The Well (23 page)

‘Thank you,' Hester said and waited and was handed, in a few moments, the little pile of cheap exercise books.

‘I'll get you a cup of tea while you have a read,' Frank's wife said. ‘The kettle won't take a minute. I expect you could do with one.'

‘Thank you.' Hester forced her voice to be gracious. She opened the red exercise book which was filled from cover to cover with Mr Bird's surprisingly neat figures and handwriting. In this book, with carefully entered dates, were all the investments neatly listed under headings underlined with red ink.
HOLDER STOCK AMOUNT INTEREST PURCHASED MATURING INTEREST DUE RECEIVED CERTIFICATE NUMBER
There were the lists of figures spreading across the pages tirelessly written out year after year.

In another book the details of the land and house and crop sales were listed, everything was there, all the terms of the transaction down to the last teaspoon sold in the contents of the house.

In the yellow exercise book she read:

Hester blinked and made herself read on.

Hester was hardly able to read on, her eyes were blurred with tears. It was the second time within a few days that her eyes had been washed like this.

The tea cup inscribed with the words
Shire Roads Board
stood on the edge of the desk. She tried to read on.

Hester had to wipe her eyes. She kept her head bent down.

She could not go on reading. The little exercise books were a powerful indication of how she had been looked after and she was ashamed because she had never wanted to know and had never given a glance or a smile of gratitude or a word of thanks. She understood too, at once, that she needed to be looked after, cared for, more than ever. She had never felt so afraid and so alone.

‘Have a chocolate-chip biscuit Miss Harper and have your tea before it's cold.' Mrs Frank's voice came, it seemed, across a great space.

‘Yes, yes, thank you.' Hester felt the thick old cup with her lips and tried to drink. It was an ugly cup but the tea was nice.

‘If you want to leave your instructions Miss Harper,' Mrs Frank said, ‘I'll be happy to see to anything as you want done.'

‘When will Mr Bird be back?' Hester had no idea what her instructions should be. ‘I'll need his advice,' she was going to add but did not.

‘That I can't say at all,' Mrs Frank said, ‘but I daresay it'd be all right for you to take the books to go over at your leisure and be sure to bring them back to the office next time you're in town – them being the only records. Should you want cash you can go to the bank and ask for Mr Taylor. Mr Bird said to tell you that if you …'

‘I see,' Hester struggled to her feet. ‘Thank you,' she said, putting the thin books in her handbag. She was afraid more tears would come and be in evidence on her cheeks. Not for the first time in her life someone, another person, had left some words of advice, of help, for her. Perhaps, like last time, she would never be able to tell the person, the friend, thank you. It was the pain of bereavement. ‘I'll be back in town in a couple of days,' she managed to say. ‘We'll be coming in to meet the train.'

‘Oh well, I'll see you then, then,' Mrs Frank said, ‘and by then we should know for better or for worse how it's to be for poor Mr Bird.'

‘Yes,' Hester said. She limped away down the path to the Toyota. Katherine would be waiting.

H
ESTER IS
walking at the side of the long straight road low down between the brown paddocks which stretch endlessly on both sides to far-away horizons. A practical consideration which can bring a human being into perspective, she thinks, is the knowledge that a tiny handful of people can produce from this vast landscape enormous quantities of food. The great dome of the familiar sky is above like a never-ending floating roof of light clear air. Once again there are no clouds though her keen eyes do detect, she thinks, a faint blur which could be cloud perhaps even rain-bearing cloud. It is at present far away. It seems to lie, hardly suspended, above the place where the land meets the sky.

She carries a petrol can in one hand. With the other hand she leans heavily on her stick and, in spite of the built-up surgical boot and the iron calliper, she is limping along at quite a good pace. Never in all her years of driving to and from the town or to other properties has she run out of petrol. It is not her way to be unprepared. She does know though, from experience, that the deserted road only seems to be deserted. It is a curious fact about driving in the country that other cars on the road are kept spaced by distance because they are all travelling at about the same speed. The driver forced to stop for one reason or another, thinking that he is alone in the most remote and forlorn place, soon finds that he is overtaken by one car after another. And, in the country, it is the habit for drivers to slow down and stop and ask if there is anything they can do. Even for their sworn enemies they will do this.

As she walks she tells herself that she must enjoy the feeling of her own insignificance which is enhanced by the indifference of the land. This silent indifference towards human life can make her feel small and safe. It is a safety which brings freedom for the time being. It is a freedom from fear. As she is able to sift her thoughts and feelings she knows, as she has always known, if there are several fears then there are really none. One fear on its own, is really fear and it is one fear that she has. Out between the apparently deserted paddocks it seems to be dissipated and she can say aloud in a croaking sort of voice, talking to herself, that if Kathy wants to go with Joanna to the city – to America – wherever it is people go these days, she, Hester, must not mind. Of course she minds, she says; she does mind … The text on Joanna's pretty blue paper must be an American version of

Hester has looked it up in her Bible. She, when she did this, was wanting to tell Katherine that America was not all film stars and beautiful houses in Beverly Hills. Katherine was serving their evening meal. Her appetite had come back and Hester, remembering a dreadfully sad story they had read together in a magazine, did not say anything. In the story which was said to be a true story, a young girl, caught in an emotional conflict, refused to eat and then was unable to eat and came to a terrible end.

Kathy reduced to a skeleton sitting on the edge of a hospital bed. Never!

