Asylum- 10th instalment

To catch the beginning of this story go to Asylum – a novel in weekly parts

In which Yvette moves into Heather’s house and struggles to accommodate the presence of Heather’s older brother, Angus…

PART THREE

3.1

Yvette leaned against the balcony wall one last time, resisting an impulse to rest her elbows on the scalding cap of concrete. A shimmering haze rose from the rooftops, the city skyline indistinct in a sandy murk. She turned her face to the east, the wind sweeping back her hair. She heard a car roar up the road somewhere below, the screech of brakes, then a few loud honks. Stupid goose, she thought, narrowing her eyes as she imagined a domed head of slicked-back white hair and a clapping beak. Her bare arms were stinging so she pulled back into the shade.

Australia Day was affecting her mood. The anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet when this land was invaded and conquered, and its indigenous peoples oppressed, a day of white-fella flag waving, righteous congratulations and back-slapping celebrations, the sort of day relished by Mrs Thoroughgoods and an entourage of blokes and sheilas. Today Yvette couldn’t help identifying with the indigenous peoples, not that she knew any. For her it was a day of complete alienation. After all, that was what she was, an alien. Some creepy, be-tentacled freak barred entry after having dropped in from outer space.

She wondered if asylum seekers viewed Australia as a haven. Locked in detention centres or deported to malaria-infested islands to languish for months and years in demountables and tents, did they hanker to belong here, to commit their hearts minds bodies and souls to this place? Or, like her, did they question why they even came here?

The heat and the glare became too much so she went inside, closing and locking the balcony door before going to the bedroom and the bathroom scanning for missed items. Then she opened all the kitchen cupboards. They were empty. Not a cockroach in sight.

Heather was due any minute. Dressed in a loose cotton shift that vaguely hid the small bump of her belly, Yvette stood by the door with her meagre possessions that were packed into the three small boxes, the canvass holdall and the blue travelling bag all stacked at her feet. Her canvasses were leaning against the edge of the sofa.

She heard footsteps approaching in the corridor and opened the door before Heather knocked. Heather was garbed in a loose berry-red frock with cream brocade around the neck and the short-sleeve cuffs. She had a way of seeming regal without the pretentious airs. Yet her outfit was too smart for house moving. Yvette surmised she must be on her way elsewhere. They hugged and she breathed in a musky scent.

‘Is this all?’ Heather said, looking down then glancing around the flat.

‘I’m a light traveller.’

‘So I see.’ She bent to lift the box nearest her feet. Yvette followed her downstairs with another.

Two more trips up and down the stairs and they stood by the car, panting. Sweat beaded on Heather’s brow. ‘Ready?’ she said, opening the drivers-side door.

Yvette swung open the passenger-side door to a blast of hot air and braved entry into the car’s vinyl-infused interior. At least now they were away. Australia Day, she thought, would always be the anniversary of the day she left that rotten flat. She glanced up one last time as Heather pulled out of the car park. It’s all yours, she said to the cockroaches.

‘Thanks Heather,’ she said, spontaneously.

‘Don’t mention it.’

Heather turned into Beaufort Street and they waited at the next set of traffic lights. It was clear from her demeanour she knew where she was heading.

‘How does it feel, being back here?’ she said, once they’d got through the stream of traffic.

‘Weird.’ As though her past crowded around her, a jostling throng of memories, of school, home and Heather’s place. ‘I’ve always remembered you,’ she added, impulsively.

‘Same. It was lonely for a while, after you left.’

It had never occurred to Yvette that she’d been missed. She thought of Josie back in Malta and wondered if she, too, felt that loss. Maybe it was easier for the one who leaves, than the one left behind.

Forty minutes of light-hearted observations and fond reminiscences and Heather parked in a narrow, tree-lined street outside a charming brick cottage with a façade rendered in cream and a red-tiled roof, the house tucked behind a neatly-clipped hedge. Yvette was immediately confidant good fortune had provided her with the ideal place to bring a child into the world.

‘I have something to tell you,’ Heather said as she unclipped her seat belt. ‘Angus hasn’t quite moved out. He’s sleeping on the couch. You might say, he’s in transit.’

Then Yvette saw, parked in Heather’s driveway that ran down the side of the house, an old bus, gaily painted in green and red horizontal stripes. To get to the front door, they had to pick their way past spanners, wrenches, screwdrivers and pliers scattered in a wide arc around the front end of the bus. Laid out higgledy piggledy on the small square of lawn were the old bus seats, and up on the porch a small fridge and a two-ring gas cooker. Lengths of pine and sheets of masonite leaned against the side wall of the house.

