I think she’s found Hell, someone says, by the sound of that.
Quick snatches up his cap. I’ve gotta go. Good luck. He turns on his boot heel and pushes his way through the doors.
Rose stands there with her hair about her like a storm-cloud, all the steel gone out of her.
The Girl with the Brown Fatness of Hair
Dolly saw the girl swimming through the crowd. It was hard to see because she herself was lying on the bar with men leaning on her and their drinks on coasters balanced on her belly, between her breasts, along her thighs. They were squeezing her for it, those men, milking her tits for beer, foaming up their glasses, reaching inside her camisole, forcing her legs apart to get at things and dragging out coins, furniture, dead babies and old bottles. Between her knees and through the smoke and laughter she saw the girl with the brown fatness of hair. There was a great ticking watch on the girl’s wrist, big as a saucer. Dolly heard it through the roaring mob and saw how it weighed the kid down. But the girl waded on doggedly. She was strong, you could see, and she was coming, and the laughter was drying up and the hands were coming out as they all started dying around her.
A long time after everyone left, Rose stood by the bed. The old girl sagged back onto the pillows with her wild hair spread out upon them full of silver streaks, tobacco washes. She looked incredibly old and tired, more haglike than any pantomine witch. It was hard to believe that something like this could give birth to you. The whole house went quiet till it was just grinding on its stumps, like a ship at anchor.
You wanted to see me, said Rose dully after a long time.
Dolly closed her eyes.
Rose sat down.
I’m tired.
Well I’m tired, too, so get on with it.
Don’t hate me.
Too late for that.
Why?
My whole life, Mother, that’s why.
Dolly blinked. What did I do that was so bad?
Rose smiled bitterly. You’ve gotta be joking. You stole from me. My childhood, my innocence, my trust. You were always a hateful bitch. A drunken slut. You beat us and shamed us in public. I hate you for all the reasons you hate yourself, and I wanted to kill you the way you wanted to kill yourself. Everything, you stole from me. Even when I was a teenager you competed with me, your looks against mine. Shit, even my grief you steal from me. You can’t imagine how I hate you.
You look sick, said Dolly.
I’m not sick. What is all this anyway? What’s the summons? What’ve you been doing? Don’t answer that, I don’t wanna know.
I was sad.
What?
About Ted.
Oh dear. Here we go.
I loved him.
Your favourite.
People have em, Rose. You always loved Sam more than me.
He earned it.
People don’t earn it.
They do with me. Listen, I’m going. This is making me want to vomit.
I wanted to talk to you.
I don’t want any boozer’s justifications and sympathy talk.
Come back tomorrow.
I’ve got my own life now.
Come back.
No.
Rose.
Why?
I want to talk, just to talk.
I’m busy.
Doing what?
I’m just busy.
Come tomorrow. Please. I’m beggin you to come back tomorrow.
Rose left. Lester drove her away. The house fell back against the night sky like a dying planet.
Go see her, love, said Lester.
Why?
I dunno. I can’t stand the hate. It’ll kill you. You’re one of us now and I couldn’t bear to lose you. Quick’s hurtin. We all are. Go on with your life, love. It’s all there is.
Mothers
In the morning, Rose went again but Dolly was asleep. She stayed in the house with Elaine and Oriel, narrowing her eyes at their noise and bustle, until Dolly woke.
She went in strangely robbed of her anger and unprepared. She felt jittery and sad and feeble in all the ways she’d planned against since her first ever period.
Dolly was sitting up in bed with pillows about her like sandbags around a machine-gun nest.
Hello, Rose murmured.
Hello, said Dolly. A wan grin had fixed itself on her face halfway between coming and going.
Better?
Feel like shit, but I reckon that’s better.
Rose stood by the window where she could see the peeling fence and the wall of weeds.
Look like you better sit down.
I’m alright.
You’ll fall over. Siddown.
Rose pulled the chair over to the bedside.
Dolly raised her eyebrows. When you gettin pregnant again?
I’m not thinking about it, Rose said, flushing. Besides I haven’t had a period for months.
You need to see a doctor.
That’s a laugh.
Rose looked at her skirt, the way her knees made sharp peaks beneath it. God, even the angles her body made were mean looking now.
Anyway, why do you ask? she murmured, trying to be calm.
I was plannin on bein a grandmother. This mornin. That’s when I decided. Be good for me, you know. Jesus, I’d spoil em rotten, I would, givin em lollies and fizzy drinks. Let em wreck the bloody place. Reckon I’d be the worst bloody granma a kid could have—
Why not, Rose heard herself leap in, you were already the worst mother.
Dolly didn’t even stop.
They’d love me. I’d let em swear their heads off, give em noisy toys, take em to the pictures an stuff em with fairy floss. I wouldn’t even make em wear clothes, I wouldn’t make em do anything as long … as long as they came to see me.
Rose saw the old woman’s mouth sloping away toward weeping, and she realized that she had no teeth. She’d never noticed before. Rose had no idea what her mother would say next, no idea of what she might let out herself.
Outside it was a summer’s day. That dry, wondrous heat of the west. Out there it would feel like the meeting of desert and sea, the heat behind, the dark coolness ahead. Rose thought about it. Yes, she could be down by the river now, with a baby, a brown sunny baby beside her on the sand. Water would lap like cat’s milk and the air be heady with the scent of peppermint trees. There would be nothing to do but feel important and proud, to have the form against your body, to take a hand in your mouth and bite down those long, soft baby fingernails like some protective she animal, snuffle, smell, bask.
You’re a grandmother already, aren’t you? Rose said, finding her knees before her again. What about Ted’s kids?
They’re a thousand miles away. I don’t know the girl. Don’t know anything about em.
Well, one day, maybe.
Oh, yeah, they’re gonna all get on the train an come an see Granma Dolly.
They’ve got money. Ted was a good jockey, they say. He rode winners.
Dolly laughed. Imagine bein around a man who rode winners.
They were quiet again a few long, awkward moments.
You reckon you’d have missed him more, if he was a sister?
What kind of question is that, Mum? I never had a sister.
Yeah, you wanted one, though, eh?
Rose looked at her mother whose white, puffy face was impossible to read just now. I suppose. I haven’t thought about it much. I don’t know if I ever really thought about it, but I guess it’s true enough. I used to watch those Lamb girls and … think of the things they could tell each other. Used to watch that Hat, the eldest one, playing marbles with the boys, and I decided that the only way she could do it was because she had other sisters and it didn’t matter somehow. She didn’t have to play the part of the girl.