Juliet Bell - The Other Wife

On Friday evening, Betty was sent to her room early. Mrs Mason gave her banana sandwiches and a couple of golliwog biscuits that she’d bought ready for them to bake into a cake. They’d do that tomorrow, and the cake would be just for them, not for Mr Mason’s guests. She sat up in bed, leaning on the wall, pulling her knees up to her chest with the covers over her legs. She munched on her biscuit, dropping crumbs on the sheets. She wasn’t at all sleepy.

Her room was right above the front door. She wriggled to the end of the bed and reached to crack the window open a little bit. She could hear people arriving. The men all had big, brash voices like Mr Mason. The women were quieter. She tried to remember. She didn’t think Daddy was loud and brash. Had Mummy been quiet?

She couldn’t remember. She thought that Mummy did used to shout sometimes. She thought that sometimes Mummy used bad words that made Daddy frown. Betty could remember Daddy’s big, strong hands, and his deep, warm voice, but she couldn’t remember Mummy properly anymore at all. Betty screwed her eyes closed and tried to bring Mummy’s face into her head. It was almost there, but, when she tried to look closely, the image blurred and wafted away.

The voices outside the front door had subsided to just two now. Mr Mason and Richard. Betty opened her eyes and listened.

‘Now, these blokes own some of the biggest properties in the state. These are important people and they need to know that we’re men they can do business with. You understand.’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘Right. So tell me again. Who are you sitting next to?’

‘The old guy. Rochester.’

‘Less of the old. He’s only a few years older than me.’

Betty thought she heard Richard snigger, and the noise was followed by the sharp crack of Mr Mason’s hand across his son’s face.

‘You’ll take this seriously.’

‘Sorry, Father.’

‘The Rochesters are important people, and I’ve heard they’re not happy with Halligans. So you’re going to charm him. He’s got a son not much older than you. He’ll inherit the property one day, like you’ll inherit all this. That’s what we want Rochester to see – that we’re a nice, respectable family business that he can trust for years to come.’

‘Yes, Father.’

There was another short moment of quiet. ‘Now, get your face cleaned up and get inside.’

Jane

Waking up on my first morning at Our Lady School, I found myself surrounded by girls my own age. They stood beside my bed, looking down at the person who had magically appeared in the middle of the night.

‘You’re the new girl.’

‘Yes. I’m Jane.’ I sat up in bed, pushing back the thin sheet and scratchy blanket, conscious of their eyes on me. Back when I lived with my mother, there were always lots of people around, and lots of kids to play with. It would be good to live like that again.

‘Why didn’t you come on the first day of school like we did?’ The girl asking the questions was very pretty. She had long, shiny brown hair tied in two plaits, with pink ribbons. She was wearing pink pyjamas too.

‘I don’t know. I was at school in Sydney. Then Mrs Reed said I was coming here.’

‘Who is Mrs Reed? Is she your mother?’

‘My aunt. I just lived with her.’

‘Why don’t you live with your mum and dad?’

They were all staring at me, waiting for the answer.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Maybe she’s an orphan,’ a red-haired girl suggested. ‘Are your mum and dad dead?’

‘No!’ My answer was automatic, but the question lodged somewhere deep inside me. Why hadn’t Mum come to take me home from the Reed house? As for a dad… I wasn’t sure. I’d never called any of Mum’s friends ‘dad’.

‘I bet they are. I bet they’re dead,’ a blonde girl said. ‘Or maybe they just don’t love you and they gave you away.’

Something snapped when she said that. My mum had loved me. I was sure she had. Before Mrs Reed, before this school, I’d been happy.

‘Don’t say that.’ I jumped out of bed. ‘You take that back.’

‘I bet you’re right,’ another voice chimed in.

‘Nah.’ That was the first girl again. ‘I think she’s an orphan. I think they’re dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.’

The first girl started the chant, but the others picked it up quickly.

‘Stop it!’ I screamed. The shouting was ringing in my ears. Another school. Another set of kids who seemed to hate me. For a second I was back in the sports shed with the jeering and the fear. ‘Stop it…’ I pushed the dark-haired girl. She staggered backwards and fell over right at the feet of the nun who had at that moment entered the dormitory.

‘What’s going on here?’ The nun was tall and thin, and dressed all in black.

‘She pushed me, Sister.’ The dark-haired girl immediately began sobbing.

‘We don’t allow pushing here.’ The nun looked me up and down. ‘And nor do we allow girls to sleep in their clothes.’

I tugged at my nightie. It wasn’t really a nightie, it was just a big t-shirt that was a hand-me down from Emma, but it was all I had.

‘Now apologise to Miranda.’

The girl still sitting on the floor turned towards me with a really nasty smile.

‘No. I won’t. She said a horrible thing about me.’

‘I didn’t, Sister, honestly.’ Miranda turned her doll-like face to the nun.

The nun took me by the shoulder. ‘You will apologise. Now. And then you will write out one hundred times, “I must not tell lies”. Do you understand?’ When I didn’t answer, she shook my shoulder hard. ‘Do you understand, Jane Eyre?’

All around me the other girls were smiling and giggling. The nun shook me again, gripping my shoulder so hard it hurt.

It wasn’t fair! I had thought being at a school with no boys to bully me would be better. I was wrong.

Betty

Betty was pulled along by Mrs Mason’s tight grip on her hand, through the mass of bodies rushing and pushing their way through the shops. Betty had never seen anything like this.

Bankstown Square, Mrs Mason said, was the biggest shopping centre in the whole country, with all sorts of new and interesting shops that everyone wanted to see. That’s why Mrs Mason had to come here to buy Betty’s new summer clothes. Betty had thought it was summer already, but apparently that wasn’t right. Summer and winter were backwards here and even winter wasn’t really cold.

Betty’s legs were tired and Mrs Mason was laden with carrier bags from all the shops they’d been in. Mrs Mason hadn’t let her try on one of the new miniskirts that were so popular. She was apparently too little for that sort of thing, whatever that sort of thing was. Her dresses were all pretty and frilly. Betty didn’t really like them, but she didn’t tell Mrs Mason that. She thought that that would make Mrs Mason sad.

They swept out of the big sliding doors into the sunshine. Mrs Mason pulled her hand away for a second to reach into her pocket. That was it. Betty was too tired. She shuffled backwards away from Mrs Mason and sat down on a low wall outside the shops. The sun was hot on her face and she closed her eyes for a moment, away from the bustle and the noise. It was almost warm enough to imagine that she was back in her real home in front of the blazing fire.

It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds before she opened her eyes again, but when she did she couldn’t see Mrs Mason anywhere. Betty clambered up onto the wall, but even up on tippy-toes she couldn’t see Mrs Mason. There were too many people pushing their way into the shopping centre, or fighting their way to the car park.