Inside, the house was spacious, airy and cool. All the rooms to the left and right of a wide hallway had wooden floorboards. Heather showed Yvette into the last room on the left. They both set down a box and after giving Yvette’s arm a quick squeeze, Heather turned to go back outside. Yvette started to follow but Heather told her not to bother. ‘Go put your feet up,’ she said and soon Yvette heard the fly screen clap shut.

A double bed took up much of the room. Beside the door there was a free-standing wardrobe and a matching chest of drawers. Centred in the far wall, a small desk. A tall window overlooked a neat garden of native shrubs and small trees. She sat on the bed, made up with a lusciously-patterned maroon and turquoise quilt, when Heather returned and set down the last of her things.

‘I’ll go and make tea,’ she said. ‘How do you take it?’

‘Heather. I need to tell you something too.’

Heather paused in the doorway. ‘No you don’t. I already know.’

‘How?’

‘That you’re pregnant?’ With a cupped hand she made a sweeping curve over her belly.

Yvette gave her a sheepish look. ‘I should have told you.’

‘You were about to.’

‘I mean before.’

Heather gazed at her sympathetically. ‘How far gone are you?’

‘I don’t know exactly.’

‘You haven’t seen a doctor?’

‘Not yet.’

There was a pause.

‘And the father?’ Heather said, quietly.

Yvette wasn’t sure what to say. How would Heather take the divulgence? ‘I wish I knew,’ she said.

She needn’t have worried. Heather’s, ‘oh dear,’ contained no censure.

 

3.2

 

A week later and Yvette was sitting at her desk. The room was dark, the only light an anglepoise lamp shining its circle of light on her sketch of the deranged woman with the screaming face. The work hadn’t progressed much past her initial effort. She still felt far from translating the sketch into paint. All week she’d been pampered by Heather, who’d brought early morning cups of tea to her bedside, baked savoury slices and quiches, prepared stupendously zingy salads for dinner, and whipped up wholemeal cakes for snacks. She’d even driven Yvette to work a few times and hung around for her to finish her shift. Perhaps that’s why Yvette hadn’t been feeling creative. Suddenly, her life had become soft as feathers.

She clasped her hands behind her head and arched her back. Angus was in the kitchen strumming his guitar. She tuned in to his melodic ramblings and smiled. He’d never be an Eric Clapton, his playing more a pastiche of song snatches. She had barely known Angus when they were growing up. He had his own interests and friends and remembering all their squealing and cavorting in Heather’s back yard, his little sister and her friend must have been to him an irritation he was forced to bear.

The strumming stopped and the fly screen door squeaked open. Soon she heard the murmur of voices coming from the backyard. She put down her pencil and tiptoed across the hallway.

The kitchen was large with patterned tiled walls. Cupboards and shelves were crammed with all the paraphernalia of a good cook. An old oak table took up the centre of the room. Cooling on a wire rack in the table’s centre was the date and walnut loaf Heather had made before she went out to visit a friend.

Yvette stood by the back door. Angus was talking over the fence to their neighbour, Viktor, a welder who’d emigrated from Serbia in the eighties to work in the shipyards. The day she moved in Viktor had invited Angus over and he’d returned with a lemonade bottle filled with plum brandy. Viktor had a still. He had a wife too but Yvette had yet to meet her. Viktor, a pro-Milosevic Serbian from Belgrade, was a wizened old man with a thin mouth, a large nose and piercing blue eyes. He’d look terrifying if he allowed his face to drop its smile. So far she hadn’t seen him wearing anything other than what appeared to be his work clothes. He would entertain Angus with stories of his old life in the Balkans and Angus would entertain him with tales of driving trucks across the Nullaboor. No doubt with the help of a glass of plum brandy that never emptied.

Angus was no doubt telling Viktor about his fascination for the German explorer, Leichhardt, judging by the sprawl of notebooks and paper on the kitchen table. Heather had explained while preparing dinner last night that her brother’s interest had been kindled when he saw Travels with Dr Leichhardt in Australia in the window of a second-hand bookstore in Fremantle. He’d come back with it tucked under an arm. Apparently, within the time it had taken to head home he’d conceived an entire screenplay.

‘A documentary?’ Viktor said.

