Novel Treatments / The Eagle & The Dodo Chpt 1 (3/3) Revised

        III

A mischievous,  guarded giggle escaped her after the soft and phoney impact to see the frightened look she had caused on Nana’s face by her recklessness. ‘prise Nana. Ruby rested back in her chair. Mary had tricked fear out of its lair without knowing the nature of the beast to be, but she was quick to see the child’s playful ruse and mocked her with a stern look.

“Oh, you’re silly.”

Pleased with her trick she did not question the comment on her apparent cleverness but got up and ran a wide circle of the room her arms outstretched like a plane. Once again she made a beeline for the massively padded arm of the chair where she had faked a fall only minutes before. The chair jolted out of its ruts in the carpet on its little metal wheels. Her face hidden, half under the brocade and frill skirt, right next to her grandmother and mother, yet out of sight, she played possum for as long as her small patience would allow before looking up expectantly for Nana’s reaction.

         “Ah no, not again, you’re like the little boy who cried wolf.” Nana did not act same as before. She didn’t understand why.

“Don’t do that any more Mary,” commanded Helen.

Nana like.

“She’s just playing pretend, aren’t you?” said Ruby interceding, and bending over, attempting to elicit dumb confirmation from the child.
She looked from one to the other as they stared down at her wondering why not?

“No, she’s not pretending,” said her mother stealing her reply, “she’s just seeing how far she can go before she gets a smack.”

She didn’t want a smack. She felt frustrated by her mother’s nasty and unexplained intrusion on her game and jostled the arm of the chair with irritation.

“I’m telling you Mary, don’t do it, you do it again and you’re in for a big smack.”

The warning darkened Mary’s sky and the corners of her mouth turned down.
As she leant down, Nana’s pendulous breasts swayed out under the looseness of her dress, enclosing her tiny arm on the chair with a soft, almost weightless constriction.

“Mary . . . Mary . . .”

She turned her cheek aware of the lecture about to gravitate and looked blankly into the kitchen as if ignorant of her wrong, which she was. She didn’t want to listen. Why should she?

“Come on Mary.” Ruby reached out and turned her granddaughter’s head around and looked into her eyes. She was immediately captivated by the defiant innocence they contained. Mary’s eyes possessed something that intrigued her; they had a coolness at times which made her shiver, made her own eyes water with insuppressible emotion. “Your mother means it you know. Mummy doesn’t want to smack you.”

Mary tried to look away again.

“And you wouldn’t like it would you.”

She looked at her Nana and shook her head before glancing in her mother’s direction. Nana no smack.

        “Never mind what I’d feel if I thought my little girl was being naughty.”

She looked around the room forlornly and flopped her arms down at her sides. “Do Nana?”

“At a loose end eh? Come on…uh,” Nana groaning pushed her great weight out of the chair, “we’ll see what we can find something for you to do. Come on.” Taking her by the hand Ruby led her down the hall to the small bedroom trying to think of something, or for something to suggest itself as amusing her two year old companion. The house was devoid of real toys, her children having deserted her a long time before. Any remnant of those lost childhoods had either been broken, given away to other youngsters on the grow or as had happened at odd intervals between then and now, been heartlessly taken from her for selfish nostalgic reasons. She had practically nothing left of them. All that remained, the rest of the stuff, pushed to the back of wardrobes and drawers or in boxes and suitcases in the shed gathering dust was the junk of their adolescence which they didn’t want but which they hadn’t given her leave to throw away. She remembered the drawer.

“What do Nana?”

“We’ll see what we can find in here eh?”

Mary rested her hand on her shoulder as she knelt down to open the third drawer of an old bureau into which she had been throwing items of doubtful value for years. The big wide drawer didn’t come out easily and it squeaked and strained as she pulled at it, jiggling it from side to side to free the runners.

She watched in curious silence for the secret of the drawer’s contents to be revealed absently twiddling with a stray lock of her grandmother’s hair that had fallen away from the burnt haystack flecked with grey ash piled up beside her. As the drawer under Nana’s constant urging finally opened a wave of coloured wool emerged; all tangled greens, mixed yellows, mustards and browns, between its intricacies strangled by swathes of red and lengths of crimped royal blue. She grabbed at it pulling pieces from its body.

“Look Nana look . . .”

“There’s a lot of it isn’t there?” From the sea of wool and scraps of material, some light as spiderweb, some heavy as moss she recovered a hoard of used cotton bobbins which she put down next to her on the floor. Mary after avidly watching to see how many of these things would be found duly sat down next to the pile and began examining them. Ruby showed her how to stack the bobbins.

