The Beloved Read online

  In the New Year, Dad took us to Ocean Grove. When my bare feet sank into the warm sand my whole body sang. I poured fistfuls over my legs and arms and Dad and Tim scooped out a shallow bed and covered me up. Dad swung me into his arms and carried me to the edge of the sea where small shells winked; grey-striped, pink and bronze. There were orange pebbles and chunks of crumbly black stuff Dad said came from long-ago volcanoes and an old blue medicine bottle the colour of his eyes. We lay in the clear waves together and I waggled my legs, pretending to be a mermaid.

  ‘Count the waves, CP. They say every seventh wave is bigger. You have to be careful it doesn’t knock you over.’

  ‘It can’t knock me over, I’m lying down.’

  ‘Stand, then. And if the seventh wave doesn’t knock you over, nothing will.’

  So I stood holding his hand, feeling sand being sucked from under my feet, and counted the waves. And it seemed that every seventh wave – or maybe every eighth – was bigger. I didn’t fall, but then I did have hold of Dad’s hand.

  ‘Had enough?’

  I shook my head.

  He smiled. ‘How about an ice cream?’

  At the top of the dunes Mama found a shell. She lifted back my hair and put it against my ear, and for the second time in my life, I heard the whole world. This time, it was breathing.

  Chapter Four

  In the week before I started grade three, Mama took me for an interview with the headmaster.

  ‘Roberta is right up to date,’ she told him.

  ‘Good,’ said Mr Purvis. ‘It’ll make things easier for her, but Roberta won’t be able to start grade three this year. She’s only done three months of grade two.’

  ‘It won’t matter,’ Mama said. ‘She’s grade three standard in everything – reading, writing and math.’

  I looked from one to the other. Neither of them looked at me. Mr Purvis threaded his fingers together. ‘Unfortunately, Mrs Lightfoot, it’s not simply a matter of academic performance. Socially, Roberta is behind by seven months, a long time at her age, especially as she started school so young. Repeating a year won’t disadvantage her and it will give her time to find her feet again within the school community.’

  Mama’s jaw dropped.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .’

  ‘I know what you meant. Roberta can cope. She needs to know she can do as well as anyone. Better. The sooner the better.’

  ‘I’m sure she will but I don’t believe it’s wise to push her at this stage. If she’s so bright she can skip a year later.’

  ‘She’s bright, not a genius; she needs to do this now.’

  Mr Purvis stood up. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Mama stood too. ‘Give her a chance.’

  He opened the door. ‘Roberta will be well looked after in grade two.’

  Mama marched to the car and stood beside it with the door open, waiting for me to catch up. ‘God almighty. A year’s work down the drain.’

  God, again. Why was he so mean?

  On the first day of school Mama led me through a crowd of kids and mothers. My dress was last year’s. It was too short and people stared.

  ‘New beginnings,’ said Mama. ‘You mightn’t be able to play like you used to but you can shine in other ways. Work hard at your lessons and maybe you’ll get into grade three.’ She smoothed my hair. ‘Have a good day, sugar. I’ll see you at three.’ And she was gone.

  Miss Morris was the same teacher from last year with stringy hair pulled into a bun and a voice like wire. She made us copy down some words and then asked us what they meant. I sighed. I’d done it all before; shining would be easy. When the bell went for lunch, I went into the playground. Someone poked me in the back. I turned and saw a bunch of kids glaring at me.

  A boy pointed to my calliper. ‘What’s that thing?’

  I tried to move past him but he snatched one of my crutches. ‘I had polio,’ I said. ‘I’m better now.’

  ‘Polio,’ said Monica, a girl from grade four with a face like an angel and colours like dog poo. ‘Cripple,’ she said. ‘Ugly leg.’ She nudged her friends. ‘Ugly leg, ugly leg, ugly-ugly-ugly.’

  ‘Ugly leg,’ they chanted. ‘Ugly-ugly-uglyleg.’ Monica lifted her arms and swayed like a gorilla. The others copied her, limping and cat-calling. ‘Run!’ Monica shrieked in my face.

  I couldn’t, and there was nowhere to go. A circle closed in. Tears sprang to my eyes. ‘Cry-baby, cry-baby, freak, freak, freak!’ The chant rose and the kids pressed closer and closer until I could feel their breath on my face and . . . someone pushed. I sprawled on my back in the dirt, pain making sick rise up my throat. Above me, a halo of faces leaned in and beyond them a circle of sky, a beautiful milky, mocking blue.