‘No, no. A drama. A mystery.’

‘You are a talented man Angus.’

‘Thanks. And the story is great. Leichhardt disappeared in the mid-nineteenth century during an expedition across central Australia.’

‘By himself!’

‘No. He had men, horses, bullocks and mules. They were last seen in the Darling Downs.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Near Brisbane.’

‘Didn’t get far then.’

‘Oh they did.’ Angus sounded defensive. ‘Remains have been found near the Tanami Desert on the Western Australian border.’

‘Really?’ Yvette sensed Viktor was humouring him.

Angus seemed oblivious. ‘A brass plate among other things. No-one knows if it belonged to Leichhardt but I believe it did.’

‘Not much of a film though eh?’

‘I’m going to reconstruct what I think happened. Some say the party died of thirst. Others that they perished in a bush fire. But I think they were massacred by Aboriginals.’

‘Yes, that makes for a good ending. Well, best of luck with it my son.’

Yvette thought Angus’ preoccupation with Leichhardt was obsessive. She doubted he had the talent or the skills for script writing, but she humoured him. When she’d tried to suggest the project might be a touch ambitious, his eyes darkened and his face took on a sort of petulance. He growled at her to leave him alone. So she did. She didn’t suggest he read the copy of Patrick White’s Voss she’d bought in Vinnies one time. Or that he might research other screenplays already written, and published.

Last night, on her way to the bathroom, she’d caught him standing before the bedroom mirror reciting lines, shifting first one way, then another, tilting his head, raising an eyebrow, pointing his chin forward. He was a tall, thick-set man, with a helmet of dark hair framing a long rectangular face. Puckered lips, eyes set deep beneath an arch of eyebrow that barely paused above his stubby nose, and his face carried a look of Munch-crafted alarm, rendering his current efforts even more ludicrous. She had to stifle a laugh as she’d walked by.

Then she censored herself. What right did she have to ridicule his aspirations? She was behaving like Anthony. Angus might lack talent but at least he was trying. She had to respect that. Besides, he was Heather’s brother.

And, to his credit, after months of unemployment Angus had managed to acquire a part-time job at a Mr Muffin franchise in Canning Vale. At last he could raise funds for his trip. He had to wear a blue uniform and a Mr Muffin cook’s hat. He went to work in a sour mood and came home with a headache and a box of leftover muffins.

Angus was busy. He had his guitar, the screenplay and his job. Heather was either at work or in the kitchen cooking up a feast. While they were doing all that Yvette frittered hours and hours of her days sketching faces. She’d probably have been more productive had she taken up whittling.

 

3.3

 

At work the following day, Yvette was feeling surprisingly light-hearted. It was another bright summer’s day but the sea breeze had come in early and there were wisps of high cloud to the north. With the school holidays over the café was quiet and there wasn’t a discounted Santa toy or box of Christmas cards in sight. Yvette set about cleaning tables, tidying the counter and serving the few customers that trickled in from the mall.

At the end of her shift, Pinar drew Yvette aside. She gave her a knowing smile and said, ‘Are you having baby?’

‘Yes.’ There was no denying it.

Pinar’s smile fell away and her face took on a troubled look. ‘Yvette, I’m sorry. I have to let you go.’

Yvette stared at her, open-mouthed.

‘Your husband take care of you. Yes?’

‘My husband?’

‘I’m sorry. But this is your last shift.’

Yvette was stunned. It was an old-fashioned perspective on domestic life she thought had faded out of existence along with cross-your-heart bras, wrap-around housecoats and Doris Day’s Secret Love. Its last gasp had to be when, back in the eighties, Scottish belle Sheena Easton sang Morning Train. She hoped Sheena earned a lot of money singing that crap. Enough to support her comfortably for the rest of her life.

Pinar couldn’t really believe the dependent-woman-cosseted-in-domestic-bliss myth. She ran her own café. No, Pinar was using the pregnancy as an excuse to get rid of her. She didn’t like working as a waitress but she was always polite and courteous. Perhaps her distorted love hearts were the real cause.

Whatever the reason, now she had no job.

Heather was waiting for her in the car park. She opened the passenger-side door and gave Heather a quick smile before getting in.

‘How was your day?’ Heather said as she pulled away.

That was all it took for the tears to roll. After sniffling and wiping her eyes Yvette managed to fight back the flow and tell her.

‘Oh dear.’ Heather paused. ‘Because of the baby?’