“You could make a castle.”

“Mowtun.”

“A mountain, a mountain would be good.” Groaning, she pushed herself up off her knees using the top of the bureau for balance. Satisfied that the child’s imagination had been sufficiently stimulated she walked back down the hall to rejoin Helen. She sat down in her chair sighing as her legs were relieved of supporting her body weight. From where she sat she could observe Mary at the other end of the hall. Having a child in the house, seeing Mary playing there, made her think of her own children. The first grandchild like the first child was special somehow. She could see where George used to play in the hall and if she turned her head to the kitchen she could see George again lying on the lino floor, staying cool in the hot seasons of her recollection. That the house remained since those times was a monument to their will and to the spirit of the man she married. He had provided her with the stone and packing case house during the Depression. Oh she knew it wasn’t much of a house but the vines had kept it together. She remembered the day he had planted the vine alongside the old stone steps at the front there. No, wait a minute. It was me. A picture came to her mind as if the day were being revisited. It was she who had planted the vine. She had no idea then that it would thrive so well and creep through every gap and crevasse in the structure, breaking it, and twisting it to its own inclinations, yet holding it together and protecting it. It gave her a belief in the natural strength of life; it overcame everything in the end. Life just kept going no matter what happened.

“What’s she doing?”

“I gave her some old bobbins to play with. I don’t know what I’ve been saving them for.”

“There’s nothing she can hurt in there is there?” Helen got up out of her seat.

        Ruby waved her back down, knowing of course what Helen meant was if there was anything that could hurt Mary. She had been aware for sometime that Helen had little trust in her capacity as a mother. She supposed that Helen thought she was too old, and that somehow made her incompetent, careless, maybe stupid. She knew better and leant a small frown of reproach in her daughter-in-law’s direction. “It’s all right I can keep my eye on her from here. She’s playing, she’s perfectly happy with the bobbins. One of the lessons I learned early was; if they’re occupied leave ‘em be.”

        “To tell you the truth I’m grateful for the break. Would you like a cup of tea?” asked Helen, using it as an excuse to walk across the room to check on Mary.

“I’ll make it,” said Ruby, “I’m a great host aren’t I.”

“No, no you stay where you are. I’ll make it.” Helen was already rinsing the teapot and filling the jug.

“You twisted my arm,” answered Ruby. She chuckled watching the infant play. “She a good girl?”

“Oh you’ve no idea, she’s into everything. I have to watch her all the time. Oh, I didn’t tell you . . . the day before yesterday she managed to get under the house . . .”

Ruby restrained raising an eyebrow.

“. . . and tip petrol all over herself before I could catch her. It happened so fast.”

“What!” She was shocked, horrified and found herself for a moment staring at the woman in disbelief. “My goodness that burns.Their skin is so tender.” She rocked forward in her seat stealing a glance down the hall at her granddaughter, right now wanting more than anything to give her the once over, but in deference to Helen remaining seated.

        “Mowtun cars sal. Not carsal, mowntunn. Mowntun big. Nice mowtun, good mowtun.” She pretended to pat it as if it were a dog. She shifted her gaze over the top of it as if she were a cloud passing in the sky. No rain cloud. Daddy told her about clouds. Me know clouds. They were different ones. She remembered one of the different sorts: num bus. They made rain. She wondered why it had two names. But she had two names. Mow tun, car sal, num bus, Mary Smif.

She scampered on her knees across the room to the opposite wall between the bed and the window and looked across the floor to her far away mountain. She formed her hand into a small circle and looked through it like a telescope. Big mow tun good. Her hand straying under the bed behind her felt an object. It was mun nee. She picked it up, looked at it for a moment, then at her mountain and threw it, but it missed. She went back down the other end of the room and got the coin and was returning intending to throw the coin again when impetuous she wiped her hand through the base of the mountain thrilling with the joy of seeing it tumble and the noise of the bobbins scattering across the floor, hitting the skirting board, smashing into the kickboard of the bureau.

“What’s she doing?” asked Helen.

“Putting up bobbins and knocking them down. How did she get at petrol for goodness sakes?”

“I think George had left it there for emergencies or cleaning or something, for his car anyway. I didn’t even know it was there. Luckily I pulled off her clothes and hosed her down straight away. I’m just glad she didn’t manage to swallow any of it.”

“Musta scared the life out of her.”

“I wasn’t very calm and collected myself,” said Helen, “I was so afraid that she might have swallowed some of it I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her so hard she didn’t know where she was. You should have heard the screams and all I wanted to know was if she’d swallowed any. I panicked I guess.”

