back past all the houses to her own room. They run around to the back of Billy Genesis’s place, to the water tank.

The water tin is heavy even with only a bit of water in it. The wire handle cuts her hand. She drags the slopping tin into her room and shuts the door. Her fingers are too cold to pull off her dirty stockings. She flaps her useless fingers in the air and tries again. Her whole body is shaking. She drags her smock over her head without undoing the buttons and drops it in the tin. Then she lifts the dripping smock and rubs at her face and hands. All the time she is thinking of her father burning to ashes inside the house and his smoke going up the chimney. The soot on her face might be him.

The door opens. She is shaking so much she can’t see properly. Then she sees it is Billy Genesis standing in the doorway. He comes inside and shuts the door. She can’t move away.

‘Here is the little thief,’ he says and winks at her. ‘You have been
at a certain chimney by the looks of you.’ He reaches out one of his red hands to touch her bare shoulder. In his other hand he holds her treasure box.

Rose can’t move.

Billy Genesis raises a finger to heaven. ‘“If a soul sin and commit a trespass against the Lord, and lie unto his neighbour, he shall make atonement unto the Lord with burnt offering.”’ He lowers his finger and touches her again.

‘You’re cold,’ he says. ‘We must do something about that, little thief.’

Looking at her all the time, he puts her treasure box on the high window ledge. Rose can’t move towards it or move anywhere. Billy comes over to her and takes off her vest and her undergarments with his hot hands, and he peels off her stockings and drops them all in the tin. He dries her face with a corner of the blanket and puts his face into her hair.

‘Little Rose,’ he says.

Her whole body is shaking and there is a fiery lump in her throat so she can hardly breathe.

He carries her to the bed and puts a blanket over her, then he puts his hand under the blanket and rubs her all over.

‘Rose, Rose,’ he says in a voice thick as mud. He is breathing very fast.

There is red in her eyes. The only sound she can make is a frog’s croak.

His hands pull at her shoulder, turning her over until she lies on her stomach. The pillow stuffs up her mouth. He lies on top of her and squashes her into the bed and grinds her into the mattress.

‘Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose,’ he moans. ‘Rose Rose Rose.’

It hurts and she can’t breathe. She is very hot now. Everything looks fuzzy. Her head feels too big.

Billy stands up and looks at her.

‘This is the law of the burnt offering,’ he says. ‘“Because of the burning upon the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be burning in it.” Leviticus Chapter Six.’

He covers her with her blanket. Then he gets her other clothes from the chest and dresses her. His hands are cold now. He tries to sit her up but she only wants to lie down.

She keeps her eyes shut but she can’t stop his voice.

‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’ he says.

After a while he says, ‘Now, Rose, this is our little secret. I will not tell everyone you are a thief and you will not tell about our game. Is that a bargain?’

She wants to ask for her treasure. She wants to say it belongs to her and she’s not a thief, but her throat has closed up and her head is banging.

Billy says, ‘The people here will send you away if they know you are a thief. They will call you a wicked sinner and shake their Bibles at you and drive you like a dog away from Denniston.’

Rose keeps her eyes shut and in her head she sings ‘Rose of Tralee’ right through. He strokes her hair and then after a while he goes away. She can’t even see if he has taken the box.

Later she hears her mother bang on the wall to call her for tea. Then her mother comes in. Rose can’t breathe properly. Her mother comes to the bed and puts her hand on Rose.

‘Dear God,’ she says, and goes out shouting and calling for help.

Rose sees flames. People are walking around in the flames. They are walking slowly. Their mouths are wide open as if they are screaming but no sound comes out. The flames don’t burn them, they just walk on and on through the fire.

Once she opens her eyes and sees her mother sitting by her bed.
The light is from a candle on the table beside her. The candle is set in a tin mug and its flame is huge and swollen. The flame swells and swells until her mother’s face is gobbled up by the flame and she tries to scream but only fire comes out of her mouth.

Another time she thinks Mrs Rasmussen is in the room. Mrs Rasmussen’s fresh soapy smell is there and her big white apron, and some other smell that she is trying to make Rose drink. It won’t go down. Then Mrs Rasmussen’s cool hands with their sparkling rings suddenly change into Billy Genesis’s big rough red hands. The little room is thick with hands and fat sausage fingers, all moving and waving like trees in a storm, all different colours and sizes, some small as a baby’s and some giant hands with claws instead of fingernails.