‘I thought I’d manage a few more months, but that stupid cow told me my husband could look after me.’

‘Ouch.’

‘Now what’ll I do?’

‘There’s Centrelink.’

‘I can’t claim benefits.’

‘Why ever not? It’s nothing to be ashamed of.’

There was no avoiding the truth yet in the telling Yvette succumbed to more shame than she thought herself capable of feeling. ‘Heather, I need to tell you something else.’

‘Again?’ Heather glanced at her with an ironic smile.

‘I’m an illegal immigrant.’

‘What?! How can that be? You grew up here.’

‘We never became citizens before we left.’

‘So you came on a holiday visa.’

‘I’m trying to get in under family reunion.’

‘Do you fit the criteria?’

‘No. My father is still alive. I don’t even know why I bothered filling in the form.’

‘You really could do with a husband.’

‘I can’t bear to think about it. I’m hoping when they find out I’m having an Australian baby they’ll let me stay.’

‘Were the contenders Australian?’

Yvette explained she had no idea. Dimitri was obviously Russian, Lee half Portuguese half-Chinese and Varg Norwegian.

‘Ah…’ Heather let out a soft chuckle.

Yvette was baffled by Heather’s easy acceptance, at once relieved her friend didn’t judge. For she was surely judging herself, cowering beneath a welter of shoulds; she would have undone time if it hadn’t been zippered up and fastened in place like some diabolical ligature.

 

3.4

 

It was Saturday. Angus was at work on his screenplay. There were pages of writing scattered across the kitchen table. Looked like he’d be working all afternoon. With every passing day of her pregnancy she had less time for the larrikin, who, ever since that single petulant growl, had fused with the image of her father that she carried in the deeps of her psyche. She stood in the doorway and watched him for a while, before grabbing her shoulder bag off a chair.

‘See you later,’ she said, breezily.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Choir.’

‘Have a good time,’ he said, without looking up.

She walked purposefully through the front door, letting the fly screen swing shut of its own accord. She stepped down from the porch and picked her way across the garden. She didn’t allow her thoughts to wander. Last night over dinner Heather had invited her to choir and she’d recoiled, determined to pursue nothing, no matter how tenuous, that had any association with her sister. She’d endured Heather’s gentle cajoling, steeling herself against her friend’s, ‘It’ll do you good,’ until she realised there was no reason she could provide that didn’t sound craven. She relented, assuring Heather she’d see her there.

The narrow streets, the houses all huddled together, the picket fences and wrought-iron gates, and soon she felt a spreading calm. She adored Fremantle’s quaint cosmopolitan vibe. She was at one with the area. Other than the cockroaches, enormous in size, there was nothing to dislike about it. Especially today, when tufty clouds scudded across the sky and a fresh breeze blew in from the ocean.

She passed the newspaper-reading, latte-sipping lunch crowd seated outside the cafés at the end of Wray Avenue then crossed the road and headed down South Terrace. Walking by the heavy edifice of the Fremantle Hospital she looked the other way. Beyond, it wasn’t until she passed the next block that the streetscape settled back into the old and the higgledy-piggledy that was Fremantle’s colonial heritage

The Cushtie Chanters rehearsed in Scot’s Hall, a Presbyterian church adjoining Fremantle Markets. Built of creamy limestone with contrasting russet-brick quoining on the narrow buttresses and window mouldings, the church was solid and imposing, as if built to withstand a Scottish winter’s icy north wind.

She was early. The door was ajar so she entered.

The hall was large with a raked ceiling and bare floorboards. Light filtered in through windows set high in the walls. At the far end there was a stage, more a raised platform with a wooden lectern set to one side. At the other end, a trestle table laden with mugs, jars of tea, coffee and sugar, a jug of milk and an urn. She went over to a row of wooden chairs lining the far wall and sat opposite the entrance door.

Women of all ages and shapes drifted in, some with children. A thicket formed over by the urn. Chatter and laughter echoed round the walls. One woman came in through a door near the stage, glancing at her watch. She was tall and thin with long fair hair and dressed in loose-fitting jeans and a colourful short-sleeved shirt. She scanned the room then stood by the entrance door greeting women as they appeared. She had a commanding yet edgy manner. Yvette stared in her direction, hoping that one of the women filtering in would be Heather.

The chatter and laughter soon became a hubbub. The tall woman, who was clearly in charge, closed the door and walked to the centre of the hall. She raised one arm and called out, ‘Okay everyone. Gather round.’

