The Beloved (3 page)

Mama hurried in. ‘Bertie! What is it?'

‘Grandma said I'll never walk on my stick.'

‘Oh, did she? Listen to me, Grandma knows nothing. You'll walk.'

‘She scared me, Mama.'

‘She scared me too, sugar.' Mama put her arm around me. I wanted to bury my face in her chest but I didn't. She didn't like being mushy. ‘She was an utter . . . She made my life a misery when we lived with her and Grandad.'

‘Why?'

‘Nobody was good enough for your dad, especially not a woman with a career and an accent. She criticised everything I did. I was a hopeless mother, a useless housekeeper and a lousy cook.'

‘What about your macaroni cheese?'

‘Foreign muck. And she was wrong about you not walking, Bertie. You'll walk. You wait, we'll spit in her eye! Now, go to sleep, and be kind to that leg. It has a long way to go.'

Our bathroom was green. Gum-green tiles and eau de nil walls. I sat in the bathtub, squeezing my old yellow rubber duck and making it blow farty bubbles. Mama squatted beside me, pushing my leg through the water. It was hot and I felt dopey, mesmerised by the little waves that slopped up the side of the tub. Mama rubbed soap over my back, a stack of four left-over pieces pressed together – blue Neko, white Lux, pink Lifebuoy and green Palmolive. ‘Give me your palm, Olive,' Dad would say, and Mama had to say back: ‘Not on your life, boy!' I gazed at a drop of water gathering in the spout, watched it glisten, grow larger, heavier, and begin to wobble. I lifted my foot to shove a toe in the spout and catch the drop before it fell.

Mama gasped. I snapped from my daze.
Plop
! The drop fell.

‘You moved, Bertie. You
moved
your foot. Do it again! Do it again!'

My knee shuddered.

Mama toppled backwards on the floor, all shades of pink and gold rippling from her outstretched arms like butterfly wings.

‘I did it.' She lifted her head and smiled at me, a chocolaty smile, and my heart rolled with happiness. ‘
We
did it.' She scrambled up, her dark hair swinging, and took my face in her hands. ‘My beloved child, you're going to walk. You're going to walk and everything's going to be fine.'

Chapter Three

‘But I can't walk!'

‘Not
yet
. You will. Hydrotherapy will move it along.'

Twice a week, now, Grandad came in his car to take Mama and me to the hydrotherapy pool at the hospital. I loved the water; it eased the cramps in my leg and let me pretend I was just like anyone else. I wanted to swim beyond grown-up hands and forget about polio for a while but one little boy made it impossible. Every time we went to the pool he was there, lying in a nurse's arms, looking at the world with hopeless eyes. His body was scrunched up on one side and his spine curved like a snail. Mama was right, I was lucky. But sometimes I wondered if I was so lucky, how come I had polio at all?

Grandma came back again to see for herself how I was getting on. She sat on the end of the sofa, huffing like a bull. ‘Where's this improvement?'

I put Moose on the floor. I'd been trying to straighten his ear. Mama warned me it wouldn't work, that it had been stitched on crooked and I should let him be just as he was. I didn't believe I couldn't fix him and had sticky-taped his ear to the top of his head for two whole days. But as soon as I took the tape off his ear flopped down again.

‘Well?' said Grandma.

Slowly, I pulled up my knee.

‘Hallelujah, Roberta. Thanks be to God, your faith has made you whole.'

‘Faith!' Mama snorted, bringing in my lunch tray. ‘Hard work more like it. Our hard work.'

Our hard work – mine and Mama's. She told me I'd move my leg and I did. She told me I'd walk, and soon I would. Mama said so.
Her
smile and
her
words . . .
My beloved child.
I'd walk forever to hear her say those words again.

She set the tray on my lap.

Grandma frowned. ‘Foreign muck. Why don't you feed her proper food – beef and vegetables?'

‘It's not foreign muck, Grandma, it's macaroni cheese.'

‘Be quiet, child.'

‘No,
you
be quiet,' Mama said. ‘Shut your spiteful mouth or leave.'

Grandma gasped. ‘How dare you speak to me like that? In my son's house and in front of my own granddaughter!'

‘
My
daughter. My house. If you don't like it, go.'

I held my breath. Grandma's lips were clamped together so tightly they made little pillows under her nose.

‘Enjoy your visit,' Mama said, and walked out.

Grandma glared at Mama's back and a steely grey fog gathered around her body.

‘Are you sick?' I said.

‘No.' She smiled and the grey turned lavender.

‘Look, it's going purple.'

‘What has, lovey?'

‘That lavender on your chest.'

Grandma looked down at her navy dress. ‘There's no lavender there.'

