Chapter 1
“The Willows”
“Child of the pure unclouded browAnd dreaming eyes of wonder!”
(Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There)
Lewis Carrol
Katrine’s house sat on the edge of a shallow ravine amid a grove of weeping willows; a fibro gem on distorted stumps, rusty, corrugated iron roof and the requisite tank stand, reposited there in earlier times: a squatter’s dream.
The “Willows” as it was by the few children that lived in those parts, was a natural playground in the small town (a village really) where there was none. Onto the largest willow tree, a keen, young adventurer some years before had built a makeshift platform of barn boards gathered, no doubt when the farmer was tending matters of greater importance. On this stage, the dreams of a generation had been mulled over, discussed, or closeted. It was here that Katrine had planned her life, alone; an imaginary life she shared with no one. Such were her excesses and her constraints; the fairy stuff of childhoods not burdened with reality.
Katrine rose, jumped from the platform towards a lower branch as she had done so many times before. Her hand grasped the sturdy branch at the junction of a smaller branch that had broken and splintered in a recent windstorm. For a brief second, her hand let go in response to the sharp remnants and she fell awkwardly, feet first onto the ground some three metres below.
Katrine’s mother, Laura, a single parent, worked at the town’s only restaurant, “Harry’s Hideaway”, a greasy spoon in the truck-stop tradition. White bread with margarine and golden syrup, fish and chips, meat pies, mashed, soggy potatoes with generous portions of mushy, khaki-coloured canned peas and the obligatory pot of over-brewed tea.
This day, as Laura passed a huge helping of steak and eggs across the green marbled laminated countertop to a truckie sweating diesel oil and red dust, one of the town’s only telephones rang in the kitchen. It was only the Hideaway’s second call since the phone was installed some six months previously.
“Who de broody herr is cawring?” Foo Wong, the Chinese cook yelled into the mouthpiece.
Harry, the owner, grabbed the phone from Foo Wong, straightened himself up and shouted into the ear-piece. “Yeah, who the bloody hell is calling?”
A trickle of laughter rose from the dining area. Harry slammed the phone down onto the countertop and burst through the kitchen door into the dining area to quell the audience.
“Shut up, you bastards!” Then to Laura, who was wiping down the countertop, “You. Get in ‘ere. Yer got a call. And don’t be long. We might get another call.”
Laughter erupted at the insanity of it all.
Laura took the phone tentatively and strained to listen to the voice at the other end of the line. “No, I’m sorry I can’t make out what you’re saying,” she yelled into the phone. “You’ll have to talk louder!” Laura turned white and dropped the phone. She pulled open the oven drawer, took out her purse and started for the door.
“Hey! Where the hell are yer going?” Harry yelled after her. “I ain’t paying yer for the day’s work, if yer…..” But Laura was already gone.
Laura rushed past the darkened stores; Carl Schmidt’s German Haberdashers, Peggy’s Beauty Salon, Mullen’s General Store and the habitual Store for Lease, erstwhile destroyer of hopes and fantasies, till she reached a small wooden house set back from the road, a full city block from Harry’s. The sign on the front announced its occupant, Conrad Rawlings, M.D. The light in the surgery was on. Laura knew there was no need to knock. Dr Rawlings was waiting with Katrine.
“I’m sorry, Mum,” Katrine whimpered as her mother entered, dried tears still streaking her cheeks.
“What happened, honey?” she empathised as she sat down beside her daughter.
“I hurt my ankle when I was jumping off the willow.”
“Probably broken,” Rawlings interjected. “Can’t tell without an x-ray. It’s too swollen.”
Katrine’s ankle was resting in a splint to stop her foot from rolling from side to side.
“C’mon, we’ll take her to Alura in Elsie. I’ve given her a pain-killer. She’ll be okay till then.”
Rawlings and Laura wove a basket with their hands and bent down as Katrine eased herself between, resting her arms on their shoulders.
Laura knew Katrine was in good hands. He had delivered Laura’s beautiful baby girl, Katrine Anne.
Rawlings eased the Austin out of the driveway and headed east. Laura sat in the front beside him, twisting awkwardly to stroke Katrine’s hair as she lay on the back seat, her leg resting on a pillow, her ankle packed in ice.
“How did you get to the doctor’s?” Laura enquired.
“Fuzzy Baldwin was fishing at The Bend. He heard me scream.”
“How did he get you to the doctors?”
“He carried me.”
“Little Teddy Baldwin carried you?”
“Fuzzy, Mum. Everyone calls him Fuzzy, even his Mum and Dad.”
“Well…he sort of carried and dragged me…I don’t feel so good, Mummy. I think I’m going to be sick.”
Rawlings eased Elsie over to the side of the road. Together he and Laura balanced a small bucket on Katrine’s lap as she dry-retched into its musty interior.
