Jacaranda Blue Read online

  Boy. Child. Son of her friends. Ron’s precious boy. Marilyn’s baby.

  The doors were wide open. The birds still chirped in the trees. Trucks rattled down the road, and Murphy’s dogs barked.

  This wasn’t happening.

  ‘No, Thomas . . . No.’ Her reaction time too slow; she was pinioned by his weight and his strong young arms. She tried to rise up, but her forehead slammed against the base of the Packard’s running board. She tried to roll, and he pushed her face into the Packard’s wheel. Her legs immobilised by his weight, her hands flailed uselessly as her cream blouse was ripped wide.

  He was –

  ‘No! No! Thomas. Don’t do this. Have you lost your senses? Thomas!’

  His jeans were down, and he was lifting –

  ‘No! No! Thomas. Please, God, Thomas. Please.’

  He was lifting her beige pleated skirt –

  ‘No!’

  He was . . . He was . . . He was . . .

  Then the world Stella Templeton had known for forty-four years was gone.

  Time, sanity was gone. Consciousness left with it.

  Sunlight had been replaced by twilight, muffled traffic noise replaced by a single motor. Stella saw the twin beams of light, highlighting a bird bath where no birds bathed, highlighting her garden. She was unaware of why she could see it.

  Cold earth. Hard. Her back. Hurting.

  ‘Father.’ The word was raised in some distant place outside of conscious thought. The gates. The gates. She always opened the gates for the minister when he returned after a long day. She always had a hot meal ready for him when he returned.

  But tonight the world was spinning on its edge, and no longer her world.

  Where was she? Had she fallen?

  The shed.

  Her hand reached out, touched the car. She’d fallen. She’d hit her head on the car.

  But answers came too fast on questions’ heels.

  ‘No,’ she moaned, denying answers. ‘No. No. No. No. No. No.’

  Her head lifted. It slammed against the running board, bruising a place already bruised.

  ‘Keep your mouth shut, Stell.’

  And she remembered. And she remembered. And she remembered.

  ‘Keep your mouth shut, Stell.’

  She lay on the earthen floor, looking at the light in her garden. She heard the ancient complaint of the gates as they swung to. She heard the squeal of the bolt sliding home, locking him and his car in the yard. She heard the roar of an impatient foot on the accelerator. She saw car lights move to the house, light the house, then with no thought of whether she could, she rolled, coiled to her feet, and scuttled like an injured rabbit through the side door of the shed, across the vegetable garden, around to the back door, then upstairs to the bathroom, where she locked the door and stood in the bath, the shower raining down.

  ‘Daughter! Daughter!’ A door slammed open. His footsteps were slow, heavy down the dark passage.

  She saw her face in the mirror opposite the shower. It was the face of a stranger, ghost white, a dark bruise beneath the hair line of her brow. Still looking at the face in the mirror, she let the water wash her blouse from her back, wash her bra straps from her shoulders.

  ‘Daughter! Daughter?’

  She heard his footsteps on the stairs, heard them still as he reached the small landing. Heard them climb again.

  Slowly the water peeled away her clothing. Her slip was bloodstained, her cream blouse ripped, her beige skirt muddy. She stamped on the skirt, stamping, stamping it into the white bath, watching the pink water coil and trickle away down the plug hole.

  ‘Daughter!’ He was at the bathroom door. ‘Daughter!’ Now he hammered at the door.

  Her nails were chipped, her legs bruised. Her neck stung, and her back pained. She raised a hand to her neck, fingered the broken skin, then rubbed soap into it. She scrubbed the external flesh, trying to force the soap to clean beneath her skin, and deep inside, to the part of her that would never again be clean.

  ‘Daughter?’

  Place of raw, aching pain . . . and shame. And the shame. She needed a knife to rid herself of shame, to gouge memory of him from her, to wash him from her with her own blood.

  ‘Stella!’ Martin’s voice now held concern.

  ‘I . . . I . . . I . . . ’ She tried to find the words but they were not there. Words were a rasp on emery. She looked at the door, shook her head.

