The Curious Lamentation of Daisy Namatjira

A puckered moonflower snagged the mottled drapes beneath the jarred window in an uncertain breeze. Its shiny stem made a swooshing scratching sound across the frosted glass, as it bobbed about in a game of catch and release. Beneath it, the ruddy duplex was snared in the undisturbed darkness of a late winter’s night, broken only by the soft rain for company.

On the cold jarrah floor, the artist lay as if her body were smashed, limbs resting heavily on a scattering of pillows.  She was on the eve of dreaming, but her mind resisted the comfort of sleep, unable to submit to her charms. Instead, her thoughts found their familiar mould and her past violently threw itself up for another post-apocalyptic examination.

A flesh memory of her father, squeezing her pre-pubescent breast, swam like a poison tide into the injured spotlight of her awareness, blasting her into full wakefulness. She cradled her brain in her hands straddling the limp bed post.

The damaged myelin sheath protecting her memory fractured. She felt her mind disconnect from her body. The break-down made her limbs feel heavy and fatigue set in like a heavy fog blasting in from a dangerously unattended coastline.

In her mind, a drain opened. Her blood boiled and spluttered through the memory banks of the abuse desperate to dam the pain. The morning after the attack had bloomed dangerously like black mushrooms in a violent summer storm and she found refuge in her wardrobe.

She clutched her favourite red ribboned teddy-bear Spencer tightly to her breast in the dark holding her breath until he’d found her and plucked her out of her hidey home, violently pulling the wardrobe door across.

“It will be okay Ted,” she whimpered.

“Get out of there!” he raged. He waited until she crawled out and surrendered the bear, prying it from her fragile fingers so he could fling it viciously at her bed-post and gloat.

“I want you in the den!” He grabbed her arm and forced her in the direction of the lounge. They passed up the long hallway, his wheelchair whipping her forward. She cried out in agony as he ground the metal plates into the back of her ankles.

“Well, fucking hurry up then!” he spat. He ripped open the sliding door with the poster: Loan Star Saloon papered on it. A gun-slinging cowboy decked out in leather and spurs lunged at her blasting his six-shooter. Bang! Bang! You’re dead. Its life-size appearance made her recoil as though attacked.

She wondered if the silver bullet in the chamber would be enough to stop her father, but death was the only comfort that afforded her any escape. She shut her eyes tightly and prayed for relief. What she endured from her father instead was another carefully planned attack of emotional violence.

“You’re a liar Tanya!”

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It was the shimmering summer of 1978. Any position as sole trader demanded rigorous effort to maintain duplicate ledgers. There was the book he showed the taxation office and the one he kept hidden. But, this little cunt made him lose his focus after the argument with his in-laws and he was certain he’d miscalculated somewhere, but where? He had to start again from scratch, but it would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack for fuck’s sake.

“I’m Sorry Daddy” she pleaded, backing away from him on the crimson carpet of the den. His metal wheelchair spun wildly around in a circular motion like a demonised version of the puppet Punch ready to strike at any minute.

Her nine-year old body heaved with fright in response to his fury. She scurried past the purple wall-paper to avoid capture finding herself framed in the corner. Her torso was stretched too thin against her vertebrae as though it would snap when he descended upon her.

She deserved it; she wasn’t doing her job of handing out any pain relief. And there was still no sign of the delayed arrival of the evening breeze, or the Fremantle Doctor as the locals warmly referred to it. At the bar, he struck a match considering his next move. She froze by the window that peered out onto the desolate gravel road behind her, gloomy as the grave at the beginning of twilight.

Their oversized family home with the two drive-ways and the iconic swimming pool was part of a trend that was just beginning to emerge in their suburb. He groped the green ashtray down from the bar-counter where he kept a fast-freight of wines, spirits and beers ready for the next party and flicked the ash into it as he watched her tremble, anxious to be free of him.

A hit tune: Evil Woman, sprung its wiry head up from the shiny Sanyo stereo-system that was still half buried under some well-worn purple bean bags that were dotted with stale cigarette butts left-over from the weekend party. Also laying there undiscovered, was a leaky bottle of Emu Bitter which had left a muddy stain on the red carpet that would probably set permanent.

Playing in the background, The Electric Light Orchestra symphony belted out an ominous ballad of exuberant psychedelic music. “Ha ha woman it’s a crying shame. Ha ha, woman, cause you ain’t got noone else to blame. E-evil woman, E-evil woman….” The new tune soon reached fever pitch declaring that a new theme called ‘retribution,’ would be trending.

The court of crime and punishment was in session. He took a swig of the bitter-beer before moving into position. Time to pay the piper. He turned on her, eyes narrowed to silver slits. His voice sounded oddly mechanical as though some thing was speaking through him, pulling strings from within the chasm where once a soul resided. But, what foul intelligence lingered there now?

“I know you told auntie Anne,” he said passing sentence. Her heart stopped in her throat, and she choked. Tears welled up in her big blue trusting eyes as Papa-Punch delivered another knock-out blow disabling her security system. She was down for the count.

He studied her as she flopped about aimlessly on the carpet for some admission of guilt or sin, so he could continue the execution unfettered.

Hate is what I feel for you, and I want you to know I want you dead.

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At the Sunday barbecue, her aunt had visited unexpectedly bringing a keep sake for her sister which had coincided with the funