Robyn Hogan

Hazel tells Del some happenings the summer before her birth.

Hill End had been hot for mid April, dusty, decayed and, Del thought, perfectly captured in the art works of Jean Bellette. ‘Scumbled browns’, the Australian art critic, Robert Hughes, had once called her palette. So was Hill End: every shade of brown, including the rust damaged iron roofs. She located the cottage in Denison Street without difficulty; it had the rakish appearance of its photographs and an overgrown garden. She had called in at the Royal Hotel and learned that Jean was well remembered and quite capable of fronting up to the bar in a time when women drank in ‘Ladies Only’ lounges. And that she had recently passed away at her home in Majorca. The latter news saddened Del, who had been hoping for some direct contact with Bellette, if she was alive. She felt sure the artist would be pleased to know there was a continuing public interest in her and her work. Now the freshness of including an interview, even if only a few direct quotes, had slipped from the agenda. Her sudden decision to visit Hill End, though, had yielded good material; her article could be finished on her return home, as she had promised.

She approached the Watts’ homestead, hoping her luck would hold; that she would learn a definite fact that would put the question of her paternity away forever. But it was a big ask if Margaret Dunne had, as seemed likely, kept her secret entirely to herself. Del felt that, if she could establish the impossibility of her mother’s claim, she could let it pass from her forever.

Hazel was so excited at Del’s arrival she fluttered around, up and down the steps, back and forth along the hallway, in and out the bedroom she had prepared for Del until Del, laughing, steered her to a chair in the sitting room. The home was a lovely old one, with large rooms, high ceilings and the cool smell of a more gracious, bygone age. Though the curtains had faded, the floorboards shone round the worn carpet edges and the garden glowed fresh and green through the old fashioned windows.

‘What say I make us a cup of tea?’ Del tried to take the initiative but Hazel had hardly sat down and she was up again.

‘Indeed, you will not! You are my guest, Fidelma, and I’m not past being a good hostess.’

‘Of course you aren’t. I can see you have gone to a lot of trouble.’ Del was aching for a cup of tea, even a glass of water. Particularly country rain water. As Hazel remained distracted, Del invited herself into the huge old kitchen, Hazel following. There was a tray all set up with an embroidered cloth and Royal Doulton china. Del couldn’t help it. She turned round and hugged Hazel, feeling her frail old bones quivering inside her cotton dress. ‘You are a wonder!’ and she kissed her.

Hazel turned pink with delight and Del could see her shaking as she reached out to switch the jug on. ‘I’ve made you a cake, too.’ Del feared for its safety as Hazel twirled round to show her the fresh, light looking sponge, dusted with icing sugar. It was a rich yellow, the colour country eggs tint cakes.

Before they had finished afternoon tea, George Watts came in from the paddocks. By this stage, Del had learnt that they employed a manager and other staff; that she and George, the last of their line, wanted to live out the rest of their lives here. It all, of course, depended on their health. Hers was good, a bit dizzy sometimes, but mainly good; his blood pressure was high and, although he was on medication, he was what Hazel laughingly described as a ‘poor patient’.

By the time they ate the evening meal, roast lamb, baked potatoes, pumpkin and peas, it seemed to Del every family in the district had been talked about. Except her own. And the dreams and fears of old age heavily underlined the Watts’ version. They had been together a long time and finished each other’s sentences. Their only child had been in a car accident in his twenties. Driving too fast on a slippery road one winter. He had been a little over six months younger than Del. George and Hazel had battled on, day by day, year by year, without much direction but sufficient income for their needs. Del had a feeling their employees might be ripping them off but, while ever the couple were happy enough, why worry them.

She had brought a bottle of wine with her and Hazel winked as she poured the last of it into George’s glass. Not long afterwards George announced he was going to bed but Hazel said she wasn’t ready yet. She flustered round while Del cleared the kitchen, made some coffee and, though she did not need another slice of cake, cut a couple and placed them on a plate.

‘It’s a nice evening,’ Hazel said, ‘we’ll sit on the verandah.’ She was quieter and calmer; the frail old woman closer in style to the middle-aged one of Del’s youth.

