Tess Evans - Book of Lost Threads

She loved to prepare Arthur’s chops and vegies and always cooked a roast for lunch on Sundays. They made love (with increasing pleasure), stifling giggles at the thought of Mrs Moloney lying grim-faced in the next room. Eight months into the marriage, and three months into Lily’s pregnancy, Arthur signed up.

‘I can’t let all the other blokes go, and sit here living the life of Riley.’ He cupped her face in his hands. ‘I have to look after my best girl and little Tiger here.’ He patted her softly rounded stomach. ‘Got to keep my family safe from the Japs.’

Lily clung to him fearfully. How could she bear to send him away? The past year had seen their love grow from attraction, and the love of being in love, to a deepening sense of each other’s worth. His kindness, integrity and humour; her gentleness, optimism and generosity-all this hope, all this love, had fashioned a magic circle of two, which was miraculously soon to be three. They linked hands. ‘No matter how many miles come between us,’ Lily vowed, her face awash with tears, ‘our circle will never be broken.’

After he left, she spent every day wrestling with her dread as she went about her household tasks and filled in the time knitting ever more fanciful layettes. She prayed to the God in whose church she had played the organ, in whose church she had made her vows. She told stories to the baby growing within her: stories about how they would greet Daddy on his return; stories about how they would picnic at the beach and the park, and take trips to the countryside. She painted mind-pictures of a young soldier, lean and tanned, holding them both in his arms. But an icy knot of fear remained, despite the long days of sunshine and blue skies as summer lingered deceitfully beyond its allotted time.

The telegram arrived six weeks before the baby was due. Arthur had been killed by a sniper somewhere in New Guinea and buried in the field. His effects included a dog-eared photo of their wedding and a lock of auburn hair in a handmade wooden box. She liked to think that he’d made the box, although she knew that he wasn’t clever with his hands. There was also a half-written letter.

How’s my best girl? I hope you’re looking after yourself and little Tiger.

We are -(Here a large block had been blacked out by the censors.)

I can hardly wait to see you both. I have a little wooden dooverlackie that the natives make for their children. It can be Tiger’s first toy. I’ll be home (censored) to give it to him myself. Or it might be a her. Then I would have two best girls. I’ll…

The letter finished there. The toy was not with his other effects. She hoped he had it with him when he died.

When the shock wore off, Lily’s sorrow bore down upon her physically and engulfed her mind in blackness. Mrs Moloney, who had experienced her own sorrows, tended her with gentleness and a delicate discretion which poor Lily barely noticed. Her father and sister came as soon as they heard the news; they feared for both her health and her sanity.

‘Come home with me when the baby’s born,’ her father said. ‘We’ll manage. I can’t be its father but I’ll be a bloody good grandfather. Come on, love. Arthur would want you to. You know that.’

Lily stared out the window. She felt a strong affinity with the garden, which wore the overblown, enervated look that signalled the end of a long summer. It wasn’t so long ago that green buds heralded new life. A life now depleted.

Book of Lost Threads ‘Sorry. Did you say something?’ She could hear her father’s voice but was unable to comprehend his meaning.

Rosie picked up her nerveless hand. ‘For the baby’s sake, Lil.’

But the baby, entering the world at thirty-three weeks, was stillborn. In the throes of an agonising labour, Lily was given chloroform, and when she regained consciousness there was no evidence that her baby had ever existed. The nurses were firm. It was best to get on with life. But her milk flowed as she saw other babies at their mothers’ breasts, and she felt a phantom presence where others saw only an absence.

Her father brought her home to Opportunity but became increasingly concerned as she sang lullabies and knitted little jackets. For winter , she said. We must keep Baby warm in winter. She had bought some teddy-bear wallpaper in Melbourne but had not had a chance to hang it in the flat. When her father came home to find the spare bedroom covered in teddy bears, he felt compelled to act.

Dr Grey had seen many grieving mothers. In those days children were still dying of diphtheria and measles. ‘I know it’s upsetting, Frank,’ he said to her worried father. ‘Most women get over it one way or another. Maybe get over it isn’t accurate. They learn to live with it. I don’t know much about psychiatry, but I’d say she’s having a nervous breakdown. Give her a bit more time. Make sure she gets out and about, plays the piano-whatever will take her mind off it. I’m sure she’ll come good in a month or two. Remember, she lost a husband and child within a week of each other. It’s a hell of a thing. Time’s the key, though. Time and patience.’

But Lily continued to knit, to sing lullabies and to walk the floor with her phantom child in the early hours of the morning.

‘Sleepy-byes, sleepy-byes,’ she would croon. ‘The stars are shining in the skies. Come on, close your eyes-Mummy has to sleep too.’ And then she’d lie exhausted on her bed, sleeping beyond noon.

She found the old family pram in the shed and took to walking up the street, stopping every now and then to adjust the covers or point out a birdie or a puppy dog.

‘See the little birdie? He can fly. Mummy can’t fly. Grandpa can’t fly. Aunty Rosie can’t fly. Only birdies.’

It was a small community, and those who saw her out walking pitied her, each in their own way.

Mad as a hatter, poor little bugger.

If only her mother was alive…

She was such a lovely girl. Pretty as a picture.

More and more, though, there were those who would say:

Why doesn’t she snap out of it?

It’s like she’s determined to be unhappy. We’ve all lost someone.

They say some of her mother’s family weren’t right in the head.

Poor old Frank. He’s getting too old to deal with this.

They all agreed on the last one.

Finally, Dr Grey referred Lily to a psychiatric hospital, where she spent the next twelve years in a twilight of drugs and therapy. Her rounded body became gaunt and she lost the bloom of her young womanhood. Quiet and compliant in most things, she continued to search for her child with a stubborn diligence that would brook no opposition. She shunned the 112 company of the ‘mad people’, as she called them, and dreaded group therapy sessions. In order to distract her from her fruitless searching, and despite the fact that she was already an accomplished knitter, the occupational therapist taught her to knit tea cosies. It was here at Chalmers House that she learned to conform. It was here that she received the shock treatment that enabled her to function but cauterised her grief and left her, as the citizens of Opportunity agreed, just a little strange. It was here she lost Lily Pargetter.

Her father had visited her every Saturday and agreed, as people did then, to any treatment suggested by her doctors. Despite his frequent requests, they were always adamant that she was not ready to be discharged. He had some qualms when they suggested electroconvulsive therapy (‘shock treatment,’ they called it), but how can a schoolmaster argue medical matters with doctors? They seemed so sure it would work.

Frank died of heart failure before the course of treatment was finished, but before he died he made Rosie promise to bring Lily home. ‘She needs to come home. We’ll take care of her. This shock therapy is the last treatment we can agree to.’