Thorn on the Rose Read online

  ‘Useless little bastards. Maybe the army will knock ’em into line.’

  On Friday 8 September, Charlie was alone behind his counter when the train came in with the city newspapers. He wanted his newspaper, hated waiting for it until midday when he could close his doors for half an hour.

  The mail came in on the train. Always a pile of it for the store, a pile of bills he wasn’t eager to open. He paid for his granddaughter’s board and tuition at the Willama convent school — money he considered well spent. Three generations coexisting in one house is rarely an ideal situation. He’d bought a car so his son-in-law could deliver her down there on Mondays, pick her up on Fridays. That’s where they were this morning, both his daughter and son-in-law. It didn’t take two to drive that car, and the kid didn’t get out of school until three thirty. They could have waited until he’d got his newspaper.

  He was flipping through yesterday’s, looking for something he hadn’t read when Foster walked in with his mail. Bills, bills and bills, and one envelope the postmaster stayed to see opened. He said he recognised the handwriting.

  THE SALVATION ARMY COUPLE

  September was usually Woody Creek’s most pleasant month; warmth without heat, gardens blooming, even the weeds looked good in September. Charlie closed his shop door at noon on fine Saturdays, spent enough time in the house to clad himself in his bike-riding shorts, then he took off to someplace.

  He had good legs for an old bloke. Jean had said so. She’d bought those shorts in Melbourne two years before she’d died, wanting him to show off his legs. They’d had a good thing going, him and his Jeany.

  Gone now, long gone.

  On Saturday 9 September, the sun shining, Charlie pushed off along the forest road. It was quiet riding out that way, few cars and trucks to spray him with grit, to force him off the crown into the ruts and gravel. He’d passed the bush sawmill, was four or so miles from town when the sun clouded over. They’d forecast rain for the weekend. Forecasts were more often wrong than right. They could have got this one right.

  ‘You can rain on me all week, you miserable bloody cow. Why go and do it on a man’s bloody weekend?’ he yelled, and his bike wobbled into heaped gravel. He had to put a foot down to save himself.

  Two kids setting rabbit traps heard him, Joey Hall and his blond-headed brother-cousin, Lenny.

  ‘What are you doing hiding there?’ Charlie said.

  ‘Listening to you swear,’ six-year-old Lenny replied.

  ‘How’s your grandma?’

  ‘Good.’ At fifteen, Joey was as tall as he’d ever be, five-six or so, and of an age to be conscious of his darker than average skin, his need to shave. He’d known Charlie all his life, but had little to say to him. Lenny said more. He looked white to Charlie, though he wasn’t. He was Elsie Hall’s sister’s kid, and his father must have had blue eyes.

  The kids mounted a battered bike and headed towards home. Charlie turned his bike around and followed them in. He didn’t like the look of that sky.

  He glanced at Gertrude’s land as he passed. He was nobody’s favourite visitor and he knew it. Jean had been the favourite, and he tolerated at her side. He needed an excuse to knock on doors — and maybe he had an excuse to knock on Gertrude’s today.

  The sky decided him. It spat in his upturned eye.

  ‘Out of eggs?’ she said, inviting him in.

  He reached beneath his sleeveless sweater and withdrew an envelope. ‘Something you might like to look at,’ he said, offering it. ‘It came yesterday. Foster reckons he recognised the handwriting.’

  It contained the front page of last week’s newspaper, with the headline we are at war. Written in the margin were six words.

  You told them so, Mr White.

  ‘Foster swears it’s young Jenny’s writing,’ he said.

  Gertrude picked up her reading glasses and moved to the doorway, to the better light.

  ‘It does look like her writing,’ she agreed. She looked at the envelope. According to the postmark, it had been posted in Melbourne. She studied the written address and the few words on the newspaper. ‘Those are her curly Ws. That’s her C. Was there nothing else in the envelope?’

  ‘Just what you’re holding,’ he said.

  ‘Thank God for small mercies. At least I know she’s alive. Bless you, Charlie White.’ Gertrude held the envelope to her heart, then, realising what she was doing, handed it back. ‘Have you got time for a cup of tea?’