  ‘Upside-down cockroach,’ said Monica, and threw down my crutch.

  ‘Shoo!’ The faces melted away and a teacher knelt beside me. ‘It’s all right, Roberta.’

  I stared through her. It wasn’t all right. It was all wrong.

  Later, when I told Mama what had happened, she took my hand and gazed steadily into my eyes. ‘Listen to me, Bertie, you’ve beaten polio. Don’t let those kids beat you.’

  ‘I’m ugly, Mama. Horrible, ugly.’

  ‘You’re not ugly and your leg isn’t the enemy. It’s your passport to the future. You could be in a wheelchair now or in an iron lung. You’re one of the lucky ones. You can beat anybody, especially those silly kids. Make them notice this,’ she tapped her head, ‘and they’ll soon forget about your foot.’

  No, they wouldn’t. Mama didn’t understand. Kids weren’t interested in your brains, only in what you looked like. You could be the dumbest kid in the world as long as you were pretty. I asked Mama to let down the hems of my dresses.

  ‘Okay, they are a bit short. I’ll do it at the weekend.’

  ‘Now. Do one now.’

  ‘At the weekend, I said.’

  ‘No. Now, or I won’t go to school.’

  ‘You’ll go.’

  ‘I won’t. You can give me cod-liver oil until I die but I won’t go.’

  ‘What’s the rush?’

  ‘I have to hide my foot.’

  Mama sighed. ‘You can’t hide it. Your dresses would have to drag on the ground. You’d look like a little old lady.’

  ‘Better than looking like a cripple.’

  ‘Roberta Lightfoot, listen to me. Cripple is just a word, not who you are. A damaged foot doesn’t make you a cripple unless you let it. When the calliper and crutches are gone your boot will be less noticeable.’

  ‘Please let down the hems, Mama.’

  ‘Did you hear me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She tapped her fingers against her chin. ‘All right. Just this once, I will. But sooner or later you’ll have to come to terms with that foot. It’s yours for life.’

  At lunchtime two boys took my crutches and tore up and down the hall like a three-legged monster. ‘Spastic, spastic!’ When they got tired of it, they dumped my crutches at the far end of the hall. Another boy saw them and brought them back. For a moment he stood there, looking me over, as if he was trying to work something out. Then he said, ‘My name’s Oliver. You’re Roberta, aren’t you?’

  I nodded and began to move away, but as I went down the hall I could feel him watching me.

  The teachers warned Monica to stay away from me but still she threatened. ‘Lightfoot! Dumb name for a dumb foot. Roberta Dumbfoot. I’ll get you alone,’ she hissed, ‘and bash you up. And all your friends . . . that you haven’t got!’

  I tried to be invisible. At lunchtime when everyone jammed into the shelter shed, I hung back in the classroom or out behind the toilet block. When they finished eating and ran into the playground I went to the shelter shed with my lunch and my pencils. Even though I couldn’t play, I liked drawing kids messing about: tossing balls, skipping and climbing the monkey bars. Three girls played hop-scotch every day. One had trouble balancing; she kept losing her turn and having to stand on the sid
elines. I drew her skinny body, her thin dangling arms and drooping hair ribbon. I drew her dress – faded and too high at the waist – and I drew her sadness; blue turning to grey, grey to charcoal.

  One morning when we had painting in class, Miss Morris stopped by my desk. ‘Why are your people such strange colours, Roberta?’

  ‘Because that’s what colours they are.’

  Thirty kids looked up. I could feel my face burning. Why had I said that?

  ‘People aren’t blue,’ said Miss Morris.

  I touched my brush to the paper and filled in the man. ‘Mine are.’

  At lunchtime Oliver came into the shelter shed, where I sat drawing. He watched for a while and then said quietly, ‘Miss Morris is greeny-brown, like soldiers’ uniforms.’

  I gasped. ‘You can see colours too?’

  He nodded and smiled. ‘You were bright red when you were talking to Miss Morris. Mostly though, you’re purple, with yellow in the middle of your hands and bright blue around your fingers. Blue, like . . . forget-me-nots.’

