The Heaven I Swallowed Read online

  I continued for a few weeks with the mantle of widowhood upon me. Mrs Squeak and the others tiptoed around me. There were still days when I could not leave the house and I would assume one of them would cover for me. It was on one of those housebound days that the head mistress came to the door and nudged me out of teaching.

  ‘With the men returning from the war, Grace, it seems a little unfair for a woman to take up a place that could help a veteran find his feet again,’ she said, sitting in my front room, taking a slice of a week-old sponge cake I had quickly cut up. ‘You will have your war-widow pension now, won’t you? Why work when you don’t need to?’

  She had pushed the sponge cake around the plate. She was a fat woman and I was surprised to find her not willing to devour the food put in front of her.

  ‘You need a chance to recover, Grace, from your … loss.’ At the time, I thought her hesitation was out of respect. Looking back, perhaps it was suspicion. ‘You are looking a little thin these days.’ She did not mention the bags under my eyes nor the crookedness of my hair parting.

  ‘Perhaps it has all become too much for you,’ she said.

  Consequently, it all became too little. Again, I was left alone in my time of trouble. My neighbours remained quiet upon hearing the news of Fred’s death. I was never sure why, perhaps I had created the illusion of a woman who had no need for condolence. It was spring then and I remember I stood under one of the trees at the end of Wayville Street watching thin, translucent pollen spores floating across the road, knowing none of them would find fertile ground in the dense park grass beyond.

  †

  The church congregation was a little kinder. Father Benjamin included Fred in the Prayers of the Faithful and there were generous squeezes of my hand. Mrs Parker invited me not only to join the Widows’ Group but also to call her Enid. And Mr Roper introduced himself to me for the first time.

  After I joined the Widows’ Group I was asked to provide a photo for the memorial booklet they planned to put together, one page dedicated to information about each of our husbands (the booklet was never made due to the high cost of the printing). I did not choose the same photograph I had framed at home. Instead, I found a picture of Fred in his groom’s outfit, a too-large chrysanthemum sticking out of his buttonhole, his face rigid because, after all, it was not our wedding day, but a week later when the photography studio was free.

  On the actual day of our marriage, Fred’s mother seemed determined for it to be a quiet and holy affair; too much joy was deemed frivolous given the recent death of Fred’s father, not to mention the general state of the world marching off to war. Our witnesses, a couple from Fred’s bank, were ill at ease, throwing a scattering of rice on the church steps that landed nowhere near me.

  †

  The secrets held in Fred’s desk could simply be added to the many secrets I had held, from my vision of the Virgin to the invented ghost of my husband. While I was still angry at the mistake over Mary’s mother, and wondered at the bureaucratic incompetence of the people in charge of distributing these children, I could live with another phantom—Mary’s mother; what would it matter to have another set of imagined eyes upon me? Let her join the long line of accusers, sitting smug and guilt free in their unquestioned lives, judging me.

  Perhaps it would all work out, perhaps I could make Mary a respectable citizen, a young woman to be applauded and celebrated for overcoming the disadvantages of her birth. It was not outside the realms of possibility, my rosy vision of the future. I could have thought it probable except for the nagging in my head, the shadow of doubt I had, to some extent, lived with all my life. The conviction, if it can be named as solidly as that, that there was to be no golden age for me.

  There had only been two people worthy of convincing me I could expect happiness: Auntie Iris and Fred. Auntie Iris had kept in contact with me, despite moving away, and I had contemplated settling in her hometown after leaving school. She had implied I was better off staying where I was.

  As for my time with Fred, it might have been my golden age, but now it had become so soured I could no longer look back and see it without a bitter sting in my eyes, my teeth clenching. All of it seemed false and hollow, tainted by its ending. Yes, it was better to keep one’s expectations low, to believe that God was saving the best for much, much later.

  7

  During the week of Mary’s mother’s letter, Mass seemed laborious even before our sickly priest began to pause longer and longer between words, often losing his place and having to repeat them, so much so we could not say the last prayers with him, the third Hail Mary falling away to his whispered, solitary voice.