  All he had was time until he opened his shop on Monday morning.

  He was eating his third biscuit when the car drove up. Vern spent his Saturday afternoons with Gertrude, and if he arrived late enough, a few of his Saturday nights.

  ‘She’s in Melbourne,’ Gertrude greeted him at the door.

  Vern glanced at the page of newsprint, shrugged and turned it over, seeking more. There was no more. ‘Anyone could have sent it.’

  ‘It’s her writing. Mr Foster recognised it,’ Gertrude said.

  ‘Whether it is or isn’t, it’s not worth getting your hopes up.’

  ‘I’ve been doubting lately that she even got on that train. I’ve been seeing her lying dead under a log somewhere, face cut to shreds like those other little girls. At least I know she got there — and that she’s got money to spend on a newspaper and a stamp.’

  The rain cleared on Monday, and by Wednesday arms were being bared to the sun.

  Norman sat on his station platform, enjoying both sun and solitude, a mug of tea on the bench beside him, sparrows pecking at biscuit crumbs at his feet. He liked birds, spent a lot of time watching birds.

  The telephone disturbed his peace. He sighed, put his paper down, emptied his mug and carried it with him to his ticket office and telephone.

  ‘Woody Creek Station,’ he said, expecting the familiar voice from the city.

  ‘Mr Morrison? I’m ringing on behalf of your daughter . . .’

  The train due in at ten arrived twenty minutes late on Thursday. Norman was a punctual man; he expected punctuality in others.

  He was expecting a broken child to be led by her keepers from the second-class carriage and saw no sign of her. He watched Mrs Flanagan step down, saw one of the Martin youths alight, saw a Salvation Army couple, the man carrying a red case, and behind them a city woman, clad in red. Norman’s hangdog eyes continued their search for his broken child. He understood defeat, and if he might not welcome her, he would support her.

  The Martins’ oldest son was waiting to meet his brother. Mrs Flanagan’s son had been pacing the platform for half an hour. Danny, Norman’s station assistant, waited with the trolley, and all five pairs of male eyes fixed on the city woman, who was more suitably clad for a Flemington race meeting than a country station.

  Norman’s eyes were on her when the Salvation Army offered the stationmaster his hand.

  ‘Donald Delahunt.’

  Norman took the hand. Donald Delahunt and his wife had agreed to return Norman’s missing child.

  They had returned a woman, her hair hidden beneath a folderol of a hat, her frock emphasising her womanly shape. Neckline low cut, belt cinched tight, slim skirt flaring at the knee. The frock flaunted her. He looked down at her red sandals. The heels, four inches of them, lending her height. He looked up to a mouth painted as red as the frock.

  Blinded by the glare of her, struck speechless, Norman turned to his train. Jenny turned to his ticket office, walked towards it, leaving her travelling companions to explain how she’d been found.

  She hadn’t been found. They just thought she had.

  A good distance between them, she stood watching Norman. He looked smaller today — or maybe her outfit was making him cringe smaller. She hadn’t dressed for him. She’d dressed for Amber. All the way from Melbourne, she’d known that Amber would be waiting at the station, waiting to put on a good show for the Salvation Army people. There was no sign of her. Maybe Salvation Army people weren’t important enough to bother putting on her show for.
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  She looked towards the railway house, scanned the length of the fence. Her mother and Sissy were probably down behind the lavatory, looking between a gap in the palings.

  Jenny turned her back on them and on Norman, and walked down to the station’s long bench. Same old bench. She had spent hours of her life sitting on it. One of her first memories was of sitting on that bench with Jimmy Hooper, looking at the most beautiful picture book she’d ever seen.

  Same old station clock, telling her the time was now ten twenty-eight. That clock was always right. Flyspecked light globe with its dusty shade, ticket cage. Everything the same — of course it would be the same. Time was a weird sort of thing. To her, it seemed as if she’d been away for years, but in real time it had only been four months. In twenty years’ time, that clock would still be telling the right time, the light globe might have been replaced but the shade would be the same.