The moon was shining across the paddocks where sheep continued to graze in the light. Del could hear them munching in the quiet. A distant aeroplane hummed and some little birds twittered in the thick vines that draped the verandah. She sat on a step and Hazel, sitting beside her, clasped her hand, squeezing it in her own.

‘What do you want to know?’

The question surprised Del; she had thought Hazel would prefer to reminisce and hoped her interview skills were sufficient to garner the knowledge she needed. She was not prepared for such a direct approach. She hesitated, thinking of a reply.

‘There’s something you want to know.’ The old woman spoke again, softly, ‘you haven’t come all this way just to visit with an old lady. No, Fidelma. You have a haunted look about you; I saw the same on your mother once. A long time ago and I’ve been trying to think when.’

‘Maybe it was when Dad came home so injured.’ At least she had sufficient wit to set the time frame.

‘Yes, I think so. From then until you were born.’ She sighed as if short of breath. ‘By then I was married and expecting. Living here,’ she waved her arm. ‘Life altered a lot, and quickly, when the men came home.’

‘I guess it must have. Anne told me that you lived with us. Or, rather, Mummy, Anne and Davy.’

‘That’s correct. It was a fun time in many ways. Sure, we were worried about the war and the waiting for news was awful.’

‘Were you and George,’ she tilted her head, ‘walking out, as they used to say?’

Hazel chuckled. ‘No. But he was the only single man that came back in one piece and I was no chicken by then and I grabbed him.’

‘Really!’

‘Maggie never approved of George. Told me in no uncertain terms I was throwing myself away but I knew George, though he is rough around the edges, would look after me. George is an incredibly loyal friend. Never questions a mate’s needs. Nor did he mine. He couldn’t save Geordie for me, but Geordie was a wild young one.’ Hazel turned her face in the moonlight, her grizzled grey hair looking soft in its shine. ‘There was a time I’d hoped you and Geordie — you would have had a calming affect on him.’

‘Do you think so?’ Del could think of nothing else to say. Her mother had been even more scathing of Geordie Watts; her father too.

‘What did you do, when you and Mummy lived together?’

‘Do? There was plenty to do. What with the milking, the butter making, the vegetables — and that was just the extras. We had two energetic children to care for. Old Davy lived with us too, running the farm as best he could. Mind you, I think he spent most of his day on horse back, because that’s what he liked, but he kept things ticking over.’

The moon had shifted on; a frog croaked nearby. A lazy croak, not one calling of rain.

‘What about,’ Del tried to keep her voice casual, ‘the summer before I was born?’

‘Nothing different springs to mind. What are you looking for?’

‘I don’t know. Anne spoke of oranges, picking them,’ Del prompted, hoping she had found the trigger.

‘Oranges? Oh yes, that was the summer we picked the oranges. How could I have forgotten?’

Moments drew on into minutes. Del began to wonder whether Hazel took little cat-naps, as some elderly do, but her voice was strong, her ideas clear, when she chose to speak again.

‘It was a bumper crop. Over on Quondong. They bussed prisoners in but even so they were short handed. Maggie and I volunteered. I wasn’t much good in the trees so I spent most of the time in the packing shed. But Maggie loved the outside work. And they paid us. Piecemeal, but real money nevertheless.’

‘Sounds good.’

‘It’s all right for you young ones today. You expect to be paid, to earn your own living. Spend it as you wish. In our time, our fathers kept us until our husbands did. But for those short weeks, Maggie and I had pay packets. My hours and, in her case, the weight of fruit she picked, was written down. Calculations were made and, on pay day, we lined up along the front of the packing shed and signed for our money. We were rich!’

Silence again. Then Del took the plunge. ‘Who was the man in my mother’s life?’

‘Your father.’ But the older woman moved closer along the step and put her arms round Del. ‘Why are you asking this?’

‘Because — I think there might have been someone else.’

‘There were rumours. Did they turn up again at Maggie’s funeral? Did you hear something to upset you?’

Del shook her head and leaned lightly on Hazel’s shoulder. ‘What rumours? Please tell me.’

