Three Summers Read online

  A bird sang out in the sky. The pages trembled in Ruth’s hand, and it seemed to her that beside her on the deserted road there was a small ripple of delight and excitement, of purest, happy glee.

  five

  With a big box under one arm and the basket of hydrangeas over the other, Margaret May went in through the wooden doors of Saint Columba’s. The interior of the church was dim and brown, except for those places where the sun pressed against the high arched windows and its light fell through the jewelled robes of saints and kings and angels.

  She walked on down the side aisle, her flat court shoes ringing on the wooden floor which was polished to such a deep shine that Margaret May could see herself reflected there, like a skater on dark ice. She passed the statue of Christ with the briefest of nods, the kind she might give to a stranger who stepped aside to let her go first through a door.

  There’d been a similar statue in the chapel at the orphanage, Christ with his arms outspread in blessing, his long face bland and smooth as cream. ‘Suf-fer the lit-tle chil-dren,’ the six-year-old Margaret May had read, the words inscribed in gold letters above his head. Those words, together with the outstretched arms, had made her think the man in the long white robe might understand her, she’d thought he might be kind. ‘Yes, we do suffer,’ she’d whispered, holding out her cracked chilblains for him to see, and the mark on her arm where big Sarah Tyler had got hold of the skin and twisted it right round, and the bruise on her leg that Sister Monica had made. They suffered from the nuns and each other, and some kind of indescribable loss etched deep into their hearts which they could barely understand. There was the crying in the night, too, which Margaret May hated; it sounded like the moaning of the wind in big forgotten trees and it made her think of the grey wolves in the story Sister Barbara had once told them. When the real wind blew and the real trees threw their great black shadows on the barred windows, then the long grey room in which they slept seemed to move as well, sliding forward like a great sled pulled through the snow.

  Margaret May had knelt down in front of the statue of the kind man, her hands folded together as the nuns had taught her and prayed and prayed and prayed, ‘Please, please, let someone come and take me away!’

  But no one had ever come, and in those long cold noisy nights she’d believed that they hadn’t come because she’d been bad. She’d prayed to be taken away from the Sisters, and this was bad because the Sisters were good. Of course they were good. Hadn’t Mother Evangeline told them that the Sisters were brides of Christ? Christ wouldn’t have bad people for his brides, would he?

  Only sometimes they didn’t seem good: Sister Monica with her sly little pinches and funny smile, she wasn’t good. And Sister Therese with her whacky whistly cane, she’d torn out a whole fistful of Noeline Jennings’ hair, just for leaning against the wall. How could that be good?

  Was she bad to think they weren’t good? The thoughts of badness and goodness had chased each other round and round in Margaret May’s head, so fast and furiously that sometimes she couldn’t get to sleep and she’d climb out of bed and creep down to the chapel and pray to the statue again, ‘Please let someone come and take me away.’

  Ah, it’s a long time ago, thought Margaret May now, though inside her, however old she got, that long grey room seemed as close as ever, as if it was right next door to her own pretty room above the shop and any day she could step down the hall and turn the knob of a door and find herself back in there. ‘Ah no,’ she whispered, looking down at the little wooden Virgin standing in her corner beneath the long window where Saint Columba sailed in his coracle of wickerwork and hides.

  The Virgin was small, only half as tall as Margaret May. She wore a plain straight shift which fell in simple folds about her body and halfway down her bare, slender legs. Her feet were bare too, and her hair hung at her shoulders, plain and straight like the shift. She had no veil or halo, only a wreath of leaves twisted around her forehead. She was young, about Ruth’s age, and there was no child.

  ‘Are you sure it’s the Virgin?’ Margaret May had asked Father Joseph.

  ‘Eh? Who else would it be, out there in that old church?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Just any young girl.’

  The statue’s face had a kind of patient calm, and the square hands curved protectively across the small round belly that pushed against the shift’s wooden folds. ‘Yes, you’re like all of us,’ whispered Margaret May, laying the basket of hydrangeas on the end of a pew, opening the cardboard box. Inside were the two big drip-trays she’d borrowed from the shop storeroom; they’d been designed to hold motor oil or paint but they would hold water just as well. She filled the kettle in the kitchen behind the sacristy and poured the water into the trays. The blue hydrangeas floated there, jostling and quivering against each other, and Margaret May gave a tiny gasp of pleasure, because it looked so perfect, exactly as she’d imagined it in her garden this morning: the girl’s small brown feet stepping out into a soft blue sea.

