He Called Me Son (The Blountmere Street Series Book 1) (23 page)

‘Never, and I never will.
 
You’re all I need, Marion.’
 
And indeed she was.
 
It didn’t matter what the Church said about relinquishing my vows as a priest, even that I had broken my parents’ hearts.

‘I found a job on a farm that had a cottage going with it, a broken-down place but to Marion and me it was a palace.
 
Not a jarring word did we speak in it.
 
In the evenings I would read her poetry, while she knitted for the child we were expecting.’

Fergus got up.
 
‘Tis like a furnace in this place,’ he said and made his way out of the hut and across to the ridge.

I followed him.
 
‘What happened?’ I asked after a while.
 
‘What happened to Marion?’

‘She died.
 
I told my sister to come and get the baby.
 
I didn’t look at the child, a girl, I believe, and I left.’

‘Haven’t you seen her, your daughter, I mean?’

‘No.
 
I don’t even know her name.
 
She’s thirteen now.
 
Whenever I see a young girl in the township, I look at her and wonder if my daughter is like that.’

‘Is that who you were writing to?’

‘I was foolish enough to think she might like to know who her daddy is, but why should she care?’

The next day when I arrived, Gaylene was propped against the back of the rabbiter’s hut polishing her cracker ring on her skirt.

‘
Have you bought the poetry book?’ she asked, looking at my empty hands.

‘I couldn’t bring the book itself in case someone saw me, but I’ve copied a poem.’
 
I took a piece of crumpled paper from my pocket.
 
‘I won’t be able to stay or someone might come looking for me.’
 
What I actually meant was her father might come looking for me.

Gaylene slid further down the wall, and settled herself beside me.
 
I felt her breath on my neck.

‘It’s a love poem,’ I said jerkily and she replied, ‘Read it to me like you said Fergus reads poetry.’
 
She closed her eyes, and I began.

She was a phantom of delight

When first she gleam’d upon my sight.

A lovely apparition sent

To be a moment’s ornament:

Her eyes as stars of twilight fair,

Like twilight’s, too, her dusky hair,

But all things else about her dawn,

A dancing shape, an image gay

To haunt, to startle and waylay.’

For a moment neither of us spoke.
 
Gaylene still had her eyes shut.
 
Finally she said, ‘I didn’t know poetry could be so beautiful.
 
Who wrote it?’

‘William Wordsworth
.’

I studied the side of her face.
 
Her skin was smooth and without any blemishes and I wondered if Fergus’s Marion had been as lovely.

‘If you want, we can read some poetry this evening.
 
We can meet at the river by the flat rock.
 
Do you know it?’
 
She asked.

I nodded.
 
Sometimes when I could get away without Downston or the others seeing me, I would go there to be alone with my memories.
 
It was more peaceful than the pigsty and much more beautiful.

‘About seven, before it gets dark,’ Gaylene suggested.

‘Your parents wouldn’t like it.’

‘I can slip out my bedroom window.
 
They’ll think I’m working on my school holiday project.’

‘I don’t want you to get into trouble.’

‘It’ll be all right.
 
I’ll be back and asleep by the time Mum pops her head round the door before she goes to bed.’

She stood and offered her hand to pull me up.
 
‘Come on, we’ve got to go.’

The evening breeze brushed my body as I shook the water from my face, and begun rubbing under my arms with my washing rag.

‘At this rate, you’ll wash yourself away.’
 
Joe looked at me, puzzled.
 
‘Why do you want to wash after dinner as well as in the morning?
 
It’s not natural.
 
Once a day’s too much if you ask me.’

He hit his forehead dramatically with the heel of his hand.
 
‘I’ve got it!
 
You’re going to meet that Gay Whatsername.
 
I should’ve twigged.’

I wished Joe would leave me alone.

‘Playing with fire, that’s what you’re doing.
 
The Boss’ll murder you if he finds out.’

‘He’s not going to.’
 
Somewhere in my stomach fear mingled with excitement.

‘Where are the two of you going?’

‘To the river.
 
Anyway, I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss.’

‘I’m not making a fuss.
 
I don’t want to see you cut up in little pieces and fed to the pigs.’

‘I told you that’s not going to happen.’
 
I felt round my chin.

‘You’re not going to shave are you?
 
You’ve only got two whiskers.’
 
Joe handed me my shirt.
 
‘All this for a bit of hanky panky.’

‘It’s nothing like that.
 
All we’re going to do is read poetry.
 
There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?’
 

I didn’t like Joe using those words about Gaylene.
 
It demeaned her, though I wasn’t sure what hanky panky was.
 
I thought it was something in addition to sex, although I wasn’t that certain about sex.
 
