There was no need for touchings. Tilda held me tightly, her head bowed to display jasmine flowers braided there. She was shy and wanted my approval.
‘Beautiful.’
The reverend lifted his arms like surrender. ‘Heavenly father, we beseech you to be with us on this most auspicious day.’
I never knew humility was not demeaning. I never knew it made you kneel and made you tall.
Chapter 58
I was sworn in to Tilda, and she was sworn in to me.
I switched walking sticks to my other hand for a moment to get the ring box from my pocket, spread its stiff jaw and prise out the nine carats.
Reverend Hugg surrendered his arms again. ‘A ring is a symbol of commitment, of pledging love and faithfulness. Marriage is not to be taken lightly. It is our souls we are joining. Let this ring be a constant and lifelong reminder to you, Colin and Tilda, of your blessed union.’
It slid into place on her with a few budges over bones. There. Done. I leant forward and kissed my wife. She leant forward for me to kiss her longer. She whispered, ‘My husband.’
Reverend Hugg announced, ‘Ladies and…ah…ladies, I give you Mr and Mrs Colin and Tilda Butcher.’ He began applauding us. The biddies applauded, called out, ‘Amen. Congratulations. Bless you both. Bless you.’ They pulled handkerchiefs from their cardigan sleeves for effeminate dabbing.
What happened next I thought was just those old girls. There was a crazy screeching like they’d spotted a ghost, or had a turn, one of them, and dropped dead to the floor. The screech was higher up, though, where roof beams criss-crossed. Dust fell to us, and dirty clots of old spider webs. I looked up and dirt stuck in my eyes. The reverend spat fibres from his mouth. ‘Bats,’ he coughed.
Bats don’t have green feathers and flash about in green flight. Green was all I saw—a screeching blur of it, then another louder screech as greenness descended and separated into two birds: two parakeets diving our way, merging and tilting, separating again. They arced around the reverend’s head and screeched directly into mine, collided with mine, a feathery thud on my forehead, tipping me off my sticks. I crumpled over. Tilda told me later they didn’t even try to alter course. It was like they’d lined me up and hit me on purpose. They swerved to miss the biddies and Holly but flew straight into me, then whooshed out the chapel door.
I have to hand it to the biddies: they tried to make me feel better. I was shaky on my sticks after climbing to my feet. My eyebrow had a bleeding scratch on it, like a parakeet sign of foreboding. ‘Oh no, no, no,’ they said. ‘Parakeets are good luck. That’s a good luck sign you’ve got on your head. Isn’t it, Valmai?’
‘Yes it is.’
‘Isn’t it, Ada?’
‘Absolutely, Vera.’
They probably even believed it. I certainly did. I had the weather to help me believe—the softest drizzle had started up. The whole smooth sky was coming down to greet us and give that soap-and-water sensation for our outsides.
I smiled for Holly—for her camera, not her eyes. Her fringe was dyed orange, which suited her. But I had eyes only for Tilda.
Chapter 59
Ceremonies are like surgery—they kid you along with their action and elation. The ordinary business of living is then returned to you. Our wedding ceremony lasted two honeymoon days and nights. We didn’t take off anywhere speciaclass="underline" the expense would spoil relaxing. A night in Bendigo at The Shamrock, say, was $100 before food and beverages. We appreciated the special history of the building—Dame Nellie Melba stayed there, but that was years before. For $100 we wanted her singing in person and not to feel we were financing bistro renovations.
We set up the stereo in Tilda’s bedroom—I moved back there like a proper spouse. With the blinds kept down our bodies looked normal in the honeymoon dimness. We played Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1, Tilda’s favourite, over and over. We kissed, we congressed. We whispered ‘sweetheart’ and ‘darling’. We planned the years out, defiant of illness. If welfare was all we were good for, so be it. We resigned ourselves to burdening the government—we deserved being indulged after what we’d been through.
Vows. You can’t take back vows. You can’t revise them later. You can’t say, ‘Sweetheart, you know that bit about till death do us part? It’s a beautiful sentiment, but how do we keep the words going?’
Six months after taking them I resented Tilda. I got well, you see. My legs shrank back to normal. It took most of the six months but my ankle shapes returned. My shins and toes returned. So many layers of skin had been shed but fresh skin took its place, sparsely hairy. There was a tickling like loose socks when I strode, a phantom sense of baggy flesh falling. Dr Philpott said this was common and temporary. He said an outbreak like mine, so savage in one still young, might protect me against extreme recurrences in future, or so goes the research wisdom. He pronounced me fit to lead life as usual, even to begin running again. Fit to go off welfare and be in the workforce.
Hector Vigourman was delighted. He had expanded the Gazette—it was now The Gazette Group, with two sister publications: the Watercook Tribune and the Wimmera Wheatman. The Wheatman was a trade rag bought from city investors who didn’t know farmers. ‘Ear to the ground,’ Vigourman theorised. ‘Farmers want local people writing about their industry, not city nobodies. They want reporters from their own backyard, not cubs up from Melbourne to cut their journo teeth.’
Holly had quit Scintilla for a TV pipedream. ‘The position is yours,’ Vigourman said to me. ‘Grains writer. The Wimmera Wheatman’s wheat man.’
I knew nothing about cropping but Vigourman reckoned ignorance would benefit me. He wanted human stories, not just the science of low-tillage grain-growing or dissertations on whether single-desk marketing delivers the best price at harvesting. I would have my own workstation at Gazette HQ and the Commodore at my disposal when I needed it, as if it was my Commodore. One day that new cellular phone technology would come to Scintilla, he said. One day they’ll build a big dish for it here, meaning out with the CB and up with the Joneses. And my pay? I would be paid as actual staff. Not per story but per week, like a valued citizen—$200, which sounded a fortune. I know it’s chicken feed if you’re a qualified something—a plumber or vet with certificates saying so—but it was my chicken feed. No more twenty-four hours a day in this house, which was less a house than a hospital.
Tilda bounced with such glee at the news that her body part shook out of its bra cup and she had to catch it. No more cheap-brand bread and margarine, she cheered. No more vegetables on special because they’re spotty with rot. We could buy new sheets—the old ones smelt convalescent. So did the pillows. She could afford a supply of chemist cosmetics: anti-ageing creams instead of useless Pond’s from the supermarket. She bought me a sporty watch to help meet deadlines. It cost nearly a whole week’s pay, which was why I didn’t say thanks more than once when she presented it. She considered this ingratitude and began to cry. Cry! Cry as if it was her money, she had earned it, she was the one working eight-hour days and not me.
A ritual similar to our past one set in. It took a few months but Tilda began experiencing those two minds again. I would arrive home from Wheatman duties and she either greeted me with a cheek-kiss or an argument. If it was a cheek-kiss she handed me a Crown lager with the top already off for my immediate sipping. ‘Look what I’ve done today,’ she said, taking my hand, leading me to her studio. ‘I’m on to something here. Vincent would be proud of me. Wouldn’t you, Vincent?’ The envelope with the flake inside was stapled to the wall as a talisman. A square of masonite or canvas five feet or so by five leant beside it, splashed and stippled with her rendering of the plains or a molten-looking sun glistening because the paint had yet to harden. Sometimes she put a picture outside to dry and gnats stuck to it like insect-birds. I admired the realism but she picked the creatures off. She said if insects weren’t intended by her then the painting was just an accident. ‘Did Van Gogh do accidents? Van Gogh did not do accidents.’