  ‘Ave Maria … Ave Maria … gratia plena, Dominus tecum …’ Father Benjamin stopped. I was grateful he had his back to us, I did not want to see the confusion on his face. I wondered if he had forgotten the prayer altogether. His shoulders sagged.

  I saw some of the children glance at one another, holding in giggles. Mary was stony faced, showing neither pity nor ridicule. She had smiled at this man once, as if he were a friend, but now I could see no evidence of this trust and ­wondered if I had imagined it.

  ‘Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus,’ Father Benjamin spoke again, in a rush now, as if catching the words before they left him again. ‘Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.’

  When we were finally released from the church, Mary ran off, as usual, to join the group of youngsters she was permitted to talk to. Standing on the lawn, Mrs Mavis gripped me by the arm and whispered that her son was back and being ‘attended to’ by her husband, which explained his absence from the service. I did not know this small, bird-like woman particularly well and could not understand her desire to tell me the fortunes of her unfortunate boy. She motioned in the direction of the children near the grotto.

  ‘I hear she has been quite a handful,’ Mrs Mavis said. ‘She actually ran away, I hear? It is a shame, a real shame.’

  ‘Yes it is,’ I replied, without really knowing what I was agreeing to. Whose shame? My shame, for not being able to control the girl? Mary’s shame, for being what she was? Our shared shame, for even attempting to exist together? How ridiculous, Mrs Mavis consoling herself by placing Mary and I higher in the scale of shameful behaviour than her prodigal son.

  ‘I feel for you,’ Mrs Mavis continued and her hand gripped tighter. I wanted to shrug her off and turned toward the poplar trees. The balsam scent was strong, wafting over from the pathway. I was determined to seem as normal as I could and started to talk with Mrs Mavis about the approach of the colder weather; the difficulty of airing clothes when the days were so damp. Mrs Bishop joined us, wearing a strange woollen hat, and talked loudly about the next widows’ lunch: whose turn it was to host, and whether she would make her infamously brittle ANZAC biscuits, regardless.

  ‘I know there are some women who don’t like anyone to bring food,’ she said in a low voice, the woman in question must have been nearby. ‘But I really don’t like to break ­tradition.’

  Father Benjamin came out, still in his vestments, nodded at us three women and moved on to a gathering of men standing at the church corner, Mr Roper amongst them, leaning against the brick.

  Gradually the crowd began to leave, couples tripping off with plans for the day or older ones limping away to endless cups of tea and empty afternoons. I stayed longer than usual because I did not want it to appear as if I had anything to run away from, certainly not the implications of Mrs Mavis.

  I had my back to the grotto and had lost sight of Mary, although I had seen the Thompson boy leave with his parents and wondered who would now be holding court. I tried to focus on the words issuing from Mrs Bishop’s lips. She was one of those women who simply barrelled on, regardless of the obvious dislike emanating from others around her. My teeth were aching at the thought of her biscuits and, for the first time, I considered making an excuse to avoid the widows’ lun
ch. No one would notice my absence and if they did, it would be put down to the ‘handful’ or ‘shame’ that was Mary. This made me stop and pause. I would have to keep going to the lunches or else it would look like Mary had driven me away from them.

  ‘Well, I’m off,’ Mrs Mavis chirped, ‘Sunday roast to rustle up.’

  ‘I don’t know how she can keep a smile on her face,’ Mrs Bishop said after Mrs Mavis left. ‘Honestly, the sheer courage of it.’

  She didn’t really think it was courage, she thought it was audacity. Mrs Mavis should be hanging her head, had no right to be there amongst us, with a son like that. It had become clear he had vandalised the statue’s bayonet, turning up in the middle of the night and threatening to kill ‘them all’ with the dull grey metal blade. I couldn’t imagine the broken bayonet would have been very sharp but the police were called and Mr Mavis had spent hours at the station trying to reassure them his son was harmless.