When the Gang saw people kissing in a picture at Saturday Picture Club, we jeered and cat-called.
 
We thought kissing was soppy.
 
If it was soppy, why did I dream about kissing Gaylene?

‘Nothing wrong with what, boy?’ Murray asked, emerging from our quarters on his way to the long drop, already unbuttoning his fly.

‘He’s going to meet that Gay Whatsername tonight at the river?’

‘Big mouth!’

Murray whistled through his teeth and said, ‘My word.’

‘I’ve told him the Boss’ll kill him if he finds out.’

‘Too right he will.’

‘Aren’t you going to tell him not to trust a woman?’
 
Joe called after Murray.

‘It’s his own business.’
 
Murray disappeared inside the dunny, shouting back, ‘You can borrow my new socks, boy.’

Shadows engulfed the gorge, through which the river wound - a grey-blue thread, before it ran its course along a widening shingle bed.
 
From there it forged its way on into a further canyon.
 
A lonely birdsong soared upwards while insects in black clusters hovered in the pastel haze of evening.

Gaylene was already there when I arrived, low down by the river, sitting on a rock the shape of an ironing board.
 

‘I thought you might not have been able to find me,’ she smiled as I approached.
 
Against the steep outcrop, she appeared smaller.

I clambered across the rock and sat beside her.
 
‘Did you have any trouble getting here?’

‘No.
 
My bedroom’s round the back of the house.
 
At this time in the evening, Mum and Dad are always at the front so it was easy to slip away.
 
What about you?’

‘No.’

‘It’s lovely here in the evening.’

‘Yes.’
 
I sought for something to say but nothing came.
 
We gazed at the river.
 
All at once I became aware of the space between us filled with uncertainty and widened by a thousand unasked and unanswered questions.

‘Are you going to read some poetry?’ Gaylene asked at last.
 
It was a relief she had spoken.
 
This time I took my poetry book from my pocket.
 
I opened it to a page I had marked with a bookmark made from the long-drop newspaper.
 
‘I’ll read another verse from the poem I read you yesterday by Wordsworth.’
 
My voice cracked involuntarily and rose before falling.
 
Embarrassed, I coughed as if to clear my throat.
 
I struggled for an even pitch.

I saw her upon nearer view,

A Spirit, yet a woman too!

Her household motions light and free

And steps of virgin liberty,

A countenance in which did meet,

Sweet records, promises as sweet,

A creature not too bright or good

For human nature’s daily food,

For transient sorrows, simple wiles,

Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles

Gaylene rested her head in her hands.
 
‘I don’t think my father has ever loved my mother like that.
 
What about your parents?’

I blew my breath in front of me.
 
‘The only thing my Old Man ever loved was the bottle.
 
He left home when I was a kid.
 
I suppose my mother must have loved him once.’
 
I paused.
 
‘Perhaps they both loved each other once.’

How could anything as beautiful as Wordsworth wrote about deteriorate into what Angela and I had witnessed?
 
Yet love could overcome unimaginable obstacles, even survive death.
 
I had only to listen to Fergus to know that.

Gaylene moved closer. ‘Am I an apparition of delight?’ she whispered.

As an answer, I took hold of her shoulders and stroked upwards to her face.

‘You’re beautiful.’

Her kiss was like dandelion down brushing my lips.

‘You’re moping around like a lovesick animal,’ Joe observed the next day.
 
He moved closer.
 
‘What I want to know is, what the two of you got up to.
 
Did you … you know?’

‘I told you.
 
We read poetry.’

‘Pigs might fly.’

‘Please yourself.’
 
I began to walk away from Joe.
 
I wanted to be alone to relive the previous evening, to feel Gaylene’s lips touching mine, to recreate the tenderness.

‘You going to meet her again tonight?’
 
Joe shouted after me.

‘What if I am?’

‘You must be mad,’ he called back.

This time I was the first to arrive, lying back on the rock, feeling its stored up heat from the day seep into me.
 
Behind my closed eyes, a dozen Gaylenes danced in an orange swirl.
 
When she arrived she was a manifestation of my daydream.

We took off our shoes and walked along the river’s edge, jumping from stone to stone.
 
We ran through the water, squealing at its chill.
 
Then we pulled each other across deeper crevices and up steeper slopes until we found a clearing.
 
There we laid on crackling leaves, entwined in each other’s arms.
 
I felt the smoothness of her skin and the roundness of her breasts as the canyon grew shadowy and the birds became silent.

The canyon was almost dark when we finally stumbled from it.
 
Twilight had turned the grass grey as we crept hand in hand towards the homestead.
 
We kissed one final time behind the large flax bush.