Hazel took her arm away and folded herself. Del could hear the papery sound of her hands as she rubbed them along her arms. ‘Your father came home an ill man. Your mother. I think your mother was preparing herself to be a widow. It was she who had found the fruit picking jobs for us. But I swear to you I can’t recall there being any man or even the slightest suggestion.’

‘These rumours, then?’

‘They came with the pregnancy. Your father was a broken man, spent all his time sitting, weeping by the kitchen stove. No one who saw him could believe he could father a child. It was George who took Maggie to the midwife for the birth. But George and I, after your arrival, we went and collected David and, oh Del, I can picture this as clear as day, when he saw you his eyes lit up. “She’s granny all over again”. He took you and, holding you ever so gently, pushed the blanket back from your face. “Hello, Fidelma”. And he swore you grinned back at him but, of course, you were only a few hours old and you could not have done so. But Dave believed in you.’

A breeze crept up, sighing in the garden trees, rustling the withering vines. ‘There could have been another man.’

‘I doubt it. It’s all so long ago but, Del, your mother always thought of herself as something precious. In many ways, she was the original goody two-shoes. I was the one who would take risks.’

‘Anne said she used to laugh a lot. I don’t associate my mother with laughter.’

‘She used to laugh a lot when she was young. You’re right, the years sobered her. Funny how people can change and you don’t really notice. That summer: she laughed a lot that summer. I can see her now. She’d got some khaki army shorts from somewhere and a blue workers shirt and…they had planks between the trees and she would dance along them, lovely tanned legs swinging, laughing and picking oranges. Quicker than anyone else. At the end of a shift we would hear the overseer calling, “Mrs Dunne has done it again!” And everyone would cheer. Anne and Davy would come out from under the trees or wherever they had been playing and join in the clapping.’ She shivered. ‘That breeze is getting cooler.’

‘I’ve kept you talking far too long.’

‘It’s been a pleasure, Dear. You can’t know what a pleasure.’ She giggled softly at another memory. ‘Quondong put on a harvest dance to celebrate the end of the crop. Everyone was there. Even the POWs, prisoners of the war.’ She rose and, clutching Del’s hand, they strolled into the house. ‘Maggie’s legs were so tanned and smooth, she just whipped a pencil line up the calves and no one could tell she wasn’t wearing stockings. We later learned the city girls did that all the time for the Yanks.’

Prisoners of war. The words hung, smirking at Del. And a dance opportunity. Smoke indeed.

As she hugged and kissed Hazel good night she asked one last question. ‘Where did the prisoners come from? The prisoners picking oranges?’ And, hope rising, ‘Were they Japanese?’

‘Oh, no dear. But they were foreigners just the same. Eye-ties, they were. Maggie got on well with them but I didn’t take to them at all.’

The raucous morning calls of half a dozen different birds woke Del early. She was surprised she had slept so well. Quietly, she pulled her wrap over her nightdress and tip-toed from the large, dark panelled room, seeking the kitchen and coffee. As she entered the wide hallway, she could hear George snoring and was thankful the walls were, apparently, so soundproof; that his noisiness had not disturbed her. The birds, she did not mind; theirs were wonderful, cheering calls through the open window.

Hazel was already in the kitchen, pottering at the washing up. Her hair was askew, she wore faded pink track pants and a silky shirt and, when she turned from the sink at Del’s greeting, her eyes were circled in black and heavy pouches fell down her cheeks. Thinking, she looks dreadful, Del folded her arms round her and she snuggled into the embrace. ‘You look as if you haven’t slept a wink,’ Del murmured against her hair.

‘I haven’t, darling.’

‘I kept you up too late, did I? It was selfish of me.’

‘No, Delma. You just brought back memories that I needed to look at.’

‘Sad or happy?’ Del pushed Hazel away a little, peering into her rheumy eyes.

‘Oh, look at you! Up so early. I wanted to take you breakfast in bed.’ She fluttered, turning away towards the kettle, taking it to the tap and filling it, while Del stood wondering if there was more to tell.