“Shock,” he whispered. “Her body doesn’t like what’s happening to it.”
Laura rubbed Katrine’s back. The retching had stopped. The bucket was empty. Laura felt guilt roll over her like a freight train ‘It’s almost ten o’clock at night and she hasn’t eaten,’ she thought to herself. ‘What kind of mother am I?’
“Good thing she hasn’t eaten,” the doctor offered. “She’ll probably need surgery. Carlyle’s the man to do it. Young but very able. C’mon on, missie. Time to get Elsie back on the road. We’re only half way there.”
But the guilt remained.
It was nearly eleven in the evening when they arrived at Alura General Hospital. Con left the car in front of Emergency and went inside to get an orderly and wheelchair. As they tried to encourage Katrine to ease herself out, she held her hands over her mouth trying to muffle her own screams of pain. Conrad Rawlings disappeared through the revolving entrance doors to appear a few minutes later with a syringe.
“Morphine,” he stated matter-of-factly. “She’s already going into shock.”
Within minutes, Katrine lay calmly inside the car. Together, they lifted her flaccid body onto the wheelchair and rolled her towards the Night Reception desk.
Dr Rawlings turned to go.“Just going to scrub-up, Laura. Don’t worry. She’s going to be okay.” He gave her a smile of encouragement. “Just take her over to the nurse. She’ll get all your details. She’s not allergic to penicillin. She’ll ask.”
The night nurse looked up. “Dr Carlyle’s on his way. You’re lucky the ‘wunderkind’ hasn’t left yet.” At Laura’s quizzical look she added, “He’s a hot-shot surgeon but he’s leaving for the coast tomorrow. Another doctor’s coming to take over.” She leant forward. “We’ve had her before. She’s a bruiser.”
“A bruiser?” Laura asked.
“Rough. Not like Carlyle. She’ll be okay, really. He’ll take good care of her.” The nursed nodded towards Katrine. “Your sister?”
“No, my daughter.”
“Oh.”
Laura had heard it all before. The “oh’s full of reproach. Less than careful censure. Opiate of the small-minded. Chronic sweetener for tea served on tables of barren minds. How was it that Lord Bryon put it? “Be warm, but pure; be amorous, but be chaste?”
“Your daughter’s name?”
“Katrine Anne Parker.”
“Age?”“Eleven.”
“Mother’s name?”
“Laura May Parker.”
“Father’s Name?” The nurse peered over her glasses. Gotcha!
“Blank. Leave it blank.”
The nurse spoke more emphatically, “We need the father’s name.” She tapped her pen on the desk.
“I’m not giving it.”
A long sigh. “I’ll write, ‘refused to give it’.”
“That’s fine.”
The orderly had already left as Laura, having filed Katrine’s details with the nurse, rolled the wheelchair to the waiting area, took a magazine, and stared down the hall. It was not long before a young, dishevelled man, she supposed was Carlyle, came bounding through the entrance, stethoscope swinging pendulously from around his neck.
“My God,“ thought Laura, “He’s younger than I am.”
He went straight up to her.“You’re the mother?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Con’s filled me in. I’ll have a nurse get her prepped. She been down for her x-ray?” But before she could reply, “Don’t worry. I’ll get all of that going. She’ll be as right as rain.” He turned towards Katrine. “Hello honey. How’s my little monkey this evening? Been swinging from those trees again, I hear?” Katrine smiled. “Life’s a jungle out there. I don’t blame you at all for getting in a little practice. C’mon. Let’s get a picture of that ankle of yours.” He bent down and removed the ice pack. “Nasty, or does your foot always look like that?” Katrine giggled. “Let’s go, Mum,” he said, making a few monkey sounds as he pushed Katrine through the swinging doors marked “X-Ray.”
There you sat, frail, waif-like, your mother beside you, not more than a child herself. Little monkey.
Laura woke with the sun streaming through the window. From her position on the orange vinyl-covered, stuffed hospital chair, she could see Katrine sleeping peacefully, tubes still attached. The operation had gone well but there would be a scar. Dr Carlyle had stayed long enough to explain to Laura how he had secured the bone just above the ankle with a “plate and pins.” It would probably need to be removed at a later date once the bone had regrown. Conrad Rawlings had put on the plaster cast and would be looking after Katrine. Carlyle had assured Rawlings that he would be just a phone call away if needed.
“He has my number where I’m staying on the coast,” Dr Carlyle assured Laura. “He’ll call if there’s a problem. Don’t want you fretting. She’ll be in hospital for about a week to make sure everything’s okay. She’ll need crutches. Is there anyone at home to look after her when she gets out?” he asked.
“Yes, me,” said Laura. He smiled, squeezed her hand and left.
Conrad Rawlings arranged for Laura to stay in Katrine’s room. A fat nurse with sweaty, protruding armpits had rolled in an army cot of sorts and plonked it in the corner.
