Jacaranda Blue (17 page)

Steve saw it. Cheese: $2.76. Butter. $1.08. His mouth opened in mute protest as he looked at the plastic bag. Only one item. He looked at the account book. Closed.

‘Yeah. He's getting to be a light-fingered little shit, too. I don't know who he gets it from,' Steve commented, picking up his slab and walking out behind Stella. His beer dumped in the back of his ute, he walked to Stella's driver-side window as her car began to move away.

‘Hold it, Stell.' She braked, but didn't look at him. ‘Just a hint. You can take it or leave it, but I always pay cash in there. I'd check your account next time it comes.'

‘I–I trust them.' Stella wanted to go, but he leaned on.

‘Yeah, I know you do.' He silenced, and she touched the accelerator. The motor roared. ‘Has that kid been giving you a hard time?' She shook her head, but her hands, her mouth trembled. ‘I've been hearing a few whispers about him, Stell. Mavis Larkin reckons her girls saw his face at their bedroom window a couple of weeks back. Has he been–?'

Stella shook her head again and her car moved back.

Steve stepped away.

 

She was back in the drive and unsure of what route she'd taken to get there, or of how many cars she'd passed on the way. She didn't park the car in the shed, but left it in the shade of the oak tree, close to the front door. Let the leaves fall on it, let the birds decorate it at will, she would keep it close, keep the keys close. Habit saw her walk to the gates, swing them shut, but she stopped before sliding the bolt home. Better to leave them wide, ready for a quick getaway. Gates would not keep him out, only lock her in.

It required work with a shovel to release the right-hand shed door from the earth which the years had heaped against it, but ten minutes of digging saw it freed, and closed. It had a bottom bolt that had once slid into a buried galvanised pipe. Stella knew it was there, somewhere–unless it had rusted away. She'd kicked her toe on it many times as a child. For minutes she chipped at the earth with her spade until she struck metal, and had she unearthed a gold nugget, she would not have been more pleased. Clay had compacted in its central hole. She poked at it with a screwdriver, then searched for a better tool. A rusty wood auger, hanging on the shed wall for a hundred years served her well. It drew the clay out, and eventually the door bolt was forced down, driven deep, then the right-hand door was bolted to the left and a heavy padlock clipped into place.

The shed grew suddenly dark. She turned on the light, and spent the next half hour hunting for the key to the side door.

It was hanging on a hook, beneath ancient dog chains and an aged army hat. She had seen the hat and the dog chains there for all of her life but she couldn't remember the dog, nor had she ever known the man who had worn the hat. She wished she had known the dog, and perhaps the man who wore the hat, but they were from a time before her time. Rusty. Dusty. How could they have waited so long undisturbed? How could her father believe he might return to that time and find it undisturbed?

She looked up at the high ceiling, and down to the floor. Junk. The worthless accumulation of years had been packed into this shed. Old chairs, their tapestry seats now woven of cobweb. Old picture frames in a corner, bound together by ropes of dusty web. Her own small bicycle tied high from a rafter with cobweb.

When had she ridden a bicycle? Where had she ridden it, except around and around the garden in small circles? Never on the street. Why had he bought it? Why offer her a freedom she could never have?

She shook her head and took the old key in her hand. It was heavy, rusted; it refused to turn in the lock. But she found a can of oil on the bench and she squirted a liberal amount into the keyhole. For ten minutes she stood lifting the door, rattling the key amid the rust and cobwebs.

And it turned, and the lock slid into its slot. Some things sustain.

The two keys in hand, she walked inside, took a third key from the top of the kitchen dresser and locked herself in the house.

The time was nine fifty-five. Her father had been gone for an hour and a half. Already it seemed like days.

The keys held tight in her hand, Stella walked each old room, checking windows, locking them. She checked the glass doors in the lounge room, unopened for many years, then she retraced her steps to the bathroom. Its window was small, and always open at the top. Now it refused to close. She greased the old runner with soap, and hurt her hand attempting to hammer the jammed window, to no avail.

