‘Let me decide what’s best for our son. He’s ready. You’d keep him in nappies if you had your way.’ He strode towards the door. ‘And you’ve got your pet now if you want something to baby.’
Mr Mason marched out of the room and a few moments later the front door swung open and closed again. Richard’s demeanour shifted as soon as his father was out of the house. He slumped onto the couch, swinging his legs up onto the cushion.
‘Richard, don’t put your feet on the cushions.’ Mrs Mason’s voice quivered as she murmured the instruction.
Richard laughed at his mother’s feeble attempt to tell him off. ‘You don’t tell my dad what to do.’
‘He’s the man of the house.’
‘And one day I will be.’ Richard laughed as he stood up again and headed towards the door. ‘Let me know when dinner’s ready.’
The lounge room fell into silence after the door slammed behind him. Mrs Mason patted Betty gently on the head.
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.