  There was a sudden rattle at the door behind her, and a strident barking call. ‘Yoo hoo! Anyone there?’ She turned and saw Merle Hogan had arrived, little Milly Lachlan a few steps behind her, almost hidden by a great green bunch of ivy and ferns. Merle had a sheaf of scarlet gladioli which she held up high in front of her, like a runner bearing the Olympic torch. ‘That you over in the corner, Margaret May? What are you doing there?’

  ‘The flowers.’

  Merle came clattering up the aisle. ‘But it’s so dark! How can you see?’ Her hand found the switch on the wall and overhead lights came on. ‘Ah!’ she gasped.

  Merle Hogan was a big woman whose flesh seemed to strain from her clothes. Her eyes protruded too, fixing on the blue hydrangeas floating at the statue’s feet. ‘Whatever’s this?’ she cried. ‘What’ve you done, Margaret May? Why are the flowers all over the floor?’

  ‘They’re not on the floor.’ Margaret May lifted a flower to show the tray beneath.

  Merle sucked in her breath. ‘Well! What a funny idea!’ Her voice rang with astonishment, even outrage. Margaret May was silent. It was one of the things she hated about the little town, how you couldn’t do anything the least bit different without being thought ‘funny’. You couldn’t even think differently, or they would find you out and whisper. For years she had dreaded that her clever granddaughter would have to live that way, but now she wouldn’t, and the knowledge almost made her smile.

  Merle turned to Milly Lachlan. ‘Don’t you think it’s funny, Milly?’

  Milly was Fee’s grandmother. She had the same fair skin and wide blue eyes, the same sweet nature, even the same little dimple in her cheek. She hesitated for a moment now, eager to keep the peace, but gazing at the deep blueness of the hydrangeas, she couldn’t help herself from exclaiming, ‘I think they look lovely!’

  ‘Lovely!’ Merle’s wide nostrils flared; she hated it when people disagreed with her. She scowled at both of them. ‘Someone could get their foot caught and trip! There’d be water everywhere!’ When there was no response to this she put her hand on Margaret May’s arm and spoke quite softly, as if encouraging reason in a naughty child. ‘Don’t you think they’d be better in vases, Margaret May? Up on the altar, or on a shelf somewhere?’

  Margaret May stood her ground. She knew about people like Merle Hogan. There’d been girls like Merle at the orphanage, big girls, mean spiteful girls, eager to push you around. Hungry girls they were, wanting any little thing you had, or else to make you cry. You got to know them and you learned not to give way to them and make them glad. You recognised them later when you met them in the adult world, angry and hungry still. There was never any kindness in them, not a drop.

  Margaret May looked down at her small sea of blue flowers. ‘I like them the way they are,’ she said. Her voice was quiet, but deep inside she was burning; she wanted to rush at Merle like she used to do with the big bully girls at the orphanage, she wanted to kick at her shins and butt her in the belly, as if the li
ttle girl she’d been was still inside her and Margaret May didn’t have the heart to drive her away. Living in Barinjii was like living all your life in a school playground. ‘Yes, I like them as they are,’ she repeated, ignoring Merle’s mutinous expression.

  Merle stood and stared at her, sharp eyes travelling over the small composed face, which wasn’t as wrinkled as it should be, the smart navy dress with the buttons down the front (too good for mucking around with flowers!), the small feet in their plain black court shoes. Always perfectly turned out! She had tickets on herself, all right! Even to go across the street to the post office, Margaret May Gower would wear stockings! And yet she’d come from nothing: come from the orphanage, skivvied out at Fortuna till she’d hooked Don Gower from the store. He’d drowned in Skelly’s dam one rainy night. Merle had been a kiddie at the time, but she knew there were people in Barinjii who still said that Margaret May had pushed him in. Lots of them said it! And Merle wouldn’t put it past her; you only had to look at her face to see she’d be capable of anything, she was that determined.

