In a Fishbone Church Page 8

  ‘Ah,’ says Etta. ‘The book.’

  ‘Mountain streams are at their highest during the day, and begin to fall around the middle of the night. ‘And,’ he says, before Etta can comment, ‘you should never attempt a crossing if boulders can be heard bumping along the bottom.’

  ‘I see,’ says Etta. ‘Well well.’ And she closes her eyes.

  ‘You should also avoid looking at the water, as the movement upsets a person’s equilibrium.’

  ‘Mmhmm.’

  ‘Never grasp at rocks.’

  Etta does not answer, and eventually Gene falls asleep too. He dreams about the time he was hunting rabbits on a farm, and touched an electric fence. And just the way it happened then, he is thrown backwards with the force of the shock, and the only sound he can distinguish is the warbling of the magpies.

  Remember, he types in bold the next morning, if you find yourself on private land, fences may be electrified.

  Emergencies

  Bridget is beginning to dread Wednesday mornings. Every week, from nine till midday, she is required to descend to the ground floor of the biology building, which in fact is not on the ground but below it. Very little natural light reaches the lab, and under the fluorescent bars it has an over-exposed feel which remains with Bridget for the rest of the day.

  Through the small, high windows, only the feet of those walking to and from lectures are visible. It is amazing, Bridget thinks, how many people do not look after their footwear. More often than not the shoes are scuffed, dirty, the laces frayed and trailing, the toes permanently curled. Even the quality pumps, the modest court shoes – belonging, Bridget suspects, to the Beautiful Girls – show signs of neglect when observed without the distractions of a body, a face, sleek gold earrings, half-moon nails. The heels are worn down at odd angles, indicating incorrect posture, a lazy gait. This pleases Bridget.

  She gasses drosophila flies and examines their scaly anatomies under a microscope, measures the fins on long-dead, icy fish, sketches the division of cells. In the interests of science she draws her own blood, which is shown to be neither strange nor thin, but which, the tutor assures her, is common; plentiful in an emergency.

  For most of the exercises they have to work in pairs. There is little choice involved; on the first day the tutor simply told everyone to find a partner. When the class continued to sit staring at her she sighed and said that they weren’t at school any more, and they had to start doing things for themselves, otherwise how did they think they would ever survive in the real world, where decisions had to be reached all the time, and deadlines met, and sacrifices made.

  Bridget’s partner is Raymond, who is majoring in biology. Every Wednesday morning as she walks to university she complains about him to Antony.

  ‘He’s grotesque,’ she says as they cross the Kelburn viaduct. ‘Polyester jumpers, white sneakers. Shiny grey trousers.’

  ‘Christian?’

  ‘More than likely.’

  In the lab the air smells of chloroform. The tutor looks as if she never sees the sun; her long white fingers and her colourless hair remind Bridget of plants grown in the dark. There is always an irked expression on her face as the students file out. Ominous chains dangle from the ceiling; when pulled, they are said to dowse negligent students in water. Beside them are signs: For use in emergency only. Bridget wonders if acute boredom counts. When she looks at the clock and there are still two hours to go, she imagines dreadful accidents happening to Raymond and the other students she dislikes: an eye splashed with acid, a Bunsen burner catching a greasy strand of hair.

  ‘You mustn’t be so critical,’ Etta says when Bridget tells her about her classes. ‘They might think you look a bit odd too, you know.’

  Bridget does look odd; she’s cultivating it. She’s grown her nails and her hair; she colours her lips dark berry. On a leather string around her neck she wears a crucifix that belonged to Etta’s father, part of his old rosary beads. Etta doesn’t mind her borrowing it, as long as she’s careful. In fact, Etta says she’s delighted that the faith still has a place in Bridget’s life. She thought that had all gone out the window.

  Raymond smiles at Bridget when she slides on to her stool.

  ‘Hearts!’ he says, flicking open his text book.

  Bridget imagines a nasty slip with the scalpel; Raymond’s hand accidentally gashed.

  ‘We’re dissecting sheep hearts today. It’s going to be in the exam, I know it.’ Raymond bounds up to the front desk and returns with the plump, glistening organ.

  ‘One between two, I’m afraid,’ he says. ‘Bridget, will you share my heart?’