Downstairs again she required a key to get out, a key to unlock the shed where she selected a hammer and her father's small oil can. Shed door locked behind her, back door. It took an hour, but she persisted until the bathroom window closed, and the rusting old lock finally moved. Fear had exhausted her.

At eleven she escaped the house. Invited for lunch, she arrived at Miss Moreland's, armed with a carton and two large plastic bags filled with clowns. They were beside her now on the couch, and hands busy, she unpicked large stitches from the neck of one rather twisted clown while the older woman went about the business of lunch.

Stella had borrowed a little control from two Aspros. Her heartbeat had steadied. She would be okay. Everything was locked, her three keys, now tied together with red wool, were in her bag. She would be okay.

‘A salad day, girl. The weather is still holding.'

‘Yes. It's a glorious day.'

Stella refused to treat her friend as elderly. It was one of the reasons their relationship sustained. She never offered help in the kitchen, but sat and allowed Miss Moreland to play the hostess. And she was a wonderful hostess. Perhaps it took her a little longer these days to achieve less perfect results, but Stella enjoyed being waited on, as she enjoyed the conversation. Only here in this modern little unit could she let down her guard. But not today. She'd watch her tongue, be careful.

‘I thought you were in the business of making those things, not unmaking them?' the older woman commented, pointing with her too sharp knife at a now headless clown.

‘They are Mrs Morris's batch. She uses her own form of galloping horse stitch, and has no idea that she should attempt to match the sewing thread to the fabric. I end up unpicking every one she does and consider myself lucky that she does so few.'

‘Tell her. This is double handling, girl.' Miss Moreland was not one to mince words. She had attempted to pound some basic concepts into Mildred Morris's head fifty-odd years ago, and failed.

‘I don't mind really. They look so lopsided and pathetic, I like giving them a second chance at life. To be quite truthful, I wish I had time to assemble them all myself. See this one.' She held up a doll wearing a strange twisted smile. ‘See its neck. It is quite screwed, but when he is unpicked and restitched, he will have a sweet wry smile. I particularly like this fellow's face.' The small head freed, she took up a needle and began making her own small stitches. ‘Since we started accepting orders, we have had to accept all offers of help, and also become more professional with our finish,' she said.

Stella's knack with wool and embroidery had snowballed. The guild received regular orders from craft shops around the state, and from two in Victoria.

‘Your hand is shaking like a leaf in the wind, girl.'

‘The silly thing. It was fairly trembling when I told Mrs Carter that we were overstocked with peanut pillows, and could not continue to supply filling.'

‘Mmmm.' Miss Moreland murmured, not interested in Mrs Carter or her peanuts. ‘One thing I always noticed about you, girl, was your nerves of steel. No matter what happened, you handled it. You nursed your mother for years and never let it take the smile from your eyes. You baby that bombastic father of yours, who anyone else would have brained forty years ago, but you still managed to go about the town with a smile for everyone. It's gone, girl, and though you might still flash your teeth regularly, there is no smile in your eyes.'

‘Must be old age. I sent Father off with three of Mrs Carter's peanut pillows. Let us hope that they give him some comfort on the plane.'

‘Stop trying to change the subject. What happened to you?'

‘Happened?'

‘What has happened to your eyes?'

‘Nothing.'

‘I don't believe you, girl.'

‘I'm fine. Really.'

‘You're far from fine. Anyone bar a fool could see it. Are you worrying about your father?'

Stella grasped at that straw. She nodded. ‘Yes. Possibly. A little.'

‘No. It's more than that. You've discovered fear. It's written all over your face.'

Stella flinched. She looked up to the eyes of her inquisitor, then away, back to her sewing. She couldn't tell her. Not now. ‘I admit I am a little afraid of sleeping alone in the house. It's so cut off from the neighbours. And that darn hedge, it gives me the spooks when I come home at night. I've been asking Father to get the White boys to trim half a metre off it. I'm actually considering getting it done while he is away.'

