The Hanging Garden Part 12

Apparently satisfied n.o.body else was in ill health, she went stamping out to the bathroom. *Cricket!' she moaned, tablets rattling like dice in a tumbler, till a slosh of water silenced them.

*I don't expect somebody kind would like to make me a cup of tea,' she called back.

*That's just what I'm doing. Or at any rate I've put the kettle on.' It was Harold in the kitchen.

Ally could not have known what to answer. So I left them to their shared silence, or the argument they were brewing for when the kettle blew its whistle. I went into the garden.

This sad, sandy patch, all clothesline and failed vegetables, lacy cabbages, scribbley peas, rambling pumpkins. In Australia it is virtuous to grow your own vegetables while conning the greengrocer into selling you his wilting varieties cheap. The Lockhart garden is full of Ally's failures-and Harold's avoidances. And birds which n.o.body notices as they knock off the grubs Ally's vegetable ventures encourage. And cats-here for the birds, and more particularly, the overturned garbage bins-toms with swollen cheeks growling over chop-bones. Harold does not recognise cats, unless the aesthetic ones with tonal values. Ally sees them only when she drives past in her old car through a loneliness of lantana scrub.

Does Ally's car correspond to the tree-house Gil and I built and left behind. No, we didn't. We were only forced.

One of the predatory cats stalked across the scuffed sandy *lawn' flicking an angry tail. She sat for a moment preening herself with a licked paw. I should not have dismissed cats in my conversation with Harold, saying they made me sneeze and itch. A handy lie-I have never known a cat. But would like to. I feel very close to them. I would love to stroke a cat's fur, from its bat's ears down to the tip of its snake's tail. Cleonaki would not have permitted an animal.

After she had done her face, (this slinky tortoisesh.e.l.l could only have been a female-no swollen-cheeked, moth-eaten tom) she loped swiftly across the lawn into the lacy cabbages, and re-appeared in exit over the grey paling fence.

Almost at once the back door whammed. Harold, too, was making an exit. Where the lovely tortoisesh.e.l.l loped, Harold stalked while hoping any observer might see it as a normal walk. Harold was taking the shortcut through a gap in the fence to the track which leads to the ferry. As he crossed the lawn I might not have existed. He looked through me, dismissing an experience which had not turned out the way he would have had it go. Only for an instant the eyes turned on, and you felt he might be saving you up for the future. Squeezing sideways through the gap in the grey palings (the stomach would only just make it) a shred of the exquisitely tonal gear was left behind on a rusty nail. The last of Harold drifted back as a muttered, *f.u.c.k.'

There was nothing to keep me, so I went back inside.

Ally called, *Who's that?' and at once more hopefully, *Is it Ireen?'

She was stretched out on her bed in her slip, a strip of wetted lint covering her eyes. Her temporary blindness should have made it easier to face her. But I felt guilty. It wasn't only for Harold's behaviour, and her relations.h.i.+p with my mother, it was for the whole undisguised shambles of Ally Lockhart in an old beige slip: the bruises on her s.h.i.+ns, the thin strips of what had been b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the flaking lips in a face the weather had roughed and reddened. I have never stroked a cat. I should have been able to stroke my aunt if I hadn't felt so paralysed. At least she would have hated it (or so I think), and that let me off a little of my guilt.

Perhaps it was from not being able to see me that she became more confidential than ever in the past. What she resented most was callousness in human beings, by which she meant men-husbands. She went so far as to name him. Men's bodies last better than women's and husbands take advantage of it.

*I don't know why I'm telling you this,' she said. *A child. But children, specially you, Ireen-know more today-too much-and at the same time not enough. You can't-the experience of life. I wish I had had a girl child...' After letting you see everything to put you off womanhood. But wanted you to share her suffering. *Those boys of mine will grow into men and despise me for being old, ugly, and their slave. Sometimes I think I'd rather have a poof. Might too. Good G.o.d, no. I can't possibly.'

Presently we hear the little ones clattering in from the street. Ally's back arches on the bed and she tears the bandage off her eyes. *What if the Parmores? That would be the last straw! No, Col and Wal will have given them enough. And they wouldn't want to face the boring mother...' So she sinks back. *Be a darling, Ireen, and feed them. You're so capable...' she sighs.

Fortunately Col and Wal are still munching popcorn and sucking lollies. They want nothing. Hardly notice you are there. Run into what was once their room, to fetch a few toys. You hear the door slam in the writing table. As you go in to protect your secrets, the key tinkles on the floorboards.

Col asks, clutching his Donald Duck, *What are you always writing, Reenee? Is it a story?'