  ‘I’m very glad she still feels welcome here,’ Mrs Bishop continued.

  I thought of the German couple who had been welcomed into the congregation after someone had whispered that they’d kept a Jewish family safe in their basement. We found out later this was just a silly story, spread by who knows who, and the German couple had, in fact, done nothing to save anyone, except themselves. Everyone was indignant and shunned them to the extent that they stopped coming to church and eventually moved away. I remember feeling sorry for them, given they had not made up the lie, they had no way of protecting themselves from the truth.

  ‘Wouldn’t anyone want to run away from that tiny weather­board?’ Mrs Bishop asked and I had no idea to whom she was referring. Most of the church attendees had gone.

  ‘It all goes back to his grandfather’s love of gambling,’ Mrs Bishop went on and I was saved the embarrassment of having to admit I had not been listening. ‘Mr Mavis’s father lost the family home, you see, and the memory of that lost grandeur haunts them, stuck like a thorn in their side. Oh, and I suppose the war didn’t do the boy much good either.’

  I hoped Mrs Bishop would stop talking at me very soon. My desire to be extra courteous meant I should not be the one to end the conversation. I managed to move around to see the grotto. Looking over Mrs Bishop’s shoulder I still could not spot Mary.

  ‘I really have to be off myself, Mrs Bishop,’ I addressed her slowly and deliberately, ‘please let me know where the next lunch is going to be.’

  ‘Well, I was meaning to say, we haven’t had it at your house for a while. Wouldn’t it be lovely for all of us to meet your little … girl properly?’

  My focus shifted back to Mrs Bishop, a pendulum swinging back to its centre. The thought of it—them—scrutinising Mary, scrutinising me. Bad enough the first time when I had still been new at the widow charade, afraid my gestures were not right, terrified they would see right through me to the deserted wife, the Japanese mistress, the self-satisfied husband sitting cross-legged in the land of the Emperor. I had survived it, yes, all their fluttering and reminiscences, their heavily worn perfume, their retreat to the wonders of widowhood. In the last few years, I had held enough lunches that I was almost immune. But could I do it now, with Mary there?

  ‘Of course, of course,’ I said. There was nothing else to be said. ‘I would be delighted.’

  I moved past Mrs Bishop’s victorious smile. Perhaps she had planned it all along, that was why she went on about making her biscuits, knowing I was one of the women who never raised a murmur about others bringing additional food, too afraid to make a fuss.

  I neared the statue of Aloysius, his mouth green with scratched moss where someone had tried to scrub him. They had let him get into such a state, it was unlikely he could be restored. From behind the grotto, among the tangle of ­oleander bushes in the corner of the churchyard, I heard voices. A few stepping-stones had been laid to the left of the grotto but they stopped after only three slabs. I stood on the second stone and watched Mr Roper talking to Mary. He was on one knee, which explained why I had not seen him immediately, hidden as he was among the shadows. How close they were, how far away they seemed, like a vision, receding into the distance. The voices I thought I’d heard were only his.

  ‘You’re just … just … You remind me so much …’

  The breaks between each sentence made it sound like a conversation. They were both still unaware of my presence.

  ‘It will be good. You come find me. I’ll be waiting.’

  Mary said nothing, just stood still with an expression on her face I had previously seen. I had called it ‘blank’. Now I looked at her and saw so many things: how could one girl hold so much?

  ‘Mary!’ I called.

  They jumped with surprise.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Mrs Smith,’ Mr Roper said. ‘I was just rounding up Mary for you.’

  He pushed up from his one knee with an ease I could not fathom.

  ‘Bit of a slow service today, eh?’ he continued in the same jovial way. He rubbed his hands on the top of his thighs.

