The Penance Room Read online

  When the ceremony is over, we take the large black car back to the nursing home where Rita has been trying to manage on her own. I see her tell my mother that she had to wake Aishling up once but that otherwise everything went well.

  When I enter the Penance Room, everyone is quiet. Wilfred looks at Iren and I can see that he is wondering if he should sympathise with her for her loss but I know that he feels this would be a strange thing for someone like him to do so he moves to the other side of the room as Kora sits her on a pew and fetches her a drink. Mina moves forward on unsteady legs, hugs Iren and tells her in English that she is sorry for her loss. Martin stands and shakes her hand. He doesn’t speak as he doesn’t know what to say. Jimmy waves his good arm toward her and tries to speak but his words are garbled and she doesn’t understand him. He drops his arm, frustrated, and looks away. Penelope and Victoria are in their room. They don’t like Rita as she teases them and will only come out when my mother or Kora have returned. Father Hayes is sitting in the corner, probably dreaming of Ireland. My father has taken the day off work and wishes secretly that it was an Irish Catholic funeral where there would be a loud and cheerful celebration of the person’s life. Li, our cook, has planned a special lunch and even sought out recipes from her elderly Hungarian neighbour. It was the first time they had spoken to one another.

  Even though everyone gets to work there is an air of sadness about the place. Everyone is concerned for Iren, even Wilfred.

  Aishling gets up even though she has had only a few hours’ sleep. As usual she checks the mail first to see if any of her family have written but there is nothing for her. There has never been a letter for her even since before I was born but still she checks every day and has not given up hope. I like Aishling best of all the nurses and find myself looking at her long red hair when she brushes it. Sometimes I blush when she is near me. Like my father, she has very pale skin. I wish that just once there would be a letter from Ireland and that Aishling would be happy. The rest of the evening goes slowly. Everyone looks sad and I am tempted to go roaming the streets but I don’t want to be rude. Aron was very nice to me and by now I have very good funeral manners. I have been to a lot of them. Li’s meal was lovely and my mother congratulated her on it. Li asked Iren if the meal was how she remembered it in Hungary but she didn’t answer. Twice before bedtime she shouts for her husband and I watch my parents look at each other with worried faces. Already she has forgotten what has happened. My mother gives her a sleeping tablet and leads her to her room but she will not go inside without her husband so Kora and Aishling set up a cot in the babies’ room for her. Slowly the others drift off to bed. Penelope and Victoria thank my father for a wonderful party and he bursts out laughing. It has been a long day and everyone is tired. Martin has had more than enough whiskey and I saw my father slip him more than he should have but I will not tell my mother. I know that he doesn’t have much time left.

  Later that night as I am sitting with Aishling, she rushes to his room and I follow her. At first we cannot see him but find him hiding underneath his bed. Aishling lifts up the blankets that hang over the side of the bed and kneels down to look in at him. She has decided to be calmer with him following her talk with Dr Alder.

  “Martin, why don’t you come out now and talk to me?”

  Martin is shivering with fear. There are tears running down his face and I wonder if my father gave him too much to drink.

  “Make them go away, please!”

  “Okay, Martin. I’ll do that.”

  Aishling turns and looks into the empty room.

  “All right. Everybody out!” she orders. “Martin here has a right to his sleep and I have a right to get my work done so, please, everyone go back to wherever you came from.”

  I watch Martin peek out and look around the room. He stares at Aishling and then at me as his face shrivels and grimaces.

  “Don’t trick me. I can see them. They’re going to get me. They said it. It wasn’t my fault. Everyone was against me.”

  Aishling puts her hand under the bed and tries to locate Martin’s hand.

  “Martin, just take my hand and come out. If you like, you can sit with me at the desk and we can have a chat, all right?”

  My mother enters the room. It is time to turn the babies and she has come looking for Aishling to help her. Between them they coax Martin from his hiding place but he is afraid and is scanning the room for ghosts. I move outside and watch them coax him from the doorway.