‘Yes, there is.'

‘No, Roberta. Come now. Let us pray.' Grandma shut her eyes. ‘Thou art the potter, Lord, we are the clay. Mould us according to thy will.' On and on she went, her voice winding around a million
thees
and
thys
and
we-beseech-thees.
Finally, she stopped
.
‘Amen.'

‘Amen,' I said. ‘Are we clay, Grandma?'

‘Indeed we are, Roberta, God's clay. God's children. We belong to Him.'

What a lot of people I belonged to – Mama, Dad, Grandma and now God. Grandma leafed through her Bible and found another picture. Jesus looked nice, I thought, with blond hair and a sad face.

‘Have you got a picture of God, Grandma?'

‘Heavens, no. No mortal looks upon the face of God in this life, Roberta. One cannot see God and live.'

How awful! God must be hideous, a gargoyle with craters in his skin, burning eyes and flaming hair. Poor Jesus; no wonder he looked sad. Imagine having that for a father.

That night I dreamed I was sitting on God's knee, trying to plait his beard which dangled and curled like the chain on Grandma's dunny. Her toilet had a name on it,
Thomas Crapper
, and I tugged on God's beard to see if he flushed like Mister Crapper. He didn't. He roared, a terrible sound that echoed down the long drop between where he lived up there and where I lived down here.
Mine
, he roared.
You're M-I-I-I-NE!

I woke with a thud, as if I'd been dropped from the sky, and stared into the darkness. Whose was I?

Plenty of people thought they knew. ‘So much Lily May's child,' they said, or, ‘Look at those Lightfoot eyes.' Nobody said, ‘So much Roberta'.

The next morning, I asked Tim, ‘Whose child am I?'

‘The devil's.'

‘
What?
'

‘I'm joking, Bertie, but you're a bit different.'

‘Why?'

‘You know. You see things.'

Colours. That didn't make me different, it made other people different. They were the ones who couldn't see what was going on in front of them. Lately, whenever I talked about the colours, Mama got cranky. ‘They're not real, Roberta, you're old enough to understand that now.'

They were real, as real as rainbows or smells. Everyone knew you couldn't touch rainbows or see smells but they were real and so were colours, and they were everywhere. They lit the air around birds and, at night, owls streaked the sky with electric blue. Some colours were as bright as cellophane, others were dull; some swirled together like raspberries and cream and others separated like water from oil. I tried to show what they looked like by drawing them.

‘Why have you scribbled all over the lines?' Mama asked.

‘Because that's where the colours go.'

‘There
aren't
any colours.'

But I knew what I saw. I saw Mrs Evans from next door smiling into Mama's face one minute and bum-mouthed behind her back the next, and all the time oozing colours like raw mince. I drew Mrs Evans with a meat-red face, surrounded it with a sausage of hair and put a fork coming out of her mouth because Grandma said liars and serpents had fork tongues. I'd just finished the picture when Mama and Dad came in.

‘What on earth's that?' said Mama.

‘Mrs Evans. See? That's her fork tongue.'

Mama's eyes widened. ‘What makes you think Mrs Evans has a forked tongue?'

‘She fibs.'

‘How do you know that?'

‘Her colours showed me.'

Mama gave me a long, hard look. The colours that rippled from her reminded me of how I felt when Matron took my hair.

‘Nonsense.' But she didn't sound sure. ‘Who told you about forked tongues, anyway?'

‘Grandma.'

‘I might have known.' She scowled at Dad. ‘Tell your mother to keep her homespun wisdom to herself. She's giving Roberta ideas.'

‘You have to admit,' said Dad, ‘it's a beaut drawing of Mrs Thing.'

Another parcel arrived for me, this one from Dad's sister in Sydney. ‘Your Aunt Tempe,' he said. ‘Our black sheep.'

‘She's a sheep?'

He laughed. ‘The black sheep is the naughty one in the family.'

‘Is Aunt Tempe naughty?'

‘Your grandma thinks so. She fled to Sodom and Gomorrah to study art.'

‘Sodden and . . . ?'

‘Sydney. Exciting place.'

‘Oh.'

Aunt Tempe's present was a small blackboard and three packets of coloured chalk. I drew the bright sticks across the board and pictures sprang to life . . . a cherry-red horse, a yellow tadpole, a green and pink striped cat. Dad looked at my drawings and said I must take after my aunt. I wondered if that meant she could see colours too. Maybe that's what got her into trouble with Grandma and why she had to run away to Sydney.

‘I like Aunt Tempe.'

‘Yeah,' said Dad, ‘she's a good sort. We got up to all kinds of things when we were kids. You want a game of cards?'

‘What things?'