‘I prefer to spend the time with you rather than in bed — if you don’t mind.’

‘Of course, I don’t. And we’ll have a jolly little boiled egg together with soldier toast. The egg cups are in that cupboard beside you.’

Del took the hint, opened the cupboard, chose three matching white cups edged in a green coloured chain running round the rim, and small saucers to match. ‘don’t worry about George, he’ll sleep for hours yet.’ So Del returned one set to its shelf. She added teaspoons to the other two and placed them on the tray Hazel pushed towards her. ‘Oh, dear, I was going to have this all so pretty for you.’

‘Stop worrying, Aunty Haze. There’s no great rush.’ Del would have preferred a leisurely cup of coffee, perhaps on the step they had sat on last night, but she understood Hazel’s need to be hostess. She wasn’t sure she wanted to tackle an egg at this hour either but Hazel, even through her fluster, was really quite efficient. Breakfast was almost ready and Del realised she was to have tea not coffee to begin her day. When the tray was complete with brown eggs in their cups, strips of hot buttered toast on the saucers and the teapot filled, Hazel picked it up. ‘We’ll have this in the morning room, the sun will be streaming in by now’, she said, over her shoulder, leading the way. ‘I love the early morning sun: it’s warm but easy on the eyes.’

Del followed her into a small room that was actually a glassed in section of the verandah. Beyond lay the garden then the paddocks, sheep grazing in a lemon sunlight spreading over ripened grass. ‘This is a lovely spot.’

‘It is, isn’t it? My favourite.’ As she finished setting a small table she added, ‘we use so little of the house nowadays, George and I. Just the kitchen, this, and our bedroom.’

‘Don’t apologise, Hazel, those rooms together are about the size of my whole apartment!’

‘Are they dear?’ Suddenly she sounded vague and Del looked at her, concerned, but Hazel added, brightly enough, ‘A bit of a nursery brekkie, isn’t it? You were a beautiful baby.’

‘I was?’ Del wondered what was coming.

‘I was thinking about the day you were born. George took Maggie to Bluegrass Cottage – that’s what it was called, the house where the midwife lived. Poor Dave hadn’t yet begun to drive again.’ She chipped the top off the egg, dunked a finger of toast in and sucked it.’ He wouldn’t go with George either and George said later he was terrified Maggie would have the baby before he could get to Bluegrass. He drove like a maniac.’ What’s new? thought Del, but held her tongue. They both scooped egg into their mouths, watching a couple of wrens chirping in an ancient fig tree, its fruit swelling, turning purple. ‘You didn’t take all that long to come. It seemed George had hardly left when he telephoned. Telling me you had arrived.’

Del smiled, ate more egg. What could she say?

‘Then he picked me up and we went back and collected Dave.’ Hazel lowered her head, placed her spoon beside the empty egg shell and slid the last of the toast into her mouth. ‘He bullied him a bit. Your mother, heavy with you, was caring for two children and an invalid husband. I have no idea who was running the place, maybe no one was. George had been wanting to straighten Dave out for months, ever since he, George, had returned, really’. Her voice faded and she reached for the teapot, filled the cups and shuffled the sugar and milk towards Del. Del took the cup, declined milk and sugar, passing them back to Hazel and waited. Hazel added both to her tea and began stirring it.

‘Last night I let those times come back into my thoughts. Your mother was, if my memory serves me right and, as I said last night, happy, laughing, confident. Next thing Dave was home – and he was a handful. She spent so much time with him, I was left with the children, though Anne, particularly, was a pretty independent child. Still, Maggie fussed over Dave incredibly with him just sitting there weeping. Suddenly, your home had changed from being a fun place to live, to a gloomy chore. And Old Davy went out on his horse one day and didn’t come back. Maggie didn’t notice until after nightfall and somehow expected me to have noticed. She threw a terrible tantrum and ordered me out. I was just as cranky and left. Rode home to my parents in the dark. It was my dad who organised the search party next morning and who collected my belongings.’

‘I didn’t know any of this.’

‘No. Why should you?’

‘But he was my grandfather. What happened?’