Miss Moreland took a tomato from the refrigerator and tossed it from hand to hand, her eyes still studying her visitor. ‘Fear is a demon,' she said. ‘If you can slay your demon with young Whitey's chainsaw, then slay it, I say. It wouldn't cost much.' She turned her attention and knife to the tomato, slicing with cavalier strokes, missing her fingers by narrow millimetres with each cut. ‘We are all born without fear. You only need to watch a daredevil child to see that. I always believed that one of the reasons we spinster women outlive our married sisters is because we are saved the lesson of fear.'

‘You had a sister?'

‘Married a mean wowser then died in self-defence thirty-odd years ago. I've got two nieces somewhere, but they took after their father. Haven't seen their prune faces since Cara's funeral.'

‘I always wished I had brothers and sisters.'

‘You should have had a brother. You were one of twins, you know.'

‘Me? A twin? No.'

‘You were. One of a pigeon pair. The boy died at birth.'

Stella shook her head. ‘Good Lord. Why didn't they tell me? They never . . . never once mentioned it. Why wouldn't Father tell me?'

‘Not something he wanted to remember. I shouldn't have told you either. Me and my big mouth.'

‘A brother. How different life may have been.'

Miss Moreland washed and shredded lettuce then turned again to her visitor. ‘I always say, girl, you can choose your friends, but family and neighbours you get stuck with. I never missed family, not after Cara went. I never regretted not marrying. Oh, I considered it a few times, had a few flings, but I always shook the coots off when they started talking marriage. Maybe I was attracted to the wrong ones, like you.'

‘Like me? Who?'

‘Look at young Steven Smith. He's been after you for years, never looked seriously at any other girl in town, but you won't give him the time of day. You could do a lot worse than Steven.'

‘Steve? He's only a – he's so much younger than I. And he certainly did have other girlfriends. Many. You old matchmaker!'

‘Just time-fill while he waited for you to get over Ronald.' Miss Moreland laughed and began apportioning shredded lettuce to plates.

Stella kept her head down. Was her feeling for Ron so obvious?

‘My only regret is that I never bore a child. I would have liked to have had one, if only to see what sort of a botch I might have made at child-raising. If a husband hadn't been a prerequisite in my day, then I might have bailed up some likely lad and sent poor Maidenville into a spin. Still I didn't learn the pain of childbirth, nor did I spend my life fearing for some tiny life I brought into the world. The more we love, the more we have to lose, girl.'

‘Then perhaps I'm lucky I only have Father to worry about. He has been like an obstreperous infant these past two days. This morning he looked quite pale. I believe he is actually petrified of flying. You know, my dear, what never ceases to amaze me, is how those who profess total belief in the hereafter are the ones who seem to fear death the most.'

‘Fear grows like a poisonous fungus in this town. It feeds this town. Half of its population are of pensionable age. Maidenville is no longer growing.'

‘Yes. I noticed that little art supplies shop in Crane Street has closed down. Half the shops are empty down there.'

‘The town is dying, and its people know that it's dying and they know that they're dying with it, and one day soon they're not going to wake up. It will be their own name in the obituary column.
Loved mother of Harry, loved granny of Debbie Lee
. They know it's coming, and that there's not a damn thing they can do about it, bar hope that everyone else goes before them. Maidenville. Ha. They ought to change its name to Senilityville.' Stella laughed.

‘That's more like you, girl.'

‘Perhaps we should hit the old sign with a spray pack one night.'

‘I'll be in it, if you will.'

Again they laughed, then the older woman said, ‘Why don't you get out?'

‘I did think seriously about it a few . . . a while back. But where would I go? My life is here – the only life I have is here in Maidenville, and I'm afraid I'm far too old to start again.'

