Cry of the Plover
by Gayle Beveridge
“How could you let this happen?” Your father is yelling at me. I hold the ‘phone away from my ear, he is even angrier than usual. I’m glad we left the police station before he got there.
“It wasn’t my fault,” I tell him, but he doesn’t want to listen. “I’m coming over,” he screams and hangs up, before I can tell him to stay away.
I run my fingers through your hair and it slides away so softly, so quickly, I am left grasping at the weightlessness of nothing. I wonder if I ever truly had a hold of you at all. You are pale and silent, thankfully asleep at last; so light on your pillow that you barely make a dent in it.
Somewhere outside a plover flies by, screeching raucously. Do you remember when one of them swooped at you last spring?
“Why does it want to hurt me?” you asked.
“It doesn’t want to hurt you Emily; it’s just being a good mother, guarding its nest, looking after its babies so no one will harm them.”
“Like you look after me Mum,” you had said, smiling proudly. But I am not like the plover. I was not looking after you when he came to harm you. I was not walking with you when he surprised you in the laneway. I was not there when he held you down, tried to remove your panties. I was not the one who came upon you, who wrestled him off you, saved you from the unthinkable, but not from the trauma.
Your Grandma has stayed to look after us. She comes into the room, looks down at you. “Poor sweet baby,” she says again; she cannot find any other words to fit this. She gently slides the back of her fingers across your forehead. “Poor sweet baby.”
“Brad’s coming over.” I whisper.
“Suddenly he cares, then,” she spits the words into the air.
“I don’t want him here either Mum, but despite everything he is her father.” She nods, disappears for a while, and then brings me a cup of tea and her bottle of tranquillizer pills. She knows I cannot leave you, not even for a moment.
I hold my hand in front of your mouth; linger there, waiting for the soft flutter of your fragile breath. I need reassurance, proof that you are still here, that you are still mine. Will you still be mine, when you have time to think about this? Will you crawl into my lap, rest your head upon my shoulder, seeking the comfort you used to think only I could give, or will you push me aside?
Your father’s car pulls up outside, stopping suddenly, it’s movements as brusque as his temperament. I should meet him at the front door but instead I gulp a tranquillizer down with tea, and steel myself for the argument to come.
I hear your Grandma’s footsteps as she goes to answer the door. Did you hear footsteps behind you when he came; do they now resonate in the empty cavern of your mind that once stored your childish naivety? Do you see me flailing there, grasping for you, my reach falling short?
“How is she?” Your father’s frame fills your doorway, robs your face of the light from the hall. He stands, square shouldered in his suit, handsome, tidy, strong, superimposing.
“Sleeping.” I throw this whispered word from my throat like a cough. I feel anxious and I tell myself that he is just your father, just a man, but he has always overwhelmed me. “Please, don’t wake her.”
He comes in, stands beside your bed, and looks down at me. He does not reach out for you; his hands are in his pockets. “What was she doing out there alone?” It isn’t a question; it is an accusation cast at me, a metaphorical slap with a real sting.
“She just went down to the corner, to the shop.” I whisper, but hard, from the back of my throat, a buttress of air, a whispered yell.
“She’s only seven; you should have been with her.” His whispers are calm and even, the way he always is at the peak of anger. He makes me feel small, stupid. He makes me want to defend myself even if I feel I shouldn’t have to, even if I feel I can’t.
“It’s just at the end of the lane,” tears wash across my breath and my whispers stutter like radio static. I hate him for this. “It was before tea. There was plenty of light. She’s been there by herself a dozen times. I can see her almost all the way from the kitchen window.” I file my sentences out like advancing soldiers, the front line of my defense.
“Which is absolutely useless if you’re not watching from the window.” He is always so righteously logical and I had not been watching, I had answered the door to a security salesman and got distracted. I didn’t even know how long you’d been gone when the police rang. “And what would you have done, if you had seen her attacked, while you stood at the window, too far away from her.” He trumps me every time. He is not whispering now and the timbre of his voice hangs over me, an oppressive cloud, a pressure system of thunderous hatred. Your Grandma is standing in the hall, just outside your door, her arms folded across her chest, her face clothed in the dark pall of hatred. She has not said a word but her presence fortifies me.
“Be quiet!” I squeak out a shrill and determined whisper. “For pity’s sake, let her sleep.” I run my finger gently along the curve of your ear, barely touching. Did vile whispers pass that way, do horrid sounds echo there, tormenting your dreams until in their anger, they become nightmares.
“I’m seeing my solicitor tomorrow,” a muted declaration. “I’m going for full custody,” he draws his weapon, “she’s not safe with you, you’re not fit to be a mother”, and slays me through the heart. He is right, I tell myself, I am not fit to be a mother. Without another word he spins on his heel and is gone as quickly as he came. My hands shaking, I take a tranquillizer and wash it down with cold tea.