‘He was cutting burrs. Apparently had a heart attack and died in a patch of them. His old horse, not the liveliest of nags, stayed close by, which led them to him fairly quickly. Dad it was who organised the funeral; said Maggie was as sick as a dog and couldn’t lift a finger. At first I was in too much of a temper to care.’

She pushed the breakfast plates away and put her head down on her arms, sobs racked her body.

Del rose quickly, went to her, slid her arms round her. ‘Hazel, Hazel. Don’t tell me this if it is so painful.’

Hazel Watts lifted her head, tears glistening on her sagging cheeks. Her mouth was set, her chin firm. ‘We never did talk about it and, if I don’t now, no one will ever know.’

‘Does it matter?’ Del felt so responsible for causing this anguish. ‘I asked some foolish questions and it’s all water under the bridge — let’s go look at your garden.’

‘You’re like her, aren’t you? Maggie, I mean. She could put things right out of her mind. Pretend some particular thing had never happened. I didn’t realise it until now.’ Hazel reached for a tissue, blew her nose and wiped her eyes. ‘Perhaps that was how we could become friends again.’

Del smiled. ‘You must have been able to put it out of your mind too.’ She slipped a hand under Hazel’s arm. ‘Show me your garden.’

The two walked arm in arm from the morning room, down a step and onto an old crazy flagstone path. Roses grew either side, dew drying on bright petals. ‘Standards.’ She grunted slightly, perhaps from the exertion, ‘Maggie never liked standards. Said they were an abomination in the rose world.’

‘Yes. Yes, I remember her saying just that.’

‘I wouldn’t pull them out, though. George’s mother planted them; I have no right to pull them out.’ She plucked a couple of dead heads. ‘I don’t know why I can’t; she was such an old horror was Mrs Watts. You know, Delma,’ she clutched her arm, ‘and this is true, George’s mother used to circle wedding dates on her calendar so she knew if the first born was a barley-child or not.’

Barley-child. Del suddenly realised she had totally mistaken the description, the term, most of her life. The first time she heard it said she had been holidaying with Grandma O’Toole in Dubbo. Grandma O’Toole ‘visited’ and had taken the young Delma to meet a new baby. Del could see herself, seven or eight years of age, hopping beside Grandma O’Toole and rattling on about the baby as they walked home. ‘Of course, he’s a barley-child,’ Grandma O’Toole had sniffed.

‘Of course,’ Del had agreed. Coming from a family of dark hair, as hers was, the fair-haired baby, fuzz the colour of ripened barley, was obviously a barley-child.

Not long before he died and Sarah had the new blond hairdo, Del had remarked to Kevin that Sarah had ‘gone the full barley’, but Kevin had lost curiosity in words, did not challenge her meaning. Had merely smiled.

Funny how one can carry an erroneous concept throughout life. Del wondered how many other ‘facts’ she had misconstrued along the way; carried, unchallenged, within her psyche.

‘Your roses are lovely, Hazel.’ Del pulled herself back to the garden.

‘Yes, Del, and I can look after them. No bending to prune and pick and smell.’ She reached for a glorious soft pink bloom, ‘doesn’t that warm your heart?’

‘It certainly does,’ Del leant over and sniffed the flower. ‘Roses in shops never smell like that.’

‘George arrived home soon after Old Davy’s funeral. He was in uniform and handsome and I made myself available. It meant I had to share this house with his parents but I didn’t care.’ She strolled on and Del felt she had opened a tap; the older woman wanted to prattle on and on about the early days of her marriage, how it had been a quiet wedding and a cousin had been bridesmaid as Maggie was pregnant.

‘So, you patched your argument up all right?’

‘Oh, yes. But I never went back to live with her. I sat in the pew beside her at the funeral. You see, when Dad said she was sick as a dog, I realised she must have been pregnant.’ Hazel stopped walking, idly began picking petals from a full blown rose. ‘That’s when she looked at me with that haunted look you wore last night. I don’t think she ever lost that look. It just became part of her and we all became used to it.’ She clutched the petals in her palm, bruising them into a coffee cream. ‘I always believed she blamed herself for Old Davy’s death. Last night, I began to see her sorrow, the sadness she carried from then, might have had another cause. When I remembered the Eye-ties.’

