The Fine Color of Rust (19 page)

“Nope. Why?”

“The lady with the four kids?”

“I think I know who you mean. What about them?”

Norm reaches up and touches his forehead, the place where he had the cancer cut away. I haven't seen him do that for ages. When he goes outdoors these days he always wears a hat, a battered straw boater he found in a cupboard of a caravan someone dumped on the side of the road near Magabar.

“She's a nice lady. From that place in Europe, Bosnia Herzagobbler, where they had the war. A bit shy. Maybe she could join your committee, meet some people.”

“You don't want to tell me anything else?”

He shakes his head. I hate it when Norm does this. He's got more agendas than a school committee but he'd never admit to it. At least now I know they're not bullies. That's not something Norm would keep to himself. He's more protective of my kids than a Rottweiler.

“OK, I'll drop a letter at the house. The old MacInerny house on Ross Road?”

Norm nods. I step out of the shed and wave at the darkness inside. Two moving shadows show me that Norm and Justin are waving back. As I turn to head for the car, the fine color of rust shimmers in the thin sunshine. It has a strange beauty I will always associate with Norm.

NEXT DAY I
finish work at eleven, so I drive to Ross Road on the outskirts of town. The MacInerny family left their house a long time ago but everyone kept calling it the MacInerny house because no one else had moved in. I thought it was derelict.

The house has dingy lace curtains in the window and a tan-colored dog the size of a horse lying on the veranda. When I pull the car into the driveway the beast raises its head and woofs one deep bark, then drops its head back on the veranda with a thump that shakes the neighborhood.

I've been driving inside a twister thanks to the bits of paper flying around the car. I unfold one of the pieces wrapped around the gearstick. It's a committee begging letter dated months ago. I scratch out the date with a pen that
doesn't work anymore and fold the letter so the crease covers where I deleted it.

The moment the Holden door slams behind me, the house comes alive. Curtains tweak open in the left-hand window, the dog tries to haul its massive frame off the veranda floor, the door opens, and the woman I recognize from the Halstead mall steps outside and puts her hands on her hips. I guess they don't get many visitors out here.

I'm starting to get a bit of a hillbilly feeling, what with the car on blocks beside the house and the oil drum in the middle of the front yard stuffed with pieces of an old paling fence. I hesitate beside the car, waiting for the banjos to start, until it occurs to me that my yard has an unhappy similarity to this one, thanks to having my own rusting truck on blocks and a goat tethered to the washing line.

“Hello,” I call out. Damn, Norm forgot to tell me her name.

She steps back inside the shadow of the door. Norm wasn't kidding about “a bit shy.” She looks like she's going to be absorbed into the wall.

“Hi. I wanted to drop in this invitation.” I'm shouting, but only to make sure she hears me from wherever she's disappeared to.

Inside the house someone speaks curtly in a foreign language. It has the commanding tone of an order. The curtain in the left window falls back into place.

“Hello?” Maybe it's not a hillbilly movie I'm stumbling around in but a horror. They probably have bodies stacked five deep in the shed.

“What you want?” an accented voice calls from the darkness.

Hmm. I want to invite you to join a committee. Even
thinking those words puts me in a coma of boredom. Surely I can find a better way to describe it. I will be talking to the air and an empty doorway, but I suppose she'll be listening from inside.

“I'm worried about our kids' future,” I call out, realizing as the words leave my mouth that I am using the same line as an insurance salesman.

She darts out of the doorway and into the light like a spider that feels a tug on its web, her finger pointing at me.

“Your kids, no!”

The monster dog starts to growl. I was right. It is a horror movie.

I hold out the folded letter. I'm beside the car, next to the front gate. I'm not moving while the monster dog is alive and making noise.

“No good!” She's still pointing as if a laser is beaming from her fingertip, and my hand reaches up involuntarily to touch my chest.

The curtain tweaks open again. I'm close enough to see an old creased face peering out. I smile. The face frowns and the ancient one makes a shaky fist at me.