  ‘Stella, are you in there?’

  ‘I’m . . . I’m vomiting,’ she said. And she did. And he heard her. He went away.

  Stella stood beneath the shower, vomiting and soaping in turn; soaping and vomiting until the hot water became cold, and her father went to bed.

  Martin was not particularly hungry. He had eaten well at the wake.

  Keep Your Mouth Shut

  Her limbs were lead on the mattress, weighing it down. Sleep was out there. Sleep and forgetfulness were hovering out there somewhere, but each time she released her grasp on consciousness, she heard the roar of hell’s breath beneath her mattress. Old roar. Wind tunnel roar. Black roar. It was down there, an open maw of darkness waiting to suck her in. To suck her from sanity and into –

  Her arms flailing, she refused sleep. For hours she fought her way free of sleep to rise to the surface of consciousness gasping for air while her heart threatened to explode.

  ‘God. God, help me. Help me.’

  At 2 a.m., she switched on her bedside light, but the light was too bright. She closed her eyes against it, and sleep came at her with grappling hands.

  Evil, corrupt hands. Hurtful, prying fingers.

  ‘God, help me. Don’t let me think of it.’

  Eyes wide then, she stared at the ceiling, stared at the whorls and roses of the patterned plaster cornice, her eyes burning, screaming out for their own rest. She attempted to pray, to seek comfort in the old chanted words, but she couldn’t remember the words.

  ‘We close our eyes when we pray. We know that God will hear everything we say.’ Childish words, they were all that remained with her. A child’s prayer. All others fled her mind like small grey mice, scattering in all directions when their hiding place in the shed was exposed.

  ‘Foolish little words. Foolish little mice,’ she whispered.

  As the night wore away she grew colder, until in the hour before dawn she turned off the light and crawled from her bed to stand before the open window. It looked out on the jacaranda trees. She watched them turn from black, to grey, to green as she swayed before the window.

  ‘Keep your mouth shut, Stell,’ he’d said.

  ‘Don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t let me think,’ she murmured. ‘Our Father which . . . who . . . Our Father . . . who . . . ’

  Who are you? What form of God are you, that you would dare to allow this . . . this thing to happen to me? I have done all that has been asked of me – and more. I have asked for nothing. I have put my parents and their needs, the church’s needs, the community’s needs, before my own. Now this. Now this. How dare you? How dare you?

  ‘Keep your mouth shut, Stell.’

  Her mouth was dry, her lips sealed by dried saliva. Her eyes were sandpaper against her lids as she stared at the dew green haze, and at two early birds perched on a jacaranda bough.

  Everything in nature has a pair. Except me, she thought. Bonny has Len. Marilyn has Ron. Even Father had –

  ‘The animals went in two by two, hurrah, hurrah, the animals went in two by two, the ants and the lions, the kangaroos. Oh, we’ll all be saved but we’ve got to get out of this rain,’ she whispered. Then her hand went to her mouth, cupped her mouth, the second hand rising to cup the first, to hold insanity inside her.

  God help me. I have lost my mind.

  But what am I supposed to do but lose my mind? I can’t live with this. How do I live with this?

  Pretend it didn’t happen. Push it away as a nightmare – away with the other bad dreams. You tripped over the pots in the shed, and . . .
and . . .

  Her eyes, blurred with their staring, began to follow a fluttering of blue. Unaware of what she was seeing, she tracked its odd flight down to the corrugated iron of the shed roof, then swept up by the breeze it circled, landed in front of the shed. She continued staring until the world slipped into negative and the blue became red. Blood red. Blood in the shed. And she cried out, but quickly gagged her mouth with her hand.

  Where were her briefs?

  Still in the shed.

  ‘I can’t let Father – oh, God. Dear God, let me be dead now. Take me,’ she whispered. Please God, don’t make me see myself in the morning. Don’t make me face Father. I can’t. I can’t ever face him or this town again.’

  Her nightgown, a calf-length floral thing, left her arms exposed. She shivered. For hours she’d been shivering, her core deathly cold. If I could weep, raise tears, they would warm me and wash my eyes, but there are no tears left in me.