  This is definitely an emergency. Bridget feels her hand begin to reach for the water chain; already she can picture Raymond standing there drenched, his white sneakers squelching, the wet heart drooping through his fingers.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she says, her hand over her mouth. ‘I don’t feel very well.’ And she runs out of the lab and up the stairs to daylight.

  At the party Bridget moves from room to room, talking to people she does not know. Antony does not join in their conversations, but Bridget is conscious of him watching her, keeping her in his sight. She drinks gin from a black hip flask which many admire.

  ‘It belongs to my father,’ she says to one boy, who tells her he is called Philip, and who presses his hand, cold from a clutched beer can, into hers. ‘He takes it with him when he goes hunting.’

  She doubts Gene will notice it missing from his things in the garage; it is summer, after all, and the season doesn’t open until May.

  The lamps in the room have been covered with red paper, and in the altered light faces appear pale.

  ‘Deer, geese, pheasant, wild pigs. Sometimes swans,’ Bridget is saying. ‘He’s even had some of them mounted.’

  ‘Hey,’ says Antony, touching Bridget on the shoulder. ‘Have you got a cigarette for me?’

  ‘Philip, Antony, Antony, Philip,’ says Bridget. ‘Here you go.’

  ‘It’s some accessory.’ Philip rubs his hand over the taut leather flask, balancing it on his open palm as if assessing its value.

  ‘She brings it with her whenever we go out,’ says Antony.

  Philip raises it to his lips and tilts his head quickly back and forth. ‘Exquisite,’ he says, looking at Bridget.

  ‘So you flat here with Sarah?’ says Antony.

  ‘Right. She’s in the kitchen, if you’re looking for her.’ Philip takes another sip of Bridget’s gin and slowly twists the silver lid back on the flask. ‘Have you seen the gravestone in the garden?’ he says, already taking her hand.

  ‘Yeah, Sarah told me – ’ begins Antony.

  ‘It was here when we moved in. Come on.’ Philip leads Bridget towards the back door, weaving between pale figures balancing drinks and cigarettes. Antony sits down on the arm of an occupied chair and watches them leave.

  ‘Henrietta Louise Grayson,’ reads Bridget, ‘1848 to 1885. Henrietta’s my mother’s name.’

  ‘Sarah swears she’s seen her moving through the garden,’ says Philip. ‘Henrietta I mean, not your mother.’

  ‘She’s a bit weird, isn’t she?’

  ‘Sarah’s okay. Smokes too much. She wants to try growing it out here.’

  Bridget frowns. ‘Oh,’ she says.

  ‘She’s got a spot all picked out. Over there, where the ground dips down. The neighbours can’t see it.’ Philip gestures with one hand to the far dark corner of the garden, taking Bridget’s arm at the same time. They walk through the long, dry grass together then, away from the noise of the party and the house with its red-lit windows, and away from Henrietta’s stone. The tall stems flatten in their wake, indicating their path. Bridget is glad of this; she can find her way back, should she need to. The house recedes.

  ‘So is she your girlfriend?’ The boy sitting in the chair looks up at Antony through a cloud of smoke.

  ‘Bridget? No, we’re both from Lower Hutt.’

  The boy seems to find t
his hilarious, and doubles over in the chair, his head almost between his knees, laughing. On a small television wedged against the opposite wall music videos are playing. Four young men dressed in black slouch around a bright white background, avoiding the camera.

  ‘Listen to the girl, as she takes on half the world, moving up and so alive, in her honey dripping, beehive …’

  ‘We’re flatting in town now, though,’ says Antony. ‘Together.’

  The boy wipes his fingers under his eyes, smearing black eyeliner.

  ‘Lower Hutt, pride of the south of the North,’ he says. ‘So where’s your Ford Escort parked, mate?’ He screams with laughter again.

  Bridget shifts under Philip’s weight. There is a tree root, or possibly a stone digging into her back, but she decides it would be rude to interrupt. She shifts once more, and notices when she does so that Philip grunts more loudly, so she does it again, and keeps doing it until he emits a strangled ‘Oh God’, and collapses on top of her. Now the stone or whatever it is really hurts; Bridget imagines a permanent hollow in her back. She is just about to say something – although she’s not sure what – when Philip rolls off her, tugging at his trousers. She brushes the ground with her hand until her fingers close over a stone. She slips it into her pocket.