Hester knows that her thoughts at a certain time every morning are like recurring symptoms. These thoughts come in waves each one adding to the one before, like the waves of an illness. Her mind is swamped every morning while the breakfast is cleared away and the kitchen floor is swept and washed. She feels the obsession coming over her and she can think only of Kathy, of her appearance, of the sound of her voice, and of her dancing. She thinks of how Kathy will tell her that she wants to go away and leave her and she thinks of what she must say in reply and she wants to break down and weep before this conversation can take place. She wants to beg her not to go, not to want to go. During this time of obsession she cannot face a life without Kathy; every day to wake up and know that she is no longer there. She does not speak of it, however, because of the delicate balance of reason which can so easily be disturbed. In her mind, at these times, she goes over the words and phrases, over and over the same thoughts and the same words and the same phrases …

And now as she walks she can think of these daily overwhelming thoughts and she knows they come as an expected pain comes and they go as a pain, going, goes.

It is simply a matter she tells herself of not thinking and a matter of keeping thoughts and wishes in proportion … and it is a matter of resolving not to go over endlessly unspoken conversations. If Kathy does go away. If she has to face this it will be a matter of having enough activities to partially disguise the emptiness.

Katherine is left behind, perched high in the Toyota. Hester was just able, as they came to an unexpected halt, to pull off onto the gravel. The shoulder of the road being on the crest of a slight rise there was the land spread out all round them. Possibilities in all directions Hester said but the wisest choice was to wait with the truck or to start walking, with the can, along the road towards
El Bandito
.

As Hester felt like walking they decided that Katherine should remain there and finish the hand-sewing on the Rosalind costume, a lovely woodland green, Hester having found among her store of materials a suitable length of cloth. It would have been pointless, they both agreed, to cut out the doublet for Orlando (purple) until Joanna was measured for as, Hester said at the time in a way in which Hilde Herzfeld might have said it, Joanna might turn out to be a dumpling. Also, Kathy had another thought, it would be better not to dye the pantihose until Joanna said if she liked purple. Getting Rosalind finished would leave enough time to sew Orlando before the day of the jam and pickle shed.

There is plenty of time for a breakdown before they meet the train which is bringing Joanna. They left early so that Hester would have time to visit Mr Bird's house again, the idea being that Katherine would finish the sewing at the station while waiting for the train to come.

Hester is just remembering the cassette, ‘Buttoned up Beats', which she bought at
El Bandito
on the day of the rope and which she forgot to give to Katherine when Mrs Rosalie Borden with her diesel land cruiser packed with small, well-scrubbed boys overtakes her. She has already, coming upon the stranded Toyota, spoken to Katherine.

‘No worries, Miss Harper,' Mrs Borden calls out, ‘move up over boys – into the back and let Miss Harper into the front. That's it Dobby, take the drum for Miss Harper. Not like you at all, Miss Harper to run out of gas!'

‘No,' Hester says, trying with difficulty to heave herself up into the front seat. ‘No it's never happened to me before.'

‘One of youse take Miss Harper's stick.' Rosalie Borden's rich tones of command are obeyed instantly. Hester notices that she is only just able to fit behind the steering wheel.

‘Junior here,' Mrs Borden pats her almost full-term bulge with affection, ‘drives. We'll get you there and back in no time.'

‘Miss Harper,' Dobby Borden says, ‘your spotlight on your roo bar's broke.'

Broken, Hester says in her mind. ‘Is it?' she says twisting to look at the child.

‘Yes, under the cover it's all splintery,' his piping voice fills the car, ‘all smashed and splintery …'

‘Manners! Dobby Borden. Voice! Dobby Borden for gawd's sake! Keep that voice of yours down,' Mrs Rosalie Borden, apparently unaware of her own powerful sounds, admonishes. ‘Miss Harper's not deaf. She's got ears like everyone else!'

‘I suppose I must have …' Hester fumbles for words. ‘I must …'

‘Did you get a roo? Did you Miss Harper? Did you get a roo?' The children's excited noisy voice seem all round her.

‘Boys! Manners! Shut up the lot of you!' Rosalie Borden quietens her sons. ‘I expect,' she says, ‘Miss Harper's had dozens of roos on that great big bar in her time. Tell you what. She'll get one of you if you don't keep quiet! She'll get all of youses, that's what.'

‘Oh no, no, I don't think I …' Hester starts to speak.

‘Aw! it's only my fun,' Mrs Borden says, ‘they know!' In the ensuing silence Mrs Borden, in an amiable and relaxed way, begins to gossip about Mr Bird's sudden illness and death. ‘An aortic haemorrhage they said it was,' she says. ‘They say the end's quick but nothing is really all that quick; there's always what there is when anyone dies.' She keeps her hands lightly on the steering wheel which does seem to be held firmly by her pregnancy. ‘I knew he'd been unwell for quite a while,' she adds.

‘Yes,' Hester manages to say. She finds it hard to breathe easily and the car movement makes her feel sick. Mrs Borden is still talking, telling her that Mr Borden's younger brother who is a distributor – ‘distributes anything and everything,' Mrs Borden laughs, ‘got his fingers in everywhere, frozen foods, soft ware, ladies' underwear, pantihose and corsets. Books puts books in all the stores, cassettes, records – you name it – he carries it – is interested in Mr Bird's business. Mr Borden,' Mrs Borden continues, ‘says his brother will bring the agency up to date with computers and everything. Did you know, Miss Harper,' Rosalie Borden's voice is filled with curiosity and disbelief, ‘did you know, Miss Harper, that Old Birdie wrote out every sum and every word all by hand!'