*Yes, a story.'

Wal asks *What about, Reen?'

*The lot of us.'

They have a giggle.

*Will you read it to us?'

*No need.'

More giggles as they run out to the veranda, Wal scattering bits of his meccano set.

Tonight I am the meccano set no-one will ever put together, even if all the bits are there.

Whatever got into you to keep a diary. Safer to share your secrets with a mirror. Shan't write any more. Ought to destroy it but think of all those little white moths taking wing, spreading the news. Burn it? Under the wad of tinkling carbon the core of the matter will lie waiting to be read. Steamy emotions are difficult to kindle. You have strung the key to the drawer on a chain, and wear it round your neck. Even this is dangerous.

*Ah, keepsakes,' Harold says at breakfast in the toneless voice with which he clothes his most feeling censure. *I wonder whose snap has pride of place in Irene's locket.'

Bruce sn.i.g.g.e.rs, *Lionel Manley perhaps!'

Keith comes in with *Lionel Manley? You don't say! There's a fair few of the girls have crushes on Lionel the Lily. You'd be surprised. Hot or frigid, it don't make no difference!'

Harold speculates with dead indifference, *To which category I wonder, does our Irene belong?'

Bruce says you are a dark horse, no-one has found out yet, unless it's ...

Just then her aunt appears with another dish of snags to appease her men.

*Oh Ireen's the pa.s.sionate type like me. Aren't you, darl?' Ally gushes.

Everybody joins in the laugh then the boys settle down to wrapping their teeth round food, their lips soon as greasy as sausage skins, bloodied with tomato sauce.

But whose face would Bruce consider you might be wearing in the *locket'?

Bruce and Keith are growing at the same rate as Gilbert Horsfall-or as Gil was when you last saw him. The Lockhart brothers are growing hairier every day. If ever at table Bruce lays his arm alongside yours it p.r.i.c.kles like horsehair in some old burst mattress. On these occasions his breathing grows more noticeable. He says he'll take you for a drive riding pillion when he gets that motorbike-*if you're not afraid.' You aren't because it's likely to be some way off. He is saving money from the jobs he does at week-ends and in the holidays when the climate doesn't damp his enthusiasm. Yes I think I'm safe from Bruce (or *Bruise' as they p.r.o.nounce it.) It is Bruce who is bringing you this letter on the last Tuesday before term starts at *Ambleside'. Know it as Tuesday. You will always remember it as Tuesday because this is the first letter you ever received with an Australian stamp on it, and Ally has finally bought you the uniform for the next terrifying phase of life in an Australian school.

The letter itself is frightening enough-*Bruise' has been up to the box. He advances into the back yard holding the envelope by a corner. You turn to face him.

*A formal letter for Miss Irene Sklavos.'

He minces towards me. His attempt at a refined accent, and the hairy wrist with its metal watchband as he jiggles the letter under my nose is meant to make the situation humiliating. The key on its chain lies cold between your painful b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Yes, you are humiliated.

If he leaves you to the letter it doesn't mean he isn't watching from inside the house. They are all watching, Alison and Harold for once united in boring into the contents of the envelope.

Kyrie eleison amongst the fretted cabbage leaves and silver snail tracks. Dragging at the corner of the envelope you make this prayer of joy and fear, crumbling into the Greek reffo you will always be.

The last must be first Just a line from your fellow reffo Gil Doxa to Theo for these palpitations, this elevation, under the empty clothesline tingling with its droplets of moisture.

Dear Eirene (dear Gil) I wonder how you are getting on since I left Neutral Bay. Isn't that Neutral the biggest laugh in war or peace? I would love to see you but our ways lie apart in life and schools. I am starting term at this Churchy Grammar School for boys, and you I hear are bound for *Ambleside' and Miss Hammersley. I can only say good luck to us, mate.

I often think about us Reen-and the tree-house, the b.l.o.o.d.y cubby-you sitting on the upright Arnotts biscuit tin like it was your inherited throne. Perhaps it was. From all this we can only meet again.

Sorry my typing isn't all it ought to be. Fiona is letting me use her machine-so as Lockharts won't swoop in and recognise my writing. Fiona (Cutlack) is Mrs Stally's niece who lives here too. Vaucluse isn't all that bad-if not our sort of country Reen. What is, I'd like to know, outside the big fig tree in Cameron Street. Old Stally is the silliest b.u.g.g.e.r you ever had to put up with. You wonder anyone's accounts come right. Mrs S. is an invalid. Sundays we eat lunch at the Royal Sydney Golf Club. A lot of congealed custard and Stallybra.s.ses galore. Fiona is the best of them. She's learning touchtyping, so as she can take a job till she marries-if the war doesn't last forever, if it does she'll go into the WRANS, she reckons the hats will suit her best.