  The forget-me-nots in Mama’s garden had wilted by the time Dad told us we were leaving Melbourne. Late-February mist hung like a blanket over the tall gum trees in the backyard and draped over washing Mama had been trying to dry for two days. She stared out the window while I fiddled with the Vegemite jar. Tim rifled through the Weetbix box for the collector’s card of animals. He stared at it gloomily. ‘Cheetah. I’ve already got it.’

  Mama turned from the window and began to ladle porridge. I stirred in brown sugar, fretting about Monica’s latest threat to get me alone and chop off my foot. Mama dumped the pot in the sink and began to mix batter.

  ‘I can’t go to school today, Mama. I’m sick.’

  She didn’t look up. ‘You’re not sick and you are going to school.’

  ‘I am sick.’ I nudged porridge into the shape of a gargoyle with Monica’s face and poked it with my finger to make eyes. Cripple, Ugly-leg.

  ‘Stop messing with that porridge, Bertie. Just eat it.’ She dropped bacon into the pan and glared at the kitchen door. ‘Where’s your father? He’s been on that damn phone for ages. Breakfast is spoiling.’

  When she turned back to the stove I rearranged Monica’s porridge-face. ‘Don’t make me go to school, Mama. They’re horrible. It isn’t fair.’

  ‘I know it isn’t fair and I’m sorry they’re horrible but that’s life, sugar. You must learn to be strong. I had to, I got teased when I was little too.’

  Mama got teased? What for? She was beautiful. ‘Why did they tease you?’ I asked.

  ‘The oldest reason in the world. My skin. It was darker than everyone else’s. You can’t hide from the world, Bertie; you have to look it in the eye and stare it down. That means school. Anyway,’ she said, all matter-of-fact again, ‘if I don’t get some time alone I’ll go mad.’

  Time alone? My mother wanted time without me? I fingered my pony tail – cockroach-black Monica called it – and studied Mama’s face. Colours or no colours, it was as unreadable as the Braille book Miss Morris had showed us at school.

  The kitchen door whumped back. Dad stood there with a smile that covered his face. ‘Guess what, Lily May! I’ve got it. I’ve got the job! We’re going to New Guinea.’

  Mama shut her eyes and heaved a long, slow sigh. ‘Thank God. When do we go?’

  ‘Pronto. The market for tinned food is anybody’s at the moment. I’ll have to leave straight away, find an office and a place for us to live. Sorry, darl, but you’ll have to pack up. Crikey. We’re going. We’re actually going!’

  Tim’s eyes crossed, as they always did when he got excited. ‘New Guinea, little sis, land of savages, jungles and monkeys. Can we get a monkey, Mama?’

  My heart leaped. ‘Will there be school in New Guinea?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mama. ‘Of course . . .’ She looked at me for a moment and a smile stirred the edges of her mouth. ‘That’s it . . . grade three. I’ll coach you so there can be no doubt you’re absolutely up to it and you can start grade three in Port Moresby.’

  Blow! Dad was right. I had to know when to keep my mouth shut. Why did I have to say school?

  Before we left Melbourne, we had our photo taken. A man came to our house with a box on legs and huddled us together on the stairs. I pulled my dress over my boot but he wasn’t looking at me. He was more interested in Mama.

  ‘Smile. One, two, three!’

  Snap.

  The photo showed Mama’s dark eyes fixed on some far horizon. Tim’s, without his glasses, were crossed. Mine were blank, like I’d gone already. I had. Mama had given me a book with a picture of a bird of paradise in it and I was sitting on its back clutching its wild, glorious feathers, flying north.

  Chapter Five

  Sydney, April 1955

  Light from the setting moon lay in pale strips on the window sill and in the tree outside a kookaburra cackled. I sat up in bed and peered out the window. Scents of salt and eucalyptus drifted up from the bay and far-off, a rooster crowed. Beyond Sydney Heads, the first rays of sun peeked over the horizon.

  For the past week, Mama, Tim and I had been staying with Aunt Tempe before we sailed to Port Moresby. In that time I’d come to know the views so well I could paint them from memory. Every window of her Elizabeth Bay flat overlooked sailboats, rocky bays and deep blue water all the way to the Heads. Kings Cross was close by, a magical place where ladies with red tulip mouths and net stockings hung about on footpaths. Shops called boutiques flashed jewellery, patent-leather shoes and spangly dresses. Delicatessens bulged with sausages, cheese and cakes, and cafés spilled the smells of coffee and chocolate into the air. Even the greengrocer’s was full of things I’d never heard of – avocados, artichokes and aubergines. Sunshine poured across Sydney and whooshed down alleyways like egg yolk. It lit grubby windows and danced over the water, making me want to paint myself into Sydney, not just to look on.