“She was probably too frightened to answer.”

“Oh, I know that now. I should have acted better, kept my head, you’re right, I scared her. Well at least I know she won’t touch it again, and George is going to put lattice over the opening.  She’s just into things all the time.”

“What do you ‘spect?”

“Oh I know. She’s got toys to play with but she just loses interest. I’m amazed at the things that’ll occupy her, like playing with just a few bobbins for this length of time.” Helen leant forward in her seat attempting to see down the hall. “Is she all right in there?”

“She’s rolling them along in front of her chasing them up and down,” chuckled Ruby.

Helen got out of her seat and had a quick look and discerning nothing remarkable sat down again.

“Yesterday she found out she could reach the knobs on the radio and she got great fun turning it on and off. In the end I had to smack her. Once she gets her mind stuck on something she won’t let go.”

         “That’s good isn’t it?”

“Being stubborn, that’s all she is, and all she wants is her own way.”

“Oh all kids are like that Helen, it’s all part of finding out that’s all. Goodness the things I could tell you about George, Elsie, Michael wasn’t that bad. But George . . . I remember one day, oh, you won’t believe this,” said Ruby as she recalled more details of the upcoming episode. She laughed to herself. “This day he got into Dadda’s paints. He’d given George a strong warning about the paints, but heedless he’d splashed paint all over himself. Got carried away I guess, all over him it was. He’d coloured his toes different colours, the works. On his face, in his hair. Anyway after a while he remembered what Dadda had said to him. He came runnin’ into me crying his eyes out. He was so frightened he was going to get a beating. I told him he’d been very naughty and Dadda was going to be very angry with him. All this time he’s cryin’ his eyes out. he was powerfully frightened of Dadda, tellin’ me he won’t do it again. It was a pitiful sight to see I tell you. I must have used a gallon of turps getting the paint off him. It stings so, the poor kid. And you should have seen the tub. God.”

         “What happened?”

         “Eh?”

“What happened when Pop found out?”

“Oh Jesus . . .” Ruby’s voice took on a more sombre tone. “Well, I knew what Pop had said to George, so I couldn’t not tell him, it was the way we was brought up in those days, your man was your meal ticket, I’d been with him since I was seventeen I don’t know, I was pretty young myself I guess. Mind you there’s a lot of things I didn’t tell him about. God those kids wouldn’t have lived. Anyway I just said to him, that George had done something naughty that day, but that I thought he’d learnt his lesson, and he’d promised never to do it again.

“George is sittin’ at the table, goes all over quiet, quiet as a grave, and his skin’s still red raw from the rubbin’ of the turps. Jees I felt sorry for him. Anyway Dadda says ‘Come here George, what’d you do?’ But George doesn’t want to say anything; he’s scared and looks at me. Dadda says to him ‘Don’t look at your mother. What’d you do boy, answer me? I said come here.’ George gets off his chair, such a little tyke then and goes up to Dadda, he’s got his head down and he says. ‘I played with the paints I made a mess, I’m sorry Dadda.’ Dadda says to him ‘Well you’ve got a beltin’ comin’ haven’t you?=  I tell him I thought he’d been punished enough, which he had with the turps and all, and George had said he was sorry, but he says to me, ‘Didya give him a beltin’?’

“I nearly said yes, but I couldn’t you know. Anyway he says, ‘He’s got a beltin’ comin’. He was promised a beltin’ if he touched those paints. He knew what he was in for. Come on George.’ Poor George starts to squeal and goes to run for me, but Dadda was too quick for him, gets him by the ear and takes him outside and gives him the belt. I could hear him screamin’ out there but I couldn’t do nothing . . . brute he was. Knew nothin’ about bringin’ up kids. But those were different days in the Depression, the paints were his livelihood at that time more or less. There wasn’t money to buy more. It was more important then, everything was. Anyway without a doubt George learnt a lesson that day, so did every one. The younger kids inside were frightened by Dadda at the table, but when they heard George’s screams they started to bawl. I think they thought they were next,” she laughed.

Ruby seemed to have drifted off into some other memory of the past, and Helen thought of her own childhood, which though it had its violent moments was tolerably painless as a whole. She knew where she stood with her mother.  ’Children have to be taken with a firm hand’ she was fond of saying. Her hopeless drunk of a Father had run off somewhere and she had never seen him except for one Christmas when she was sixteen and he had turned up, shameless, disgustingly drunk. With a little shake she turned away from her horrible father and her past. She was sure though that Ruby’s revelation of George’s past would make an excellent piece of pillow talk at some time or another and stored it away for just such a purpose. She was a tease at heart.