Oh Jesus, the f.u.c.king war. Perhaps I should skip the school bit and join up. My dad ought to approve, if they ever approve of anything. Get killed like poor old Nigel. Don't think anything will kill Horsfall or if it does I'll come back to haunt the places we've been together.

Fiona says that most of what I say is pure bullsh. Hope you don't think the same, Reen, of what I sincerely feel This FIONA is probably right ...

Just a line from your fellow reffo Gil What to do with the letter? Stick it down your front with the key, if they won't hear the key beating against the envelope, if their long distance eyes haven't already read the message?

By the time you go in they have decided on their line of attack. Bruce gazing at the fly-specks on the ceiling, Keith his lids lowered, thick lips still greasy from breakfast trembling with amus.e.m.e.nt and the comb-and-paper tune he is humming. Ally has chosen a fit of busyness, sc.r.a.ping plates and jostling cups on saucers, to disguise her thoughts and intentions.

Only Harold expresses his disapproval in words. *Hope it was good news, Irene. Or perhaps it was only a business letter.'

The secret we share gives his interest a sting which the others cannot feel.

*No. It's a letter from a friend.' My reply as flat as his enquiry.

*Glad you have friends around.' His low voice vibrates in a way which might reach deep inside someone who meets him for the first time at the Quay or on the ferry.

The ears of the others are p.r.i.c.king of course. To know who Reen's friend could possibly be. Your nostrils are pinched as you enjoy a twinge of evil in yourself. You could have stuck a pin in any of them as Viva stuck the pin in your arm that first day at school and seemed to grow hypnotised by the pinp.r.i.c.k of blood.

Unable to solve a mystery, they go their different ways, and you are left with the ballooning melancholy which comes with the prospect of this new important school. Even the *Ambleside' uniform has a smell of importance which warns off a black reffo Greek.

Would like to have another read of the letter, only Alison Lockhart reappears. Her face tells that she would like to have an intimate talk now that you are alone in the house. She accepts you as a woman, no longer the unwanted child-niece, because she wants to unload some of her own unhappiness.

*You will always be frank with me, dear-I hope -how can we trust each other if you aren't?'

Poor old Alison makes you feel happy by comparison-not to say dishonest. Has she guessed perhaps, and only wants it confirmed. She ought to know. It takes a very short time to find out all there is to know about Harold. If you could tell her that you are her ally, that Gil is your friend, as pure a secret as Harold is a dirty one. But secrets, whether pure or dirty, are for some people difficult to share.

Her aunt is off at a tangent. *What I am afraid of,' she tears out a tissue, a box of which she keeps handy in every room, *is that when you go to this school-up the line-other girls-their parents-will take you up, and from beginning to accept you as my own daughter, I shall-well, I shall never see you.'

It could be genuine, except that the sniffles and the Kleenex seemed to create a drama, an incestuous one at that, if Ally is my mother and Harold my would-be seducer.

You are trying not to laugh.

*What is it?'

*I was thinking of the Greek Tragedies.'

*I can't see any connection,' she says rolling the Kleenex into a ball, and throwing it in the waste paper basket. *This is Australia and although you are a Greek, we thought-wrong or right-you had started seeing yourself as an Australian.'

It is too much.

*I don't know what I am. I don't want anyone to-take me up. I only want to be left alone-to be myself-when I find out what that is.'

Ally is embarra.s.sed by turning on emotion in somebody else. But she asked for it.

*How you exaggerate, Ireen. I do hope you won't blow your top like this at "Ambleside", and disgrace us all.'

Embarra.s.sment gets rid of Alison. So at least you are alone, to think your own thoughts, if not to discover what you are.

The aunt can be heard driving off safe in her scungy old car, with its cigarettes and box of travelling tissues.

Alison had driven you up to the interview with Miss Hammersley. If you were accepted the *princ.i.p.al' (Alison's unexpected word) had made it clear she was doing it as a favour and because you were an *interesting proposition'. The waiting list for *Ambleside' was long; parents of the best professional and grazier families put their girls down years ahead.

*So I hope you'll do your stuff and impress the old cow,' says Ally without great expectations in her voice.

She has parked the vehicle out of sight of the school buildings. She has got herself up for the occasion in more than the usual lipstick, her bois de rose, and a pair of black glace shoes which make her limp.