  Milly Lachlan was also thinking of the past. She remembered one long-ago morning when she was a child, how she’d gone to the orphanage with her dad when the nuns had sent a message that their boiler had broken down. Milly had got bored in the basement and wandered up the stairs while he was busy, and then on through the long cold corridors, on and on and on. She hadn’t spotted a single soul until, rounding a corner, she’d come upon a tall nun all in brown, putting folded towels away into a cupboard. The nun had turned when she heard Milly’s footsteps – and ooh, her face! Long and bony like a horse’s it had been, only not so kind as a horse. ‘Well! Whose little girl are you?’ she’d called out, and her voice, like sweetness poured over something bad, had sent Milly running back through all those empty passages and down the stairs to her dad. ‘Whose little girl are you?’ she’d heard the nun still calling after her.

  The thing was, though, Milly had been someone’s little girl. Margaret May had been no one’s.

  Imagine that! Imagine being all on your own when you were very tiny – imagine it! Having no one in the whole wide world! When Milly was little her mum and dad had filled up every corner of her universe: if she got scared in the middle of the night then all she had to do was run into their room and climb into the big bed between them and Dad would say sleepily to Mum, ‘Hey, Emmie, I think we’ve got a visitor! There’s someone here!’ And while she was snuggling up against them, all nice and warm, Margaret May had been all by herself in that cold dreadful place at the top of the hill. Oh, the pity of it! No wonder Margaret May was so distant, and little Ruth such a quiet child.

  ‘Ruth got her exam results yet?’ Merle asked suddenly.

  The news of the scholarship was like a five-pound note burning a hole in Margaret May’s pocket but she was keeping it to herself for a little while longer. She wanted Father Joseph to be the first to hear. ‘I left home before the post,’ she lied.

  ‘They’ll be coming any day now,’ said Merle.

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘She might even get them while you’re up here.’

  ‘Yes, she might.’

  ‘Bet she’s excited, eh?’ Merle stood very close to Margaret May and peered into her face. ‘Or worried. Is she worried, your Ruth? Biting her nails?’

  ‘I think she’s fairly confident.’

  Oh, is she just, thought Merle savagely. ‘Ooh, you’re going to miss her if she goes away,’ she tried, hoping for a bite, the slightest little flicker of misery, but Margaret May only smiled and said, ‘Yes, I will.’

  ‘Some kids never know when they’re well off, do they? A good home like you and her dad’ve given her; you think she’d want to stay.’

  Margaret May was silent. That got to her all right, thought Merle.

  ‘It’s only natural that young people grow up and want to try their wings,’ said Milly Lachlan.

  Or unnatural, thought Merle. Her Helen would never go away.

  Margaret May folded the cardboard box and picked up her basket. Merle saw the bunch of basil and thought how that would be for Father Joseph, you could bet on it. He and Margaret May were thick as thieves, and that wasn’t natural either. Maidie, he called her. She was his favourite, everybody knew. They went back years – he’d known her at the orphanage when she was a kiddie.

  Priests weren’t allowed to have favourites, they were supposed to treat everyone the same. But Father Joseph had a special look for Margaret May, his face went soft when she walked in through the door. In her childish heart Merle Hogan thought, It isn’t fair.

  ‘You going?’ she said.

  Margaret May nodded. She didn’t tell Merle where she was going or what she was doing this afternoon, like any normal person would. Stuck up. Helen said the granddaughter was just the same. They thought they were too good for you. Too good for Barinjii. Merle watched Margaret May walk down the steps of the church. Trip! she urged her silently, Go on! but Margaret May negotiated the steps with ease and turned onto the path towards the presbytery. Merle put her hands on her hips and wagged her head. ‘Off to visit her fancyman,’ she observed.

  ‘What was that you said, Merle?’ Milly Lachlan called across the aisle.

  ‘Oh, nothing.’ She couldn’t be fussed to explain. Old Milly wouldn’t get it anyway. Merle turned and marched up to the small statue. Father Joseph said he’d found it left behind in some old church, but she reckoned he’d got it from a garbage tip. The wood was a greyish brown, like something you’d find washed up on a riverbank, no colour to it at all. It didn’t even look like Our Lady, just some skinny kid in an old nightie with leaves stuck in her hair. And a bun in the oven by the look of it. She glared at the statue for a long moment, like a child in the playground trying to stare someone out, then she nudged the edge of a hydrangea with the blunt toe of her shoe. It bobbed a little on the surface of the water.