  “Martin, there is nothing to be afraid of, I promise you,” my mother says gently.

  “But we understand. Everybody has fears,” Aishling says. “Me, I’m afraid of water. Couldn’t swim one stroke. What about you, Emma?”

  My mother thinks about this. I doubt she is afraid of much. I watch her wrinkle her freckled nose.

  “Burglars. I’m – I’m not really sure why,” she finally replies.

  Martin seems to relax and his breathing settles a little. His tears have dried and I can see that he is enjoying their company.

  “Your son told me that he is afraid of the night train,” he says. “The one that shoots through at 3 a.m.”

  My mother, who has been smiling, puts her hand to her mouth and stares at him. Her eyes open wide and I blush with embarrassment. When she runs from the room, crying, I watch Aishling stiffen. Her face is full of questions that she doesn’t know how to ask. As she turns to leave the room to check on my mother, I slink further into the darkened hallway, embarrassed that people now know about my fear. She stops and looks back at him.

  “You heard Christopher say that?”

  “Yes.”

  She frowns and thinks for a moment. “Martin?”

  “Yes?”

  “There is no night train.”

  Chapter 6

  Jimmy Young’s son is visiting and is standing just inside his bedroom door with his head bowed and his akubra held firmly in his sunburnt hands. He twirls the hat around, anxious to distract himself from his father’s weekly interrogation. Like some of the staff, Jeff understands everything his father says but probably wishes he didn’t. Each Sunday he stands patiently as his father asks questions about the farm and about how his bachelor son is running it. Jimmy also has three daughters who are all married with children of their own. My mother said this bothers Jimmy who wants his son to marry and have grandsons to carry on the family name but she has known Jeff a long time and said he was always a nice, quiet man who was shy of people. Jeff is only about forty but he looks older from years working in the sun. His eyes are narrow and slanted and have long lines running towards his hairline making him look like he is always smiling. I have seen my mother say he is sweet on Kora who blushes when he is around. Mother said that when they were younger Jeff and Kora went on a few dates but that when Jimmy found out about his son courting an Aboriginal, he was so angry that Jeff finished with Kora but that neither of them ever dated anyone else since. My mother says it is fate that Jimmy ended up here with Kora looking after him. She also says that even though Kora is embarrassed when she sees Jeff, secretly she likes to be here when he comes and refuses when my mother suggests she take the day off.

  When he leaves his father’s room, Jeff comes looking for my mother who is busy planning a birthday party for my father. She has written to my father’s three older sisters in Scotland, thanking them for the gifts and asking if they would visit sometime. She knows how much this would mean to my father who misses his home and sometimes becomes lonesome for it but they always write back saying the flight would be too long, or that there are too many dangerous insects here. Each year they send my father thick knitted jumpers with fancy stitches that he would never be able to wear in the Australian heat, not even in winter which my father doesn’t think is cold at all, even if my mother and I are shivering.

  My mother smiles when she sees Jeff. She has not given up on him being Kora’s boyfriend again.

  “Well, how was he today?”

  “Same as e
ver,” he replies, laughing. “He wants to come out and inspect the stock. Can you imagine how I’d get him on a horse?” he laughs.

  My mother smiles sadly. She is good at seeing everybody’s point of view.

  “Must be hard for him, sitting here all day. Maybe you could take him for a drive around the farm?”

  Jeff nods. “Yeah. I could do that. It’s hard to listen to him sometimes though. As soon as he sees the farm, he gets frustrated about not being able to work any more.”

  My mother agrees.

  “You busy next Saturday night?” she asks.

  Jeff shakes his head. He never does anything except work and sit alone in the farmhouse.

  “I’m having a birthday party for Andy. I’d be delighted if you’d come.”

  Jeff hesitates and my mother moves in quickly. She doesn’t want to give him time to refuse.

  “Kora would love you to come,” she lies.

  I watch him raise his thick eyebrows upwards.

  “She would?”