As she limps ahead she mutters panting, *Punctuality gives me the gripes, but on some occasions it pays off...'

The hem of the bois de rose is hanging. It would be unkind to tell her. Your relations.h.i.+p is very close this morning.

It is hard to decide which is the more melancholy, a humming school or a deserted one. A superior maid tries to make us feel inferior and does, because we are disturbing the holidays. *Miss Hammersley has gone swimming,' she says, *but will be back soon.'

She shows us into the head's study and leaves us to its silence, our breathing, and our fears.

It is a mellow room, paintings, books-more than you have seen since coming to Australia. Photographs of men in uniform, British to the last hair of their moustaches. Less mellow the school groups-of *Ambleside' girls squeezed up together, with a.s.sorted teachers, and a nurse in a cap.

*That's matron,' says Ally. *She's been here for years, doling out the castor oil. You'll miss that because you're only day.'

There's a group of girl cricketers. In the centre an elderly lady in trousers, exhibiting a bit.

*That's old Jinney in her favourite role.' My aunt can't resist a giggle. *I'll laugh outright, darl, if you become a cricket star.'

Just then the maid returns, to investigate the noise, and find out whether you are lifting some of the ornaments.

She adjusts the blinds *... summer fades fabrics...' she hisses, to make her appearance look less blatant. *Miss Hammersley will be here soon,' she a.s.sures, with a sideways look at this somewhat unorthodox candidate.

Almost immediately Miss Hammersley is.

She is still slightly moist from her dip. Her hair has this damp frizz. Obviously Jinney doesn't give a d.a.m.n for hair. She is in a skirt today, askew round her bottom. Her large gold-rimmed spectacles radiate the superior virtues of the pure-bred Anglo-Saxon upper cla.s.s. Actually, as a Pom, Jinney Hammersley has it over the pure-bred Anglo-Saxon Australians, who probably would not have it otherwise. Even Ally, for all her contempt, wears a slight cringe-along with the cracked glace shoes and the bois de rose hem which has escaped its st.i.tches.

She is on about her niece adapting herself to life in Australia. You suspect that Ally, if you hadn't been there, would have liked to represent you as a kind of Greek tragedy. But since you are present it isn't possible. And the Hammersley is determined to make it a jollier than jolly occasion.

She apologises for her *swimming togs', wet and sandy, which she slings round the k.n.o.b of a chair.

*At least they smell of the sea,' her glowing face splits as though for a discovery. *You, Irene,' she p.r.o.nounces the name English style as Harold does, *should appreciate that. Thala.s.sa, Thala.s.sa...' cupping her chin and rather a dreamy smile, as she leans on this imposing desk.

You can't help laughing. It sprays around you. And Alison's horror reaching out towards her Greek tragedy of a niece, to protest, to protect us. If only Gil. Gil could have handled such a situation.

But the Hammersley has a forgiving smile. She does not appear to notice, or perhaps decides to interpret mirth as hysteria. She starts bringing out the snaps-Delphi, Olympia, Dodona, the Parthenon ... *my tour of the ancient sites...' and speaks some more of her hoi polloi English Greek. As she leans over you, the waves of Thala.s.sa battle against a dew of armpits.

*I don't expect they introduced you to cricket' she walks springily around as though making for the crease, *in our beloved h.e.l.las,' she says, *unless of course you have connections with Corfu. The British have left their stamp on Corfu.'

Seated again at her splendid desk, she promises *We'll try you out. Cricket plays an important part-because, you see, at Ambleside we aim to function as a Team.' She lowers her chin, making it three, *I don't encourage specific girls, however gifted, to hog the show.'

Brief pause.

*Scholastically,' she booms, switching on her great round spectacles so that they flood the aunt with an electric glow and cause acute anxiety, *the curriculum aims at turning out girls with a broad humanistic view of life, through history, literature, the visual arts as well as encouraging the domestic virtues through a grounding in needlework and baking. Comprehensive in fact.'

Again Miss Hammersley pauses to contemplate her effects.

While the unfortunate Mrs Lockhart produces from a crumpled envelope a report on the candidate Irene Sklavos by her recent head Mr Warren Harbord.

Miss Hammersley's outstretched arm, the scales of sea salt still trembling on its down, receives the doc.u.ment with appropriate benevolence. The spectacles are directed at it. The hand taps, the throat is cleared before tautening, the mouth is pursed, and the cheeks rather than the lips smile.

*Irene is an individualist, it seems-according to Mr. Warren? Harbord. Well, we shall see. I expect she will correct our Greek.'