Sometimes her ears are full of shouting and roaring, the voices breaking over her like waves, each wave bigger and louder than the last. Sometimes there is no sound at all, only the wild jumbled people and colours moving silently round and round the room, crowding up to her bed until she can’t breathe, and when she pushes them away her arm goes right through them and they crowd even closer.

And then, one morning, Rose wakes up. Her room is empty and quiet. By her bed is a tin mug of water. Her hand, reaching for it, is white, with blue veins like tiny rivers running over it. The water is the best thing Rose has ever tasted.

She lies quiet as a mouse. Sun is slanting in through the high window and silver dust is moving in a slow dance through the beams. She watches them for a long time. They are beautiful. The slant of sun moves down the wall and reaches the floor. Rose watches it light up one floorboard and then creep over the crack to light up another.

Her mother comes in and looks at her. Rose looks back.

‘Well,’ says her mother, ‘this is an improvement.’

And her mother smiles.

Later Eva comes back with a bowl of soup. It is hot and salty and it stings Rose’s throat, but even the stinging feels good. Her mother undresses her.

‘So, so,’ she says, half singing, ‘you are weak like a baby. Oh, these poor thin arms!’

Rose can’t remember her mother ever undressing her. Eva bundles the dirty sheet off the bed and spreads a clean one with a wide flick of her wrists, and smoothes it down. Rose sits on the chest in her fresh nightgown and watches while her mother pulls off the damp pillowcase and tucks the drooping grey pillow under her chin to fit a fresh one. She swings the pillow through the air and plumps it down onto the bed.

‘What is madam gaping at then? You could catch flies.’

‘You don’t usually make my bed.’

‘Well, I am not a complete monster, you see. We must get you well and pretty again, eh?’

‘Am I ugly now?’

Rose’s mother steps back and looks hard at her. She sighs. ‘Well, apart from the tangled hair and crusty nose you are still pretty, but delicate. Pink cheeks and plump body is better.’

Then her mother bundles all the dirty things up inside the sheet and takes them out, and Rose walks on her wobbly legs back to bed and lies down again. Everything in the room smells of soap. The bed feels better than a palace.

Later her mother comes in again with hot tea, and Rose is sitting up.

‘You are the lucky one,’ she says. ‘Hard times have made you tough.’

Rose opens her mouth but first no sound comes out, and then
too much. Her voice is like a rusty door hinge.

‘Others have not been so fortunate,’ says her mother. She walks around the room, back and forth. Rose thinks she may have a fever too.

Rose tries her voice again. ‘What happened?’ she croaks.

‘You have had diphtheria, and are now recovering.’

‘Billy Genesis made me sick.’

‘Your Uncle Billy had nothing to do with it.’

‘Yes he did.’

‘So, enough. I can see you are better,’ says her mother. After a while she says, ‘Other children have been lost.’

‘How?’

‘You might as well know,’ says her mother, ‘that Mrs C. Rasmussen has lost her baby. And a Hanratty has gone, and four or five from Burnett’s Face.’

‘Lost where?’ says Rose. Her voice is losing its creak.

‘Dead,’ says her mother.

‘Brennan?’ says Rose.

‘Not Brennan.’

‘Michael?’

‘Not Michael. The little girl.’

‘Conrad the Sixth?’

‘Conrad the Sixth.’ Rose doesn’t like the glittery hard look in her mother’s eyes when she names the dead baby.

Rose shuts her eyes and thinks of the dead children. And then she thinks that Mrs Rasmussen will be able to come back to school now and will want to play games with Rose in the secret bedroom again.

‘Conrad the Sixth was too little to matter,’ she says.

‘You might think so,’ says her mother, ‘but he matters more than you think. Oh yes.’ She begins her walking again, round and
round the tiny room. ‘Oh yes, our time is coming now, soon, and

you are to play your part in this. You.’

Rose turns away from the sound.

‘Also,’ says her mother, in a voice that is thin as a knitting needle, ‘your good friend Mrs Rasmussen thinks you are the cause of her precious son’s death. We are to blame, it seems. When death occurs they look first towards us to see if any blame may stick. If your dear Mrs Rasmussen cared about her son, why did she come to visit you? She is the one who carried the disease. She. She is to blame!’

The hard words drop out of her mother’s mouth one by one. They keep coming. Rose thinks her mother might be sick too.

‘Billy Genesis is to blame,’ says Rose. ‘He started it.’

Her mother’s eyes roll in a funny way. She doesn’t even look anywhere near Rose. ‘Billy Genesis,’ says her mother in the knitting needle voice, ‘has nothing to do with it. Nothing. Not with anything. Billy Genesis is of no importance now.’