  Mary made her way over to me. She took my hand. I could not decide what to do, what to say to Mr Roper. What had he meant by ‘I’ll be waiting’? What exactly was he offering Mary? He stood now amongst the threatening branches with his ridiculously blond hair buffeted by the wind. The front of it stuck up at an odd angle and I suspected, for the first time, it might be a toupee.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Roper,’ I said. I felt Mary’s hand go slack inside my own, no longer gripping me. Yes, yes, she expected more. She could not understand the quiet I had to inhabit, the fear that kept me silent. It would not do to stir anything up.

  ‘I will see you next Sunday, Mr Roper.’ I turned my back on him.

  ‘Or maybe sooner?’ he called, desperation in his voice.

  †

  Grateful to have driven to church for once, I drove Mary home in silence. I always maintained this quiet because I believed it helped to instil the joy of Mass inside her, hoping she would gain the sense of peace I had once been able to extract from the service. It used to be my solace, the Latin words murmuring over my tongue, following the priest’s back as the congregation directed itself towards the great crucifix. The words did not need to be translated, their underlying meaning clear to the right mind. In fact, I preferred to ignore the English lines running alongside the missal, letting the language of the ancients wash over me. The ritual of church was like a balm: soothing, unchanging. There was a time when I went every day, my heart leaping into my prayers, a direct link to God and all His love. I would return home and say the Rosary over and over again.

  Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.

  On this trip home, my mind was far from God’s love. I thought, instead, of Mr Roper’s visits, the times he may have been alone with Mary. I could not recall any such moments. There were only piles of pears, lemons, limes, and apples, too many in my mind’s eye to have ever been delivered, let alone eaten. I had made pies and flans, the sweetness of the homegrown crop combining with sugar and pastry to create indulgent desserts. Mary had never shown a disinclination to eat them.

  Mary sat in the passenger seat, the faint odour of earth coming off her. Her shoes were muddy and she seemed to have shrunk, becoming small again when, so recently, I had been proud of the fact she had finally begun to appear her twelve years of age. I drove the car into the driveway. My pots of geraniums sat along the side of the carport, as they always did, their pink and purple flowers adding a splash of colour to the grey pebbles, struts and galvanised iron; a small show of the artistic care I had once put into the house. It reminded me of other efforts, the landscapes I had seen lined along Mr Roper’s hallway. I realised those paintings all contained children: urchins playing in the snow, boys skating on ice, a little girl wandering in a white forest.

  †

  Preparati
ons for the widows’ lunch began immediately. Every room had to be dusted from top to bottom and I took over the hoovering, driving the machine with all its force into the corners. Mary followed me with a rag, wiping the top of the skirting boards, although the small amount of grime removed by these ministrations was testimony to our good housekeeping.

  The cleaning was but a fraction of what needed to be done. Most important was the food. Some women had large enough dining tables to cater for the seven or so attendees, preparing a meal that would have them scurrying back and forth to the kitchen with harassed, hot faces. I couldn’t understand why any single woman would have such over-sized furniture, a constant sign of her aloneness with its empty chairs and un-marked surface. I only had the kitchen table, which comfortably sat four. At the previous lunches, I had served sandwiches in the living room, moving the two wicker chairs from the sunroom, in addition to the lounge and two armchairs. It was cramped, to say the least.

  My discussion of the weather with Mrs Mavis had raised the possibility of holding this lunch outdoors. The days were still warm and the coolness in the air, if anything, made it more pleasant. Stored in the back of the carport was a patio setting. Fred and I had bought it not long after we were married, in expectation of summer afternoons with our ­children. The white, cast-iron table had six chairs to accompany it.

  Mary and I had to lift each heavy chair together, cobwebs clinging to every space of the filigree. By the time we had moved the six, we were smudged and sticky. All that remained was the table itself.

  ‘I don’t think we are going to be able to lift it, Mary,’ I said. ‘It’s too big.’

  We stood in front of the oval structure. I had moved the car further down the driveway to allow for manoeuvring. Even so, I could not see how we could lift this monstrosity on our own.

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said, ‘we will have to wait for … for … Yes, perhaps we will.’ Stupidly, I could not say his name. Mary knew I was referring to Mr Roper, the man I turned to for household chores beyond me.