‘Old. You're only a pup.' Miss Moreland carried two plates to her small dining table, then came to stand before her guest, her legs planted well apart, the knife in her hand pointing. ‘I don't know what it is that you're fearing, girl, but it's something big and black and it's eating you alive. Your skin looks like mud, and I guarantee you've dropped half a stone in three weeks.'

Stella placed her sewing down. She stood shaking the hair back from her face. ‘Well, I'll make up for it today. I fear I'll eat you out of house and home, my dear,' she said. ‘I could eat a horse.'

‘Hungry are you, or just not in the mood for a lecture? Okay, I'll save it for later. Come and eat before it gets hot.'

 

They washed the dishes together then sat before the television keeping half an eye on a golf tournament. Miss Moreland had taken up a clown doll. ‘He looks like he's running from his pursuer, running full-tilt ahead while looking back over his shoulder. Poor little clown. Which demon is on his tail, I wonder?' Stella reclaimed the doll. She began snipping with her small embroidering scissors. In silence the old woman watched her guest's hands, capable hands, not trembling now. ‘I can't keep my mouth shut when I see that something is not right with you, girl. Wish I could sometimes, but I like, I respect you too much to turn a blind eye to your trouble.'

‘I hope we can always feel free to say what is on our minds.'

‘I'm too fond of saying what is on my mind – or so they tell me. The last of the big-mouthed Morelands my old dad used to call me.

‘A definite advantage in your particular profession,' Stella said.

‘Perhaps. We were always teachers, a natural genetic selection occurred over the generations as we tried to pound knowledge into uninterested heads. You know, I'm not a one for gossip, but that boy's hands, those nails bitten – no, pared nails, pared by a knife down to the quick. I was looking at them again this morning.'

‘What boy?'

‘Young Tom Spencer. Up at the supermarket.'

Stella sprang to her feet. ‘A drink of water, I think. Would you like a drink?'

‘Not now. You know, I've seen hands like those before. How old is Marilyn?'

‘She's older than I. I started school at four and a half. Marilyn was six.'

‘I thought so.'

‘What is your devious head working on now?'

‘Just some old gossip better left buried. Speaking of heads, give me one of those twisted dolls. How many have you got there?'

‘Only this lot. The others have to be packed in their bags and tagged. I'm posting another two dozen off on Monday. Sydney ordered a dozen, would you believe, and we've got orders for four from three other shops. I sent off ten last week. I don't think we're going to be able to keep up the supply.'

‘Fashion is fickle. They may find something new in six months.'

‘Perhaps they will. Did you see our new tickets? Lyn Parker did them on John's computer.' She took a sheet of stick-on tickets from her bag and passed it to the older woman. ‘They look quite professional, don't they?'

‘You're only a bit of a girl still. Why don't you take the business away from the church guild, set up your own co-op. You and Bonny and Lyn. You're the workers. You could let in a couple of the other girls; go for it while they're hot; get yourself some independence, then get out. Go and see the world.'

‘I couldn't take them away from the church. They've always been . . . always belonged to the church.'

‘The church? The church is rolling in money, made by the likes of you. It doesn't need it, but you do. Stick it in your pocket and let it buy you a holiday. Fly to China, and walk the Great Wall. See something. There's a wonderful world out there, girl. And more is the pity that I started looking at it too damned late. I'm too old to go gallivanting on my own any more. That's where a husband might have come in handy. You're not too old to find one, you know.'

Stella laughed. ‘Perhaps I should place an advertisement in the local paper. “
Wanted, seasoned traveller, must have strong back, and be able to lift heavy cases. View matrimony
.”'

‘Preferably rich,' Miss Moreland added.

Again they laughed.

‘Maybe one day I'll fly away to some place,' Stella said. ‘I planned to, but there was always something to keep me here – some reason why I had to put it off for a week, or a month, or a year. Father is almost eighty-six. I could never leave him now.'

‘He left you fast enough. How old are you?'

‘Forty-four last January.'

‘Menopause? Is that what's troubling you?'