  ‘Merle!’

  Merle jumped. Milly Lachlan had crept up right behind her. Old stickybeak! Couldn’t keep her nose out of other people’s business! Geez! She hoped she never got like that when she was old. Merle stuck out her foot again and nudged at another hydrangea, just to show she wasn’t bothered by the likes of Milly Lachlan. This nudge was harder than the last, the flower rocked violently and drops of water spilled out onto the floor. ‘See!’ she cried triumphantly. ‘I told her there’d be water everywhere! Someone’s gonna slip on that!’

  ‘Only because someone else was messing round.’

  Merle took an angry breath and said slyly, ‘Are there any of those big silver vases empty?’

  ‘No!’ said Milly. ‘You just leave those hydrangeas where they are!’

  Merle shrugged, suddenly tired of the game. ‘Have it your own way, then,’ she said. ‘Only when someone slips and cracks their neck, we’ll all know who to blame!’

  ‘There won’t be any blame,’ said Milly and wandered over to the other side of the church, flicking her duster here and there, fetching up by the window of the seven wise virgins, staring dreamily around. ‘Merle, come over here!’ she called.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just come over here for a moment. Stand where I’m standing.’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘I want to show you something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ll find out when you come over,’ sang Milly. Light from the window was shining down on her, turning her white hair back to yellow; she was so small that if you hadn’t known it was old Milly you might have thought it was a nice child standing there.

  Merle flounced over. ‘So?’

  ‘Now look over at the statue.’

  Merle looked.

  ‘See?’ said Milly.

  ‘See what?’

  ‘How the blue hydrangeas look like waves, like she’s stepping into the sea.’

  Merle put her head on one side. ‘It just looks like messy flowers on the floor to me.’

  ‘It’s the sea. That’s what Margaret May would
have meant.’ Milly clasped her hands together. ‘She’s got such imagination! She always has had, ever since I’ve known her. She—’

  It was too much for Merle. ‘Do you know her kids never write to her?’ she burst out.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Her kids never write to her!’ bawled Merle.

  ‘What kids? Oh, you mean the older boys? Charlie and Vin? They live in Northern Queensland, I think.’

  ‘And they never come near her, do they?’

  ‘Well, it’s a long way to come, isn’t it? And you know how it is when you’ve got a family of your own—’

  Merle’s eyes gleamed. ‘They never write,’ she said again.

  ‘How do you know they never write?’

  ‘Joanie Fawkes at the post office told me.’

  Milly Lachlan gazed down at the dark shiny floor. After a small silence she said, ‘Well, she’s still got Ray.’

  ‘Him!’ Merle’s voice came out too loud. She lowered it, though there was no one in the church except for them, not unless you counted the statues and the saints up in the windows, and Merle didn’t – no one could accuse her of superstition. ‘You know they say he was dead drunk when he drove their car into that semi out at the crossroads? And killed that poor girl he was married to? Dolly, was it?’

  ‘Polly.’

  ‘Polly, then. Joanie Fawkes says she was only nineteen.’

  ‘Oh, Merle,’ protested Milly. ‘Of course he wasn’t drunk; that’s only gossip.’ She sighed. ‘Poor Ray!’

  ‘Poor Ray!’ Merle’s voice hissed out contemptuously, and then she began to chant softly, like a naughty child, ‘Poor old Ray’s a ruin! A ruin, a ruin! Poor old Ray’s a ruin, no good to anyone!’

  Milly stared at her sadly. ‘Oh, Merle,’ she said again.

  six

  Ruth hadn’t meant to come to this place when she’d left the crossroads – to the little beach beside the creek – only it was so hot and there was nothing much else to do. It was barely ten o’clock and Fee had told her yesterday that she and Mattie were driving over to Dubbo this morning to buy a birthday present for his mum. ‘We’re going early before it gets too hot,’ she’d said. ‘We’ll be back by noon. You want to come?’