I never knew I could make such a strong impression. I creep along the fence, tuck the letter into the rusted old letter box beside the gate, and hurry back to the car. I'll be thanking Norm later for this experience.

•  •  •

DRIVING BACK FROM
the MacInerny house, I see her kids get off the school bus. The little boy is holding the hand of a smaller girl, and the two others, an older boy and girl, are walking behind them. The young boy seems to be crying.

I gun the Holden down the road. Maybe someone's sick,
I think. Maybe the young boy has leukemia and they're exhausted from looking after him. Or the mother's suffering from post-traumatic stress after the war and she locks them in the house and won't let them out except for school. Or maybe that old crone in the window is . . . is something. I don't know. A witch, maybe, but a real one, not a glorified aromatherapist like Leanne. I feel a little shaky after that reception. I hope the new Mrs. MacInerny doesn't join the committee.

At the school gate Melissa's standing with her hands on her hips, lips pursed, squinting into the sun. If she keeps maturing at this rate she'll soon be a fully fledged Gunapan woman. She'll have married, had kids, and been deserted by the time she's fifteen. She and Jake climb into the backseat and I head off in my usual role of chauffeur.

“How come you always sit in the back, Liss?” I ask. “It's not as if you need a booster seat anymore. You could sit up with me and chat while I drive.” If she's going to be a Gunapan woman, she'll need to learn the art of the car nod. A half-nod for acquaintances, a nod for friends, and a knowing head toss for best friends. This can only be done from the front seat. And while driving at speed. Preferably with an arm hanging casually out the window.

“Because you drive like a psycho,” my daughter says casually. “And I don't want to die.”

The minute that girl gets her license I'm never letting her in my car again.

“Are any of the kids from that new family in your class?”

“What new family?”

I check the rearview mirror. Melissa's sitting with a back as straight as a ballerina's and staring at her hands. She's lying.

“The one from Bosnia Hergesobbler. The foreigners.”

Another glance at the reflection. Jake's looking out the window.

“Well?”

“Yeah, a girl.”

“What's her name?”

“I don't know.”

“You must know. There are only sixteen kids in your class.”

“Something. I can't pronounce it.”

“Well, what do you call her when you want to speak to her?” I'm starting to channel a dull policeman.

“Nothing.”

A modern mother never resorts to violence. That's why I don't screech to a halt, lean over the back of the seat, and give my daughter a good thwack over the head. Instead, because I am a reasonable modern woman and a caring mother, I screech to a halt, lean over the back of the seat, and warn Melissa that serious consequences will occur if she doesn't smarten up and stop avoiding my questions.

“What serious consequences?” she asks.

The serious consequence is that my head may explode, but that's not going to sway Melissa.

“No TV for a week.” I try not to think about the fact that Melissa is only eleven. If she's this way now, what will happen when she turns into a teenager? I might have to leave home. Get a flat in the city. Join an exercise class and discover the body that's been waiting underneath my flab for all these years. I'll be tired of Beemer Man and Harley Man by then. I'll be ready for Merc Man. Merc Man has divorced his ungrateful wife and is looking for someone to pamper. “Loretta,” he says to me after we've made love on the king-sized bed in his penthouse with views of the Sydney Harbour
Bridge, “you are one delectable hunk of woman. You know, looking at this taut body, I can't believe you have children.” “Actually, I don't,” I'll tell him. “I sold them.”

•  •  •

MELISSA'S BEEN CHECKING
the letter box every day since Tony left town, and this afternoon I see her pull a few bits of mail out of the box, flip through them, then slip one into her pocket as she looks furtively around at the house. I am not hiding. It is a fluke that I am standing behind the curtain, from where I can see her but she can't see me. Exactly where I have been while she checked the letter box every day since her father's visit.

“Bills, Mum,” she says with pretend innocence, dropping a few envelopes on the dresser and heading off to her room.

“Thanks, Liss,” I answer with a winning smile, like a character in an Enid Blyton book. Sometimes I am amazed at how we learn to play these roles, as if we are in a movie.