  She sat down and unbuckled her sandals, which looked perfect with the dress but were useless to walk in. She removed her hat and combed her hair with her fingers, lifting higher what little the hairdresser had left her. She didn’t like hats — or what hats did to her hair.

  Her toes, relieved to renew their acquaintance with the station’s platform, wriggled in ecstasy as she stood to look at Norman, who was attempting to get away from the Salvation Army couple. His train already late, he had to attend to it.

  I know him too well, Jenny thought. I know everything about him; his nods, when he isn’t even listening, the way his hands try to will people to keep their distance, the way his bloodhound eyes rove.

  Danny, the station boy, knew him too. Danny saved him. Norman got away.

  ‘How’s it going, Jen?’ Danny said.

  She’d known him since he’d started working for Norman, since he was fourteen and she was eight or nine. She smiled her reply. The bonneted Salvation Army woman caught the tail end of the smile, and returned it.

  Dorothy Delahunt. Dorothy and Donald. They sounded like characters in a picture show, the goodies. They should have been wearing white hats.

  Her walking shoes were in her case, the case at Donald’s feet. He was watching the unloading of goods, watching bundles of newspapers being tossed from goods van to platform, watching as the mailbag was tossed.

  Her sandals and hat left on the bench, she slid the strap of her handbag over her shoulder and turned to watch the people on the train. Most faces showed the same expression, the longing to get to where they were going.

  A little boy standing at a first-class carriage window, his eyes greedily absorbing the world, his little hand waving. She waved to him, and he turned to tell his mother about the lady who had waved, as Jenny had once turned to Norman to tell him that a lady with a fox around her neck had waved to her.

  She loved this station, or her memories of it. Loved Norman too — or once upon a time she’d loved him. Didn’t know what she felt now, if she felt anything now.

  Train huffing and puffing to get away. Little boy waving again. Norman standing with Donald.

  Still waving to the small boy, she walked with the first-class carriage to the western end of the station, until she could go no further.

  Glanced back. Dorothy was watching her, or watching the train — or maybe just wondering how she was expected to fill the eight or nine hours until it returned.

  Amber would offer them lunch; she’d serve them tea in her best cups and she’d tell them how pleased she was that her daughter had been found, how appreciative she was that their absconding girl had been returned to the loving arms of her family. Dorothy and Donald would get on that train tonight thinking only nice thoughts of their hostess.

  People were rarely who you thought they were, or most of them weren’t, though most people didn’t want to look any deeper than the surface. Certainly the two Salvos didn’t. They hadn’t asked the hard questions.

  Norman picked up the red case. Too late now to worry about walking shoes. The final carriage had cleared the lines.

  They were watching her when she hitched her frock’s skirt up, baring her knees, when she jumped off the platform and ran across the railway lines.

  ‘Jennifer!’ the woman called.

  Norman didn’t call. He didn’t want her back in this town. Maybe if he’d called her name, she might have turned back.

  ‘Jennifer!’

  Down through the station yard she ran. The ground hard on city-tender feet, her fine city stockings offering no protection. Over the road, down past the hotel. She was still running when she passed Hooper’s corner. Ran straight by Vern’s house.

  There was only one place to go in this town. There’d only ever been one place for Jenny to go.

  THE VENEER OF A WOMAN

  ‘I thought you were a bushfire coming down my track. You’re lucky I didn’t greet you with a bucket of water,’ Gertrude said, but only later, after the kissing, the neck-breaking hug, only after the biscuit tin was opened, the tea poured. ‘So, tell me all about it.’

  ‘Your tea tastes of goat udders, Granny.’

  ‘You’ll get used to it again.’

  She wouldn’t, though she didn’t say so. She was only here for a day, or maybe two.

  ‘What did your father have to say?’

  Jenny shrugged, sipped goat’s milk tea, ate another biscuit to kill that taste — and waited for Norman to come. Gertrude expected him to come.

  ‘Did you find your penfriend?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where have you been working?’

  ‘Cleaning houses.’