  “Sure. She’d love it.”

  “Em . . .”

  I can see that Jeff does not believe my mother but he is too polite to say so.

  She isn’t going to give up easily but I have watched her try to get them together before and it always ends in disaster.

  “Come on. It’ll be fun. What have you got to lose?”

  Jeff nods. I can see that he is feeling uncomfortable. My mother is very good at getting people to agree to things they don’t want to do. If only she could have got my father to send me to that school. Then I wouldn’t have to hang around here all the time.

  I leave my mother to do her work and wander into the kitchen to watch Li making lunch. She makes sure that each of the residents gets a chance to eat their national food and today she is making a roast beef dinner to suit Penelope and Victoria. I watch as she roasts potatoes in the oven and slices carrots and broccoli. It looks like boring food and I am much more interested when she cooks fancy food like the Dutch cheese sausages she made for Mina’s birthday.

  I leave the kitchen and poke my head into the lounge room. Kora has helped Jimmy downstairs from his room. He snaps at her as she helps him into a more comfortable chair.

  “Mind! Bloody blackfellas! Damn rough.”

  Even I know what words he is saying now. I have become used to his sideways mouth. Kora ignores him. Like my mother, she follows Jesus and tries to turn the other cheek. Most of the time she is successful.

  Penelope and Victoria are sitting under the window reading romance novels that they have both read several times before. They usually forget the story line and are happy to read the books again. I wish I could forget that I have already read the books I own. I wish I could forget a lot of things.

  Iren is asleep in the chair and everybody is relieved about that. It has been a week since Aron died and while she will now sleep in her own bedroom, she spends her waking moments shouting out his name over and over until one of the staff takes her outside to the garden or to the kitchen. My mother says we need a second lounge room but we are short on space and she cannot afford to have any fewer residents. The home is not doing as well as she’d like and I know that my parents are worried about its future.

  I wander into the babies’ room and stand on a chair to face the old radio that no one ever turns on. It is full of dust so I blow at it and cough. I reach forward and turn it on. Catherine opens her eyes immediately. She looks surprised by the sudden sound and pulls a face which disappoints me. I was hoping she would feel less lonely with the noise from the radio. Catherine used to be a real circus performer when she was young and did a trapeze act with her husband until he ran off with a clown. New staff think that this story is made up but it is true and Catherine used to be able to tell it until she had another stroke and now spends most of her time sleeping.

  Kora comes into the room. She is frowning.

  “What on earth is that noise?” she asks but she is not talking to me.

  She sees the radio and walks over to it. I think for a moment that she is going to turn it off and perhaps even take it away but she turns the dial on the left around and around until I see Catherine’s eyes open wide and smile.

  “That’s better, Catherine, my love,” she says. “Tuned in for you properly now. It’s a good idea. Bit of music no harm, eh? Pass some time, love.”

  I relax and sit a while with Catherine. I miss her stories and wish that she could still talk. She is very thin now and sits with long bony legs shrivelled up in the bed. Each day either my mother or Kora comes in and stretch out her limbs with cream. I don’t like to watch as she pulls faces and I know that they are hurting her even though they don’t mean to. She no longer wants to sit in a chair and used to cry with pain when they tried. She doesn’t come to the Penance Room any more. As I recall her stories in my mind, she stares off into space. I wonder if she is picturing herself flying through the air, enjoying the feeling of freedom, the hot air of the circus tent blowing against her face. I wish I knew what that felt like. I went to a circus once with my father. It set up outside town and there was so much traffic that it was quicker for us to walk there. I remember being disappointed as it didn’t have any exotic animals except three old camels. I got to ride a small horse and ate salty popcorn and sat with my mouth open as clowns and fire-blowers ran around in a circle. Other kids around me were laughing and slapping their knees and jumping up and down. After a while I didn’t want to watch any more and sat quietly with tears falling down my face.

  My father looked at me. “What’s wrong, Christopher?” he said.