  ‘Great party,’ says Antony, ‘but I have to get up early tomorrow. Got my last exam on Monday.’

  The boy in the chair says, ‘Ah,’ and continues to stare at the television. The tiny figures stumble along a tiny railway line.

  ‘Sometimes, I walk sideways, to avoid you, even though I love you,’ the singer is pouting.

  Antony takes his jacket from the dark heap in someone’s bedroom – Philip’s, he suspects. He observes the stereo dominating one wall, the pyramid of beer cans, the vast record collection. The bed – a rumpled double – he avoids. He doesn’t bother to retrieve his beers from the kitchen, although he’s hardly touched them.

  Bridget also leaves alone. Philip has passed out on the couch, so she can’t ask him where she put her coat. Antony has gone; everyone has gone. She wanders around the silent flat for a while, trying to find the door, which she cannot remember coming through, and then, when she has found her way to the street, heads towards where she thinks her own flat is. She smells rocks and moss, sharp berries, a tar-sealed path cold from the moon. She grasps the handrail at the side of the path and pulls herself up the incline. It cuts right through the bush; tree roots have cracked and warped the tar sealing. There is no lighting. Every so often the handrail bends back under her weight and she leans towards the steep, leafy drop. When she falls, it comes as no surprise. She sees the handrail giving way, uprooting itself, her knuckles sharp against the dark bush. She sees her feet moving from under her, first one, then the other. She sees her bag landing in a patch of ferns and the hip flask spilling out, and she feels the air rushing past her, forcing itself out of her.

  People ask for her good arm every so often and pump blood pressure cuffs around it. She thinks it might explode, and laughs to herself at the image of shredded muscle slapping against the thin cubicle curtains, fingers plopping on to the lino. Lights are shone in her eyes. Blank people wander corridors, wait for news. White uniforms swish curtains open, shut, open, and ask her what the date is, who the Prime Minister is. Don’t they know, Bridget whispers to Gene and Etta, aren’t they in charge? Don’t cut my hair, she insists as a doctor approaches. You are not cutting my hair. This took ten years to grow and you are not cutting it.

  It is light outside by the time they put the cast on her arm.

  At home – at her parents’ home – Bridget is helped into the deep bath. There is a lot of blood; it turns the water to rust.

  ‘Bridget, Bridget,’ says Etta. ‘It’s just like having a baby in the house again.’

  Bridget whimpers as she feels her mother’s skin, and the water trickling over her blackberry scratches. She sits very still in the bath, her face as pale and strange as a daylight moon.

  They go to see the place a few days later, when Bridget is feeling steadier on her feet. It is steeper and sharper than she told Gene and Etta, than she herself remembers. The crushed ferns and blackberry and onion weed still betray the shape of her falling.

  ‘Thank God you finished your exams,’ says Gene.

  ‘Stay with us for a while, at home,’ says Etta. ‘We’ll soon have you feeling as good as new.’

  So Bridget spends the summer at home, being looked after, watching the firebreaks snaking up the hills.

  ‘You can’t see those from the flat,’ she tells Gene.

  Etta washes her hair for her every second day, and brushes it, and plaits it at night. She makes macaroni cheese sprinkled with breadcrumbs, and stuffed pumpkin, and cheese and Vegemite sandwiches, all of which Bridget eats.

  At the start of the academic year, she returns to her flat. The cast has come off and her arm feels like it’s floating. She has performed a range of stretches to the satisfaction of two doctors and a physiotherapist. When they clip her x-ray to the illuminated panel they seem pleased. The physiotherapist – who believes in involving the client as much as possible in the rehabilitation – points to the ghost bone and says, ‘Look, you can see where it’s healed.’

  Serious

  historical

  problems

  Etta Stilton has always been big on saints. In times of crisis she calls on them, automatically. Some people even call her one, though not to her face. When she loses things – car keys, borrowed books, a child at the supermarket – she prays to Saint Anthony. When she can’t get her cheque book to balance, she prays to Saint Matthew. She frequently asks Saint Joseph to stop her husband from falling off scaffolding. Gene is tolerant of this.