  Mick Boyle, the local carrier, drove in at twelve. Norman had sent Jenny’s case down with him, plus a cardboard carton of bits and pieces, books, old clothes, her red sandals and fancy black and red hat balanced on top.

  She glanced through the carton, smiled at a black-covered book that looked like a Bible. It didn’t belong to her. Norman must have thought she needed it. Pitched it back into the carton, pitched the lot back in. She’d left nothing of value in Norman’s house, had never owned anything of value to leave there. Sighed, wished she could stop sighing.

  They were shaking up the mattress of the lean-to bed, the clean sheets waiting to be spread, when they heard Norman’s bike hit the chicken wire fence. Gertrude left her bed-making. Jenny remained to finish it.

  He’d sent her case down; he wasn’t here to take her home. She crept to the green curtain — always hard to creep in Granny’s house. Boards creaked.

  ‘It’s good to see her looking so well,’ Gertrude said.

  That old curtain had only ever offered the illusion of privacy. Norman didn’t understand about curtains, or maybe he didn’t know Jenny was behind it.

  ‘She is my daughter, Gertrude. I will support her financially while she remains in your care,’ he said.

  ‘She needs your support not your money, Norman.’

  ‘I have . . . have a second daughter to consider.’ He cleared his throat. ‘As you may understand, these past months have not been easy for . . . for Cecelia. There has been a recent reconciliation with the Hooper family. It must not be jeopardised by her sister’s . . . her sister’s immoderation.’

  ‘Immoderation?’ Gertrude said. ‘She’s fifteen years old, Norman. She ran from two sods who deserved the hangman’s noose.’

  He cleared his throat. He had things to say. He would get them said. He took a pound note from his wallet and offered it. Gertrude turned her back on his money. He held it a moment longer, then placed it on the table.

  ‘I would, at this time, suggest she make no attempt to see her mother and sister.’

  Like a red whirlwind, Jenny exploded from behind the curtain.

  ‘As if you could pay me enough to go within a mile of either of them,’ she said. ‘As if there was enough money in the entire world to make me go near them.’ And her hand reached out to swipe his pound note to the floor.

  Paper doesn’t fly well. It fluttered to his feet. He stepped back from it, from her, stepped back to the d
oor, out the door.

  ‘I have explained to your grandmother that I will continue to support you while you remain in her care.’

  ‘All I need from you is a train ticket back to Melbourne, and I’ll pay for it, too.’

  ‘You are a fifteen-year-old child,’ he said. ‘You will remain in your grandmother’s care.’

  She picked up the pound note, ripped it in two and threw the pieces at him.

  ‘Give them half each, Daddy. That’s all either one of them ever wanted from you. And you know it, too.’

  Daddy. He took a reflex step towards her. But he was a controlled man. He stepped back. Perhaps he stood in the yard an instant too long, staring at one green half-note dancing in the dust. Perhaps he glanced briefly at the hem of that red frock before turning and walking back to his bike, leaving Gertrude to chase the two halves of the pound note, to pursue one half to the weeds growing alongside the wall of her shed.

  ‘He looks like something even a cat wouldn’t drag in on a wet morning. What have they been doing to him?’ Jenny said.

  ‘He’s lost weight,’ Gertrude admitted. She’d placed the note on the table, its ragged edges together. ‘Pass me the sticking plaster, darlin’.’

  ‘Burn it,’ Jenny said.

  ‘You don’t burn money,’ Gertrude said. ‘It’s in the middle drawer.’

  Jenny found the plaster. Gertrude cut a strip. She joined the note and reached for Jenny’s handbag, looped by its strap over the back of a chair.

  Jenny whisked the handbag out of reach. ‘I don’t want his money.’

  ‘Anger doesn’t suit you, darlin’.’

  ‘You won’t have to see it for long.’

  ‘You’re too young to be out there by yourself. He’s right about that.’

  Jenny stood opening, closing, click-clicking the handbag clasp. It was near new, the clasp had a positive click.

  ‘I’ll bet you he’ll sell me a ticket. He’ll be so pleased to get rid of me, he probably won’t even charge me for it.’