The chattering diminished and the women flocked around her. The door opened but it wasn’t Heather. Quashing the misgivings darting about inside her like midges, Yvette joined the others.

‘For the newcomers,’ the woman said, raising her voice, ‘I’m Fiona. Welcome to the Cushtie Chanters. If you haven’t paid, it’s five dollars.’ She looked at a heavyset woman with cropped grey hair standing at the front. ‘Sue, could you pass round the hat?’

There was a rummaging through pockets and bags and the clink of coins. Yvette withdrew a five-dollar bill from the pocket of her jeans and waited for the hat to pass her way.

Fiona kept talking. ‘We’ll start by forming three groups, tenor, alto and soprano. If you’re new and you don’t know where your voice sits, join any group.’ She looked around, her gaze settling on Yvette. Feeling awkward, Yvette struggled not to blush.

The choir members strolled towards the stage end of the hall and formed three huddles. Knowing her vocal range couldn’t reach heights or depths, Yvette joined the altos, standing behind the hat-bearing woman, Sue, who turned to her with a smile.

The door creaked open. Yvette glanced over and was relieved to see Heather walk in. She caught her eye. Heather’s face lit with affection. She came and stood beside her, triggering in Yvette a warm glow.

‘Hi,’ she whispered.

Heather squeezed her hand. ‘So glad you didn’t change your mind.’

Fiona called out from the front, ‘We’ll start with “Inannay.” It’s an indigenous lullaby. Anyone heard The Tiddas’ version?’

There was a murmur of yeses.

Fiona turned to the sopranos. She sang the verse and chorus solo. Her voice was thin with an operatic inflection, exaggerated mouthing released on a breath, no doubt an ethnic interpretation a world away from the ancient language of the song. Then she raised her hands and with a sudden downward sweep of her arms and a rhythmic nodding of her head, led the sopranos through the song. Satisfied she moved to face the altos.

Yvette sang along, quietly at first, then opened her throat and relaxed into the flow of the harmony, sensing her own voice blending and merging with the others. The air resonated with their voices. And she found herself swept along by every rise and fall. She’d forgotten how good it felt. She was swelling inside. She was a child again, in Heather’s back yard, performing a routine they’d devised using the slippery dip and swing set as props, singing their little hearts out to The Best Things in Life Are Free. She was Janet Jackson, Heather Luther Vandross, until they were forced to swap roles because Yvette couldn’t reach the high notes.

Fiona turned to the tenors and once satisfied, conducted the whole choir with a look of intense concentration. They sang through the song three times and moved on to rehearse two more songs. When they finished, a look of admiration softened Fiona’s face. ‘Well done,’ she said and the choir members, all smiles and laughter, broke ranks and wandered to the back of the hall.

Yvette followed Heather to the queue forming by the urn.

Searching for something to say she glanced down at Heather’s dress, taking in the rich shades of brown and cream, the embroidery and the elegant cut.

‘You wear such lovely clothes.’

‘Ingrained in me since childhood.’ Heather paused. ‘Do you remember how Zoe Fullman always got picked to write on the blackboard?’ Her response brought to the fore the threads of their shared school life, the years they endured of Mrs Thoroughgood’s vicious spite. An image of Zoe Fullman, all smug and precocious, came immediately to mind. ‘Teacher’s pet,’ she replied.

‘I hated her, for no other reason than that she was pretty.’

‘I always thought that was why Mrs Thoroughgood chose her.’

‘Me too. She was the bane of my life. Stupid I know.’ She paused again. ‘Did you see her out of school? She wore the finest dresses.’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘I do. I was jealous. I didn’t own a pretty dress. Not one. Clothes were not my father’s forte.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I’m making up for it now.’

Yvette stood beside her friend, feeling the strength of her character, trying to imagine growing up without a mother. She could only wonder at what possessed Heather’s mother to leave. Did Heather blame herself for her mother walking out? Children have a remarkable propensity for self-blame, a propensity designed to eclipse the unconscionable possibility that mum or dad are weak and fallible. Or horrible. Poor Heather.

They shuffled forward, Heather now in conversation with one of the altos. Before long they reached the urn.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: asylum, asylum seekers, black comedy, boat people, Centrelink, choirs, free novel, illegals, Inannay, Leichhardt, Patrick White, Sheena Easton, The Tiddas, Voss