Tony is too lazy and selfish to try to take the kids away from me, but whenever I think of the possibility, my stomach rolls over and I can feel my insides being rearranged. What if Talee wants them? I wonder. What if Tony and Talee have Melissa over for a visit and Melissa doesn't want to come home? Or Jake? They'd only have to buy Jake a Lego set and he'd go anywhere with them. Later in the night, when Melissa's asleep, I sneak into her room and slide the card from under her pillow.

Hi, Liss and Jake,

Hope school's good and everything is great. Can't wait to see you again. Say hello to your mum.

Love, Dad and Talee

Which would be fine, except it's not his handwriting. Miss Happy must have written it. They won't be coming to take my children. Tony has probably, once again, forgotten he even has children.

•  •  •

NEXT MORNING I
ring Helen and tell her about my experience with the new family at the MacInerny house. She's never met the woman.

“I mean, I kind of know her. I've seen her and the kids plenty of times. We nod hello. I just never had a chance to talk to her. She's a refugee, poor thing. Try the Church of Goodwill. They have that outreach program.”

After work, on the way to the church I drop in at the shire office. Norm's asked me to get the official documents for the development to use in his next try at getting the Unsightly Property Notice lifted. He's convinced they're connected.

“Give me everything you've got on the development on the Bolton Road,” I say to the receptionist in my best private detective voice.

She yawns and turns to her computer. “You mean the resort?” she asks.

“That's it. I'll have whatever you've got. Plans, permits, letters, objections.” That's odd, I think. “Did anyone object? I don't remember seeing any notices about this. Aren't you supposed to be able to object to new buildings?”

“Don't know. You'd have to ask in Planning about that.” She taps and clicks with her keyboard and mouse, stifling yawns. “Nothing here, sorry.”

“It's a huge development. Isn't there anything?”

“Yeah, but I can't find anything for the public. All the
stuff's in files I can't access and the manager's not in today. You'll probably have to put in a written request.”

Next I head for the church.

The Church of Goodwill shopfront is on the main road between the betting shop and the fish and chippery. Hand-drawn pictures of rainbows and doves are sticky-taped to the window, and Christian rock and roll music blares in distorted waves from a tinny speaker above the front door. Inside, Trudy sits at the desk staring at a computer screen.

“I hate these things,” she says to me when I walk in. “I preferred it when we wrote letters to each other by hand, and added up the week's offerings in a hardbound book with two columns. I'm not entirely convinced that computers aren't the work of the devil.”

“Is that right?” I try to look as if I talk about the devil every day.

“I'm joking, Loretta. What can I do for you?”

“Have you ever met the Bosnia Herzabobble people down the old MacInerny place?”

“Mersiha and her family? Yes, of course. They're part of the Gunapan Revitalization and Welcoming Committee Community Project.”

I might be imagining it, but Trudy seems to be avoiding looking me in the eye. I've been getting that feeling a lot lately. As if people are afraid to tell me the revived Save Our School Committee is a waste of time. I don't know why they'd hold back. They didn't last time. I distinctly remember Trudy telling me, “That Save Our School Committee is a waste of time, Loretta. Why don't you do some real work in the community and help clean up Wilson Dam next Saturday?” I wanted to answer that I didn't feel like contracting tetanus, but I didn't because Trudy's a Christian and a good
worker in the community and one day I might need her help for Save Our School.

“She's already on a committee. Oh, that's OK then. Norm thought she might be good for Save Our School. But if she's busy . . .”

“She's not on the committee, Loretta. She's a refugee, struggling to get herself and her family settled here. Her sponsor is Maxine. Anyway, you must have seen her at the school and the fair and around the place. Mersiha's lovely. She's making a real effort to join in. People are starting to welcome her very warmly.”

“Oh. Well, maybe I could ask Maxine to contact—”

“Actually, Loretta”—Trudy looks at the ceiling as if she's getting instructions from above—“Maxine and I have been meaning to talk to you. So here you are, and I think I'd better say it.”