  She prayed to Saint Gerard – patron saint of mothers and babies – when she and Gene were trying to have children.

  ‘You have to do a bit more than pray,’ said Gene.

  The doctors said Etta must not blame herself. With her blood type, which, as she knew, was strange and thin, miscarriage would always be more of a danger.

  She received letters of comfort from Gene’s sister Beryl. Beryl knew that, some day, Etta would be blessed with children as wonderful as Colin and Jimmy. Beryl could feel it.

  Fourteen years later, Etta and Gene adopted, and only then – another year later, in fact – did they have a child of their own.

  ‘You see, he did answer me,’ said Etta.

  Today is July 24th, 1979: one day after Gene has returned from a fishing trip, the feast of Saint Christina the Astonishing, the day the Stiltons’ cat is due for another worm tablet (which everyone has forgotten). The freezer is full of trout; Etta plans to stuff one of them for dinner.

  It’s early in the morning – not even light – and she can’t get back to sleep. She has the flu. She opens her bedside cabinet, feels for her fat volume of Butler’s Lives of the Saints which is now two weeks overdue at the library, and turns to today’s date. She places her lamp on the floor before switching it on, so she won’t wake Gene.

  When she was twenty-two, Christina had a seizure, was assumed to be dead, and in due course was carried in an open coffin to the church. During her Mass of Requiem, after the Agnus Dei, Christina sat up, soared to the beams of the roof, and there perched herself. Everyone fled from the church except her elder sister, who, though thoroughly frightened gave a good example to the others by stopping to the end of Mass.

  Etta does not think she’s heard of Christina the Astonishing, Virgin, AD 1224. This is surprising, because when she named her daughter Christina, she consulted several anthologies of saints.

  ‘It has to be a saint’s name,’ she told Gene at the time.

  They were sitting on their new vinyl couch, eating dinner from their new tray tables. Etta had cooked a duck Gene shot on the opening day of the season.

  ‘Mum will never forgive me if it’s not a saint’s name.’

  Gene removed a lead pellet from his mouth and dropped it on to his tray tabl
e. You always got some in the meat; that was how you could tell it was real wild game.

  ‘I don’t think she has anyway,’ he said.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘She calls me John.’ Gene spat out another pellet. ‘She did when I first met her, and she does now.’

  ‘She is in her seventies,’ said Etta. ‘She forgets things.’

  ‘She’s remembered I’m not a Catholic all right.’

  ‘I was thinking about Christina,’ said Etta. ‘What do you think? Or Josephine. I thought that would be nice, you know, from Joseph, patron saint of builders – ’

  Gene sighed. ‘It’s been a long day,’ he said. ‘I really don’t want to hear about any more saints.’

  Etta pushed a duck leg around her plate. A few fine hairs still clung to it. ‘Mum thinks I’ve been taking the Pill. She asked Theresa if that’s why I was so nervy these days. She still thinks that’s why Bernadette died at thirty-five.’

  ‘God knows how you turned out so normal,’ said Gene, wiping his fingers and putting an arm around Etta. ‘I hate to think what she was like when she was young and fit.’

  ‘She’s still fit enough.’ Etta tried to saw through a piece of tough meat.

  Gene looked at his plate. ‘What was she like, really?’

  ‘Ouch!’ Etta crunched a lead pellet between her teeth. She felt with her tongue for any damage, then spat the gritty fragments into a serviette. ‘Can we stop talking about my mother now?’ she said. ‘Do you think?’ She clasped the serviette into a tight ball. ‘It has to be a saint’s name. So I know there’s someone looking after her.’

  Gene stood up to turn on the news. As he moved his tray table away, the pellets rolled around and around on the metal surface. ‘And who’s looking after me?’ he said.

  Etta eventually chose the more famous Saint Christina as protector for their new daughter; the one who lived in Italy, and who was pierced through with arrows for refusing to renounce Christianity. Anointed with chrism, the anthology said. She had the oil of devotion in her mind and benediction in her speech. Etta thought this all sounded rather suitable. (Gene’s Great Aunt Christina, who was no blood relation, and whom Etta had met twice, found the decision very touching. To avoid any awkwardness, Etta decided to let her think they’d named the baby after her, which led to a small inheritance the rest of the family would resent for years to come.)