‘Oh, this and that.' Dad dealt out the cards. ‘She used to sneak me sweets and firecrackers, both forbidden by your grandma and probably nicked. When we got older we smoked cigarettes in the paddock down the road. Then Tempe
really
misbehaved.'

‘What did she do?'

Dad slammed an ace on top of mine. ‘Snap!'

Mama came from the kitchen, smelling like apples. ‘Who's winning?'

‘I am.' Dad scooped up the cards.

‘What did she
do
, Dad? What did Aunt Tempe do?'

‘Oh . . . we don't exactly know, do we?' He gave Mama such a look I didn't need colours to tell me he was fibbing.

‘Come on, Bertie,' Mama said. ‘Let's go outside.' Dad carried me to the garden and Mama began gathering a small bunch of winter flowers. Next thing, Mrs Evans stuck her head over the fence.

‘Sorry I haven't been in to say hello to the patient but my mother's been unwell and I've had to look after her.'

A dirty red mist gathered around her throat.

‘She's lying,' I said.

Mrs Evans' jaw dropped.

‘Roberta!' Mama gasped. ‘Apologise!'

Mrs Evans stomped away from the fence. ‘Polio or not,' she shouted over her shoulder, ‘that child needs a good hiding.'

Mama stared at me. ‘Why did you do that?'

‘She was fibbing. I hate fibbers.'

‘You don't know she was fibbing. What's got into you?'

I pulled the scraggy ends of my hair into my mouth and chewed. Mama slapped my hand. ‘Answer me.'

‘She
was
lying, Mama. Her colours told me.'

Mama sucked in such a huge breath I thought she'd float away. ‘Look at me,' she said. ‘I want the truth. Do you really see colours?'

‘Yes.'

‘Right. We'll get your eyes checked.'

We went to an optometrist in the city where I sat in a big chair wearing funny glasses and read charts and answered questions. ‘Her eyes are fine,' said the optometrist. We drove home in silence. Dad carried me into the living room and Mama stood in front of me with her arms crossed. ‘We have just wasted two pounds ten shillings, three hours of your father's precious work time, and mine, on something that doesn't exist. If I hear another word about colours you'll be punished. Is that clear?'

It was clear. But when people's colours didn't match their words I couldn't help saying so and a few days later when Mama overheard me telling one of Tim's friends he was fibbing she sent for Dad. ‘This has to stop, Ed. She tells people what's wrong with them.'

‘Somebody has to.'

‘Ed!'

‘She's bored. It'll stop when she's walking.'

‘It has to stop now. She puts people off. You must tell her.'

Dad circled my room, his blue eyes serious. ‘CP, I know you've had a rough time and you're bored and all that, but you have to stop this colour stuff.'

‘Why?'

‘It causes trouble. Look what's happened with Mrs Whatsit next door.'

‘But she was fibbing.'

‘How do you know?'

‘Her colours told me.'

Dad screwed his mouth into a knot, trying not to laugh. ‘Look, old thing, we're going around in circles. I don't know what you see but this has to stop. Put a sock in it. Okay?'

It wasn't until Mama produced the cod-liver oil that I stopped.

‘They've gone,' I said, as the second dose loomed. ‘All the colours have gone.'

‘I'll bet they have.'

The blackboard got the colours. Red, yellow and purple; people, flowers and animals – whatever I wanted. Mama complained about chalk dust on blankets, chairs and clothes and she winced at my pictures. Pink and yellow spotted dogs, purple trees, green people? It wasn't right.

‘You must colour things the way they are, Bertie.' She bought me a colouring-in book and crayons. ‘Stay
inside
the lines, like this.' She took a couple of crayons and filled in a house. I yawned. Anyone could colour someone else's pictures. I wanted to make my own. She put down the crayon and said in her lady voice, ‘It's time you had company.'

A few days later, two girls from my class came to visit. They wore frothy dresses, white socks and shiny black patent-leather shoes that made my heart sink with envy. I stared at their perfect legs and neat feet and they stared at the bump of my foot under the blanket. They fidgeted. I couldn't think of anything to say. I wanted them to go home so I could draw. I didn't need friends.

‘Why don't we play I-Spy?' Mama said.

Later, she brought in walnut brownies, baked specially in the Kooka oven, and cups of cocoa and the room filled with the sticky sounds of eating, the brushing of crumbs and the sighs of wondering what would come next.

Nothing.

When they left I felt a pain in my chest I had no name for.

‘Don't worry,' Mama said. ‘It'll be better when you're walking.'

Walking. That was all I thought about. I never wondered what happened after walking, never imagined a short withered leg, a brace, crutches, sticks or boots. Walking would fix everything. Walking was forget-me-not blue.