“You know what George got for his birthday, nearly a year later it was too?” said Ruby brightening.

“No what, tell me.”

“A small tin tray of watercolours that Dadda had bought somehow. I don’t know how he found the money. There were a lot of misplaced birthdays in those days. We always wanted to buy or give the kids something on their birthdays, it didn’t seem fair not to, but we didn’t always have the money, so when they was little we kept quiet about them until we could afford to splash out on a present. It was never anything much, just something you know. Those were hard times and the paints were very expensive if you trade off their cost against the food the money could buy. It musta effected Dadda quite a bit, ‘cause he remembered all that time.”

“I bet he never hit them again did he?”

“Oh no, you got to hit kids sometimes, because they don’t always understand the dangers in things, that’s when they need to be hit. And I’m not a big one for yellin’ at kids either, unless it’s something I really want them to remember. I see a lot of these young mothers yelling at their children for the littlest things, most annoyances that come with them bein’ children. When I’m out the thing I hear most is ‘I told you not to that, I told you this, I told you that’. And it’s not that the kids forget, but Jesus when you don’t know hardly anything about  anything you do can be wrong. You could turn a kid into a nervous wreck yellin’ at him for everything he does. God.

“Dadda was a hard man, I suppose you’d say these days. It was the way he was brought up. He was a good man, but very strict, fair though, the kids always knew where they stood, our kids didn’t feel guilty unless they’d done something wrong and they weren’t intimidated, or belittled. And when they had done something wrong, they knew their punishment would be memorable, but over and done with. Dadda had seven brothers and sisters and when his father shot through when he was young, well he had to be their father because he was the oldest. And if they got into trouble, or dirty or hurt he was the one who got the belting, ‘cause he was supposed to be responsible see. Grew up very quickly. His mother, my god, oh she was a witch . . .”

The mountain had fallen and had been re-created as many times as might have bored any minor god and Mary was no less dissatisfied having the topography of an entire world as yet untouched by her hands and imagination. The drawer like some denied heaven, hung open above her head inviting unexplored bliss. She ignored it however and picked up a strand of blue wool hanging from the drawer and tried to thread it through a wooden bobbin, but the end of it kept buckling up and she kept missing the hole. She was sure, almost, that that was the way it was done but on the third unsuccessful attempt she gave up. She sat looking despondently at the pile of lipped cylinders for a while, seconds wherein her interest in them completely dissolved. The mysteries undiscovered in the partly open drawer above her head called her again. Though it hadn’t been decreed forbidden territory, she had an idea it probably was. She flopped her hands down at her sides, there was always so much she couldn’t do. Looking down the hallway into the living room she could see that Nana was talking to Mummy. Standing up she took the plunge and peered into the depths of the drawer. There was such a lot. Lots and lots. Sweeping away the tide of coloured yarn she looked intently at the myriad of other interesting objects either laying in the bottom of the drawer or caught up in the underside of the turbulent wool and waste fabric. There were some milky-silver balls all in a row – she picked up the first one and gasped as they all ran off a sting clattering into the lowest corner of the drawer. Eventually picking one of these tiny things up she saw that they had little holes right through their little middles like the bobbins. Putting it back in the drawer she saw what were hairpins; as she had pulled one from Nana’s hair.  Then there were silver things like fingers with angel’s wings on them; she had seen them too in Nana’s hair. By accident she pushed the wings together and saw that it was like a crocodiles mouth opening because along the inside was a row of shiny teeth. She put the thing on her finger and said ‘YOUch!’ to herself as the teeth sank into her skin. Although it didn’t really hurt too much, she didn’t waste time getting it off. Next a bright glint of gold buried in the flotsam of the drawer caught her eye.

         “Don’t worry Helen I think you were quite right. Though I know George would always do his best,” said Ruby.

“I suppose so, but it wasn’t easy. Sometimes I felt I was being unfair.”

“If you’re going to have children you should have a house. God, you can’t bring up kids if you’ve got nowhere to live.”

“Yes I know, but I could have married him all the same, not made him wait, then we could have saved for a house. I’ve always thought that you thought that I was being too, oh I don’t know, too . . . expecting too much.”