“We don’t usually allow this,” she scowled and removed Katrine’s bedpan. Word had got around.
The hospital was short-staffed and Laura spent much of her time taking care of her daughter’s needs, the non-medical ones that is. The nursing staff tended to stay away except for the daily “meds” round, the taking of blood-pressure, temperature and the occasional lifting of the sheets to look at Katrine’s cast, or to replace the mysterious clear liquid dripping slowly into her daughter’s arm. Conrad Rawlings came each evening around six after making the long drive from Carrawoy.
On the second day, he reminded Laura, “You’d better call Harry. I let him know what’s happened but he’s a bit antsy. Figures you should’ve called him yourself. Wong’s serving tables. It’s worth the money of admission but Harry doesn’t see it that way. Can you call?”
Laura did not call that day or the next. Harry had never been one to sympathise, let alone fully understand the inner workings of parenthood. He had hired Laura because she was the best of a sorry bunch of mainly overweight housewives looking for brief respite from the daily boredom of housework and slavish husbands. But Laura knew that it was no reprieve from servitude but merely one of a series of crosses for a mother to bear, understood only by a kind of woman’s mafia; a sacred sisterhood, preferring to toil in bonds to keep their children fed rather than be starving and free. In their martyrdom, they did not consider there was a choice.
Laura spent the days reading books to her daughter; books whose words were still familiar from her own childhood. They laughed and joked and reality was suspended for one more precious day.
On the third day, Laura made the call she dreaded. A stranger’s voice answered. A woman’s voice.
“Harry’s Hideaway, Mildred speaking.”
“Is Harry there?” Laura asked.
“Can I tell him who’s calling?”
“Laura.”
“It’s Laura,” she heard the woman yell.
Harry’s reply came back clear as a bell.“Tell her it’s too late. She should’ve called yesterday.”
Laura did not wait for the message to be relayed. She knew what it meant. Mildred was now slinging sagging meat pies and slopping bitter tea into saucers. Every morning, she would be removing the brown-stained lumps from the sugar bowls and opening the red and white chequered curtains dotted indelibly with the fly or spider droppings. In the evening, while Harry was locking the backdoor, she would be dropping sodden, rank cigarette butts into the garbage, and closing those same curtains that had been installed some twenty or so years earlier. Laura did not know if she felt relief or terror. Whatever it was, she was not going to let it spoil this precious time with her daughter.
You lay there, I imagine, your mother by your side. Two diminutive bodies with royal souls, rising above the toxic waste of small and feeble minds.
“What do you suppose they’ll give us for dinner tonight, Mum?” she asked.
“Same thing we ticked off on the boxes yesterday afternoon, Kat,” her mother replied.
“Do you remember what it was?”
“Well, I think it was boiled horse meat, sloppy potatoes and mashed peas. Dessert was prunes covered with lumpy custard. Sound familiar?” Laura asked.
Katrine smiled. “Gosh, I can’t wait to get home. When do I get my crutches?” she enquired just as Conrad Rawlings entered carrying an old pair of wooden crutches, army ration, troops for the use of.
“For you, young lady…for walking, not running, jumping or swinging on. Now you stay right where you are. I have a proposition for your mother.”
“Are you proposing to my mother?” Katrine giggled.
“Don’t be ridiculous. What would a beautiful young thing like your mother want with an old curmudgeon like me?” He turned to Laura. “Care to take a short walk?”
They walked along the sterile hospital corridor, echoing with their steps towards the end where a small outdoor park nestled on the west side of the hospital. They sat on a wooden bench that bore the scars of years of reflection and grieving. The sun had just declined behind the low hills, the sky was clear, and the evening chill was just starting to descend. Laura gave a small shudder. Conrad, ever the gentleman, noticed and took off his cardigan and wrapped it around her shoulders.
“How are you, Laura? Handling things okay?”
She nodded. "Sure. I’m doing fine."
”Well, I’ve been thinking,” he started, “and I hope I’m not being too presumptuous but, I’m in a bit of a dilemma so I thought I’d ask you anyway.”
She looked at him, anxious to help in any way.
“My practice has grown so large, either that or I’m a lot older than I think. I’m having trouble keeping up with the accounting, the paperwork and such. I was wondering, if you had anytime at all to help me out? I’d pay, of course. It would mean a lot to me.”
Laura reached over and touched his hand. “You’ve heard then,” she said.
“It’s not that,” he lied. “I really do need the help.”
Laura wanted to be a martyr, to turn him down, but swallowed her pride instead for Katrine’s sake.
“Just until we get back on our feet, so to speak,” she replied, “and not a minute more. Unless, of course, you really do need someone, then I’ll stay for as long as you want.”
They had history, Con and Laura. Only Conrad knew her shame, her real shame. He was there for her then as he was there for her now.
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