  ‘Mother,’ she whispered. ‘Mother.’

  She waited for the voice she had forgotten. There was no reply, no remembered words of comfort.

  ‘What can I do, Mother?’

  ‘Stop that. Stop it,’ she whispered. ‘God, stop my mind from this thinking or I will begin to scream and it will never end.’

  It was the one well used prayer that still had power. She made it have power.

  Picture the ocean, waves breaking free over sand. Picture it, now grasp and hold it. Hold it steady. Make it grow.

  And it came on cue.

  A too blue postcard ocean wavered before her mind’s eye. She willed it closer, until slowly the waves began to move in, break over white sand. Holding the vision, she rocked now to the rhythm of the waves, her eyes turned to the east, where a new day was creeping into the night sky.

  New day. Already it was out there, way over the ocean. A clean new day to the east.

  East. Sydney. Ocean.

  I should have gone to Sydney, she thought. I planned to, but I have seen nothing. I have been here, doing what was asked of me. I have been a servant of this house, a servant of his church, trapped in this vicious, ugly little town with its vicious tongues and minds – and its vicious little boys.

  She was aware of pain now. Her back, her neck, one arm was aching, and she hurt in that other place. His forced entrance had caused much pain, and he had taken pleasure in her pain. She had never known a lover.

  Don’t think. Don’t think of it anymore. Think of the new day breaking over the ocean. Wild ocean, washing the world clean.

  The image grew stronger. The waves grew wilder. She rocked with the waves, heel to toe, toe to heel.

  Postcard ocean. Postcard from Bondi.

  I miss you so much, Stell. We’ll come here together on our honeymoon. Love from Ron.

  Love from Ron. Love from Ron. Love from Ron.

  Once she had dared to dream of love, dared to crave Ron Spencer’s mouth on her own, dared to believe in love.

  Love from Ron.

  Ron’s son. Handsome rapist. Only weeks ago she had baked and decorated his sixteenth birthday cake. Evil, vicious little boy.

  I loved you, Thomas Spencer. I loved you. I hate you. Hate you. It is a new thing, hate, and it’s hurting me. It’s ripping out my heart.

  But is it so new?

  She shook her head, shook it until she stumbled and fell hard against the chest of drawers, catching the point of her elbow. New pain washed over her. Clean pain. She grasped at clean pain, focusing on her elbow, allowing new pain to wash through her.

  It could have been so much worse, she thought.

  How?

  He could have killed me to hide his guilt. It could have been worse.

  Would that have been worse?

  Again she shook her head. Better that he had killed me. Or better still that it had been a stranger who would be gone now.

  He was here, in this town. A boy. Just a boy.

  ‘Keep your mouth shut, Stell.’

  He is here, and will be here, so I cannot stay here. I will have to leave.

  ‘Keep your mouth shut, Stell.’

  Who might I open my mouth to? Father?

  ‘What you must ask yourself, Daughter, is, have you in some small way, perhaps in your manner, or your attire, have you perhaps led him to believe that his attention may have been acceptable to you?’ she whispered. Martin Templeton. Our father, at any given time, could be relied on to take Angel’s side, and though she was long dead Martin’s conditioned response could not alter. Mankind is guilty until proven innocent. Precious Angel said so, so it was so.

  What you must ask yourself, Daughter –

  ‘Ask yourself. Ask yourself. What you must ask yourself,’ she whispered. She had spent her life asking her father’s questions, examining her mind until she could no longer be sure which was her mind, and which her father’s mind. Every move she made was governed by the minister’s voice, controlling her from within her own head.

  She lifted her hands, looking at them in the early light, looking at her smallest finger, curled permanently into a C. She looked at the scars. Hard. Hard hands.

  ‘You’ve got hard hands, Aunty Stell.’

  Hard hands that once had held his tiny hands. Little Thomas. Baby Thomas.