She was surprised by her daughter-in-law’s candour. Normally she was standoffish, snooty-nosed. She recalled times where she could have punched her in the nose. Still . . . she was a cynical old woman not to give the young thing the benefit of the doubt. “Well, you never know do you. If you’re married, it could happen, and then it’s much harder. It was different for me and Dadda. We never had nothin’ to begin with, and not much hope of ever gettin’ any thing either, and Dadda knew I had to get clear of my father. Oh he was a horrible man, killed my poor mother.”

In someway, it had been a contributing factor, Helen had done the same thing herself; seen marriage as an escape clause from her family; wanted to marry George partly so that she could be free. All the same she had resisted marriage until they had somewhere to go to, a home. Damn her father though for not selling them a block of his land. He had eight blocks down Ogilvy Street, but would he sell them one, not on your life, the old bastard. And he had the hide to say they were an investment for the future. It was not as if they had been unwilling to pay for it. It left her speechless. His own son. Poor George, sorry faced, feeling my disappointment, in my anger, patient, hiding his pain, no less determined to buy a block of land and win his prize, it was going to take quite a bit longer that was all. “I felt rotten, so sorry for George. He kept asking me, and I had to keep saying ’ No not until we have enough money for a house…and then the war came, but I had to be strong, I just couldn’t stand it if . . . I loved him but I wouldn’t do it ‘til then.”

Mary reached into the tangle of multi-coloured yarn. She knew the shape. It was a heart. It was only as big as the palm of her hand and it was white, and on the white was a little picture of small people framed with gold paint. There was a girl, lady; she had long blonde hair and a pink hat with flowers in it. Her dress was long too, and very pretty she thought. She was sitting on a stack of what looked like long yellow grass and she had a red shawl on. Standing near to her was a man, at least she thought he was a man, but he had funny clothes on, and long white hair and he was saying something into her ear and he had his hand on her chest. She wasn’t sure if the lady was paying attention or not. All around them were trees and flowers and it looked like a beautiful spot. There were other people looking at them and a long away behind them was a castle embossed in the clouds where she supposed a princess could be kept to be saved by a prince.

She laid the tiny heart to rest more or less where she had found it so that no one would ever know it had been disturbed. Pausing in her explorations she awkwardly wiped a few beads of moisture from her brow. She felt hot, funny. She spied a round pink disc like an upside down saucer. It had a catch, but she saw how to open it. Inside was a pink fluffy thing and under that a cake of fine pink powder. It was makeup; the stuff Mummy put on her face to make herself beautiful, like a princess. She would be a princess and a prince would rescue her too, from a castle. Carefully at first, then more liberally as she grew to like the feel of the puff on her skin, she put powder all over her face, watching the clouds of dust fall in clods on her pinafore. Standing on tiptoe she looked in the mirror and smiled pleased with her efforts at self-beautification. Smile made her pretty. She was finding it difficult to maintain her smile and she settled back on the soles of her feet; she felt tired.

“Do you want another cup of tea?” asked Helen.

“Thanks. I’ll make it this time.” Ruby took the arms of the easychair and pushed herself to her feet accompanied by the usual grunt.

“How’s Mary?” asked Helen. “She’s awfully quiet.”

Ruby looked down the hall to see that Mary was curled up on the floor.
“Looks like she’s asleep.”

“Asleep. I knew I shouldn’t have let her stay up last night, but she put up such a performance, now I’ll have the devils own time getting  her to sleep tonight. I’d better check on her.”

In the bedroom Helen stood over Mary and surveyed the disorder set upon the room. She saw the powder puff and the new pasty-faced visage of her infant. She called down the hall to Ruby. “Come and have a look at this will you.”

Helen waited for Ruby to come swaying down the hall into the bedroom. “She’s got into your makeup. Just look at her.”

Ruby laughed quietly. “The little rascal must have seen you putting on your makeup. She was copying you.”

Helen leant down and lifted Mary’s head from the floor with one arm and slipped her other under gathering her legs up. She placed her on the bed. “She’s very hot. You feel her.”

Ruby didn’t have to be asked twice and put out her hand and felt her granddaughter’s brow. She was burning. The powder had turned to paste under her fingers. “She’s sweating she’s so hot.”

“Mary, Mary.”

         Mary stirred; her eyes half opening and closing, her head turned languidly flopping from one side to the other between Helen’s hands.

“Mary do you feel all right?”

Mary moved her mouth to speak but the ability to make words had deserted her. Helen sat her up, supporting her head with her shoulder and began by stroking back her hair. “Do you feel sick Mary? Mary do you hear me, do you feel sick darling?”

“Boo ful pin cessss . . . me . . . pin cessssss.”

Reviews

There are no reviews of this item.