Remember when I used to read ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’ to you. The troll under the bridge would call out as each goat crossed, and in turn they used their cunning to make their way safely past.
“They’re lucky they could trick the troll, aren’t they, Mum,” you would say, happy that monsters were so easily defeated. I read it to you so you would not be afraid, but I was wrong, you should have been afraid. Would you otherwise have stayed away from the lane, seen its menacing shadows and been too afraid to enter. Would you have heard his footsteps and fearing them have run. Trying to keep you safe, did I instead rip off your armour and cast it aside. Is it languishing on life’s rubbish heap? Does your innocence now lie rotting beside it?
Your Grandma comes in with a fresh cup of tea. Hot, brewed tea is her answer to everything. She looks at you. “Poor sweet baby,” she says, wrapping her arm around me reassuringly. “He won’t get custody,” she squeezes me tight, “courts don’t take little girls away from their mothers.”
“They do if their mother’s neglect puts them in danger.” I say this as if I really know and chastise myself with the cool cutting calm of my own words. My body shakes from a sob that has no sound.
Your Grandma squeezes me again. I had forgotten she was still here, had stopped feeling her touch. What right do I have to the security of a mother’s hug, to what I denied you when you needed it most? Outside, a plover screeches. “I wish that bird would shut up.”
“It’s only protecting its chicks,” your Grandma bites at her words, early enough to wish them unsaid but too late to make it so.
“Why don’t you lie down next to Emily and get some sleep?” She kisses my forehead and exits soundlessly and seamlessly like a ghost floating on a cosmic wave. Her words, left behind, linger in the air and suddenly tiredness consumes me and I long for the peace of sleep. I take another tranquillizer with hot brewed tea and I lay myself beside you, wrap my arms around you and close my eyes.
While I slumber, my mind, preoccupied with you, shuffles memory after memory, sorts and files and sorts again, takes me back before you set off for the shop, before you disappeared down the laneway all by yourself. You are shouting at me, pouting you lips, projecting your chest forward, throwing seven year old superiority at me in all of its naïve and uncomplicated glory.
We fight as we always do when you want to go to the shop alone. I say you’re too young. You say you’re not, tell me all your friends are allowed. You remind me of your father, you make me feel small, stupid. “You’re the meanest Mum I know’” your words have a knife edge sharpness to them, “I’m never going to speak to you again
I wake with a start, conscious of the smallness of you held close to me. Such a tiny child, my darling Emily. I let you win to buy your favour, I traded your safety for my own needs, and I have forsaken you. I want to tell myself it will never happen again, that I will be strong, that I will not flinch when your hurtful words slice away pieces of my soul. I would be lying. I have always been weak, has your father not told me that a thousand times?
Perhaps this time it will be true. Perhaps you will never speak to me again. A vision crowds my mind, a vision of you and your father, your backs to me, walking hand in hand away from me. Dizzy, I squeeze my eyes together to shoo it away, but it is behind my eyes, in places of my mind where light and dark cannot be controlled, where darkness is a cruel and unforgiving master.
I do not want these torturous visions nor these dreams, these taunting re-runs of life. I want to sleep deeply, to rest from all of this. I take another of your grandma’s tranquillizers and swallow it dry. I rest my head beside you and fold you in my arms. “Forgive me,” I whisper in your ear as I lose all sense of balance and drift away.
****
When I wake up I feel heaviness on me and I remember the bad man in the lane. I don’t know who he is and he won’t go away. He is trying to hurt me. He is a monster. I am very afraid but then I open my eyes and I am in my bed. My curtains are pulled back and the sun is shining very brightly through the window; it makes your face and hair glow golden like a princess, and the weight of your arms wrapped around me is warm and comforting and safe.
“I knew you’d come,” I say to you but you are sleeping. Your breath is slow and soft. It dances across my face and I think that it is made of fairy dust and you are surely magic.
I shake your arm but you do not wake. I turn my head to look at your face. Your eyes are moving under your eyelids, you are watching over me even while you sleep. That is when I understand why mothers are always tired.
Outside, a plover screeches. It doesn’t scare me anymore. It will go back to its nest and keep its baby safe and warm. It is just like us.
Gayle Beveridge
‘Born in rural Australia, Gayle Beveridge later moved to Melbourne where she lives with her husband. Gayle settled into an accounting career, only starting to write in earnest approaching her 50th birthday. Gayle won first prize in 2008 Boroondara Literary Awards for 'Not Dead Yet’; was shortlisted in Positive Words 2007 Short Story Competition for Last Day'; was commended in Best of Times 2008 Short Story Competition for 'Trolleys International' and highly commended in Best of Times 2009 for ‘Danhooden’. Her stories 'The Possum', 'Afternoon Tea in Amberley Lane', 'Trolleys International', 'Not Dead Yet', 'Snapshot', ‘The Peacock’s Lair’ and ‘Danhooden’ are published.’
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