  She had celebrated his birth with his parents, had carried him, kissed his sweet baby face. How often through the years had she held that handsome child, and wished him her own son? And it could have been so. It should have been so. Ron said they would be married. At sixteen, she’d dreamed of a white wedding dress and a honeymoon at Bondi. Stella Spencer. It had sounded well on her tongue.

  Stupid hard hands, trembling now – as they had trembled back then when Ron had placed the friendship ring on her finger.

  ‘No. No. Not as then. Never again as then,’ she whispered and quickly placed her hands safe beneath her armpits, as she allowed her mind to escape to that other time, that better time.

  Ron had gone through school two years ahead of her, but near neighbours, they had formed a part of the group who walked to and from high school together each day. Then in the senior years, when they had walked too close on the footpath, their arms kept brushing, sparks igniting each time they touched.

  One afternoon, as if by accident, his hand brushed her own. Eager fingers linked, and though her own hand grasped as firmly as his, she did not look at him, but continued walking at his side, eyes straight ahead.

  That one hand had become a small miracle, living a life of its own. It throbbed, sending its heat up her arm and to her heart, and to her head, and her lungs so she could barely breathe, and barely walk, for there had been a throbbing in that secret place.

  He had chosen her from the group. Not Bonny, not Marilyn. It was Stella’s scarred hand he had chosen to hold.

  Then, on the night of the end of year social when he’d walked her home, he drew her into the shadow of the cypress hedge and he placed his cool, chaste lips against her own. Just for a second. With her arms held firmly at her sides, she had given him no encouragement at all, but stood swaying there, on the footpath, drowning in the first wave of love.

  School. A sanctuary. The community of teachers and students had allowed Stella to glimpse a world beyond the cypress hedge, outside of church restrictions. At school, she’d been free to live, to dance, to sing – not in praise of God, but in praise of life. Then Miss Moreland, the headmistress, chose her and Ron to play the leads in the school production of West Side Story.

  How she had lived for the days when she and Ron rehearsed the musical. There were afternoon and evening rehearsals. She was blissfully, delightfully, never at home.

  ‘The girl is never here,’ the beige shadow that cast its gloom over Stella’s childhood complained. ‘I gave my health to give her life, but she is never here when I need her. Gallivanting around all night while I suffer alone.’

  Ron and Stella had to embrace, kiss on stage. It was only a stage kiss, a brushing of cheeks, but the weekly rehearsals were becoming rehearsal
s for life. His arms grew more bold, his lips more demanding, and when the two met each lunchtime behind the school sports ground, his hands began their exploration of that first sweet love. His fingers unbuttoned her school blouse, and he touched her breasts, and he –

  Drowning. Drowning. So much in love. They would marry when Stella turned eighteen, Ron said, then he gave her the ring with its small blue stones, and he said that it wasn’t wrong. He said if you were in love, nothing was wrong. But she’d wanted to wait and be a bride in white, and it was only sixteen months. Only sixteen months.

  She had waited too long.

  Angel was sick again. Doctor Parsons came to the house twice a day, and Sister Brooks came twice a week, but Angel needed a full-time nurse, so Stella left school to care for her mother and the lead in West Side Story went to Marilyn Jones – as did Ron Spencer. They married three months after opening night, and Marilyn was already three months pregnant.

  But she lost that baby while they were on their honeymoon. For twelve years, she hadn’t been able to bear a live child. Then Thomas came, a fine healthy son for whom Stella had publicly celebrated, while imagining in the privacy of her own room that he was her son. Her own. How she loved the tiny boy, because she still loved his father.

  ‘Keep your mouth shut, Stell’.

  Oh, she would keep her mouth shut. What else could she do?

  Boiled Eggs

  At 7 a.m., Stella heard her father in the bathroom, which shared a wall with her room. Quickly she climbed into bed, pulling her quilt high. There was no lock on her door, and when Martin discovered the kitchen empty, his breakfast not waiting, he would come to her room, knock three times, cough, then slowly swing the door wide, filling the doorway as he had all the years of her life.

  She heard him walk downstairs. Minutes later, his ponderous footsteps were again climbing. Now came the long silence as he stood, his ear close to the door. The three knocks. She waited for his cough.