Del swallowed hard, choked up with anguish for putting this sweet old woman through such an emotional ordeal. ‘She was happy at the end,’ she croaked.

‘Was she, Pet?’

‘Yes. I was with her. She died with a wonderfully triumphant smile on her face.’ They had come to the end of the rose walk; a windbreak of lilacs and tamarisks spread beyond. Hazel dropped the squashed petals and began grinding them into the path.

‘Because,’ she looked up at Del then down to her foot, pressing harder and scraping the petals along the stonework, ‘she passed the guilt to you, didn’t she?’

So unprepared was Del she sucked in a breath, as if iced water had been flung in her face. Then tried to laugh it off. A silly, hollow little laugh.

‘I’ll tell you something else,’ she stretched to a lilac bush and began picking at the seeds on it, ‘George had to take Maggie to Bluegrass when her time came. Then he collected me and we went back and George bullied Dave into shaving and dressing and we took him back to Maggie. When Dave saw you, he declared you were like his Granny, loved you instantly and called you Fidelma. And, miracle of miracles, began pulling himself together.’

Del visibly relaxed and laughed easily; they were on familiar ground again. She turned to swing back down the path. ‘Good Lord, Aunty Haze, look at the time. And I’m still in my dressing gown!’

But Hazel clutched her arm, stilling her. The thin old fingers dug into her flesh; Del could feel her trembling. ‘Later, George said to me: “did you play up too?” I didn’t know what he meant. I just stared at him. “Like Maggie Dunne?” I was puzzled. I told him I didn’t know what he meant; he was angry and I was nervous and I thought he was about to hit me. He had his arm up then dropped it. “Na. You’re too innocent.” Then he added, “poor old coot — it’s a cuckoo for sure — looks like every wog I ever saw”.’

Del shook her arm free and stumbled away. ‘And I said to him,’ Hazel’s voice was quaking but she spoke loudly to Del’s back, ‘don’t you ever repeat that to me or to anyone else ever again.’ Trembling, perspiration breaking out all over, Del continued along the path. ‘And I wish I hadn’t told you,’ and Hazel burst into loud sobs, stopping Del. She turned and, taking a couple of strides, gathered the old woman into her arms.

‘It was my fault. I asked you.’ Del’s tears were falling rapidly into the other’s thin, grey hair, the smell of Hazel’s perm wafting into her face. ‘Thank you, thank you, Aunty Haze. I needed to know.’

‘Did you, Pet?’

Del continued to hold her, rubbing her hands over the older woman’s humpy back, murmuring soothing noises while he own thoughts screeched inside her. Gradually she gained sufficient control to draw away from the embrace. ‘I must go change. It’s getting late and I do want to drive straight through today.’

‘Yes, of course, Pet. You run along.’ Hazel turned back to her garden.

Twenty minutes later Del, ready to leave, carried her small case to her car. George, who was up but still wearing his striped pyjamas, wandered out with her and Hazel approached across the lawn. The farewell took a little while; Del laughed brightly, promising to return soon, and for longer.

‘You know, you’re a right one,’ said George, grinning and nodding at her. ‘You know how we’ve been breeding white sheep for centuries yet every now and again, even in the best of studs, a ewe will throw a black one?’

‘I’ve always heard that,’ Del replied cautiously, hoping he wasn’t about to embark on another of his long-winded, virtually pointless stories. She climbed into her car, closed the door, wound the window down.

‘Yeah, well you’re a right throw-back. My mother, bless her heart, used to say the old Fidelma had the brogue of the Irish but the grace of a Spanish matador. I reckon you’re pretty much like her.’

‘So they’ve always said,’ Del responded gaily, switching the ignition on.

‘Yeah. You’re a black sheep. But that’s okay these days. They don’t hide them any more. Sell ’em to the crafties now, they do. Dave always knew you were okay.’

She engaged the gear, ‘Bye for now.’ She continued waving as she drove out the driveway.