  I asked him if I could go home, that I didn’t want to see any more clowns.

  “Is it because you cannot hear the clowns?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  He picked me up and sat me on his lap. “Christopher, you will never be able to hear clowns but you can see more than anyone will ever be able to hear.”

  We didn’t leave and I understand now what my father was saying. He was saying, “Get used to this. Use your eyes, son, because this is all you have.”

  I use them very well.

  I sit with Catherine for a while longer and watch as her toes tap beneath the white cotton sheet. I get up and walk along the row of beds, five women on the right, four men on the left. It is a large room and is even bigger than the Penance Room. All of the windows are open and the fly-screens tap gently with the welcome breeze. I look out onto the garden and notice my father and Wilfred talking on a wooden bench. I can smell Li’s lunch cooking and know that it will be a while before it is ready. I walk out to sit with my father and Wilfred, hoping to learn something new.

  Chapter 7

  It is Tuesday and Martin’s two younger daughters are visiting him in his room. The door is open and I peek in. I am always interested in their visits. Martin has four daughters who always visit him in pairs and two sons who only visit occasionally and always with their wives who Martin doesn’t like and speaks rudely to.

  Una Kelly is the youngest and is able to handle her father well but his other daughters are afraid of him. He says awful things to them and they usually leave in tears. I don’t know why but they come back every week, probably hoping that he’ll have changed.

  The air in the room is tense as always and I see Ellen twiddling her thumbs around and around until he shouts, “Stop that, you silly girl!”

  I can see the vibrations of his voice in the glass of water on his locker and I know that he has shouted very loud at her. Ellen’s lip trembles and tears briefly well in her eyes. She pulls her baby onto her lap and cuddles him close.

  Una clears her throat. “Don’t shout at Ellen. She’s good to come all this way.”

  Ellen married a man from Wilcannia and went to live there. He doesn’t have Irish roots, which Martin is not happy about.

  “Shouldn’t have had to go there. What’s wrong with a man from around here? Living in the middle of bloody nowhere!” he shouts.

  Una ignores him and E
llen looks at her shoes. Her son reaches out to go to Martin and I watch him calm. He holds out his arms and takes the baby. Una and Ellen look at each other as their father coos into the child’s face. It is the only time they ever see him soften.

  “You know, he’s the image of my father,” he says, looking closely at the child. I know there is sadness in his voice. I can see it in his eyes.

  Una and Ellen shift uneasily in their seats. They know he is going to launch into another long tale about Ireland, a place he has never even been to.

  “My father came here with nothing except the clothes on his back, hoping for a new life. He never saw his family again. Never even heard from them. Can you imagine that? The poor bastard.”

  Una and Ellen both know that their father’s relationship with his father was not good and that he was an outcast from the family when he was only seventeen. Sometimes they feel he is talking about himself when he recalls their grandfather’s story and that their pasts have merged into one story with almost identical endings.

  “Did you know that if a pommy was in charge of a job, they wouldn’t give him a start because he was Irish? Bloody awful,” he says. He wipes his eyes quickly. He is having one of his sad days. They are happening more often now. “When he finally got work on the mine, he worked hard, all hours. Got me in there when I was only fifteen. He had nine children. Only six survived. My poor mother, she worked hard too. No bloody fancy electric machines in the house in those days. She did everything by hand. It took him almost fifteen years to save to buy a small patch of land out of town. He kept working though. Land didn’t pay enough. He loved that land, loved to be out in the open. He hated every single day he spent underground . . .” Martin’s voice trails off and his daughters know that this is as far as the story ever goes. They know what happened between their father and his family from listening to cousins but Martin can never bring himself to talk about it. He is too ashamed but I watch as the memories eat into him every day and whittle him down into a small old man with big regrets. Una always tries to get him to talk. She knows that if he can only admit what he has done, he may finally know some peace of mind. Una has even tried to get the priest to talk to her father but Martin doesn’t like priests any more than he likes his family so she knows there is no point.