  But today we were sailing for New Guinea; Sydney would have to wait. I climbed out of bed and opened my suitcase. I’d packed it myself the night before. Aunt Tempe reckoned I was most capable but when Mama came in to say goodnight she took everything out and repacked it her way. As soon as she left I put it all back again, my way.

  I’d asked Aunt Tempe to come with us to Port Moresby but she said New Guinea wasn’t ready for her yet.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Look at me, and look at your mum.’

  I looked at Mama – neatly belted waist, sleek hair and high-heeled shoes – and at Aunt Tempe. Tall and skinny as a drainpipe with heavy caramel hair that hung down her back and arms that dangled at the elbows like a puppet’s. She wore men’s trousers and shirts with the sleeves rolled up and bright paisley shawls. A cigarette burned between her fingers.

  ‘Hello, you,’ she said, when she met us at the train station. ‘Goodness, you’re tall for six, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m seven,’ I said, wondering how much she knew about kids. Mama had told me she didn’t have any. ‘And nearly three months.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Aunt Tempe nodding. ‘Seven and nearly three months. Well, that makes all the difference.’

  ‘How come you don’t have kids?’

  She glanced at Mama and shrugged, then turned to me, her blue eyes drilling mine. ‘Because I’m not married, you little slug.’

  ‘I’m not a slug,’ I said, surprised, but not upset. ‘Why aren’t you married?’

  ‘I prefer it that way.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m unconventional.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  Aunt Tempe blew out a gale of singed Craven A. ‘My God,’ she boomed, ‘how does your mother survive you? Unconventional means not like everyone else.’

  That was true. Her flat was full of wild paintings and clay pots jammed with peacock feathers. Downstairs, in her garage, she painted pictures and threw pots. That’s what she said – she threw them – and it looked like it. One end of the garage was sprayed with paint from
her pictures, the other with sludge from her pottery wheel. Mama whispered that she didn’t care for Aunt Tempe’s paintings but I loved them. I could see animals and faces among the shapes and I wanted to be able to paint like that. ‘Giraffes,’ I said. ‘Butterflies, frog’s eyes, flowers. They’re good.’

  Aunt Tempe cocked her brow. ‘A slug with taste. You’ll go far.’

  ‘We are going far. All the way to New Guinea.’

  She laughed and I giggled and that was that.

  Tim was always at Mama to take him to Taronga Park Zoo. I didn’t want to go. I hated seeing animals locked up, with everybody gawking at them as if they were freaks. So while they were out I hung about with Aunt Tempe, helping her cook, watching her mix paints and throw pots.

  While she painted I drew pictures of Sydney – squares, circles and sprays of colour.

  ‘I like your Sydney,’ she said in her honky voice. ‘Very distinctive.’

  ‘I like your Sydney, too.’

  One afternoon I was flipping through a book of paintings when I came across a picture of a green horse and a woman with a brilliant blue face.

  ‘Aunt Tempe!’ I held up the book.

  ‘Chagall,’ she said. ‘Marc Chagall. Like it?’

  ‘Yes. Is he your friend?’

  ‘Not personally.’

  ‘Why did he paint them green and blue?’

  ‘Who knows? You don’t need a reason. You do what feels right.’

  ‘Mama likes my pictures to be normal.’

  ‘Boring.’

  ‘Yes. Boring. Do you see colours on people, Aunt Tempe?’

  ‘On them?’ She shook her head. ‘No. Do you?’

  ‘Yes, all around them, but don’t tell Mama. She doesn’t like it.’

  ‘I’ve heard of seeing colours around people. I believe they’re called auras.’

  ‘Auras.’ Pretty word.

  ‘If you like colour – ordinary colour I mean – I must introduce you to Henri Matisse.’ She dug out another book that made me sure Mr Chagall and Mr Matisse must have seen auras too.

  ‘I’m going to be a famous painter when I grow up,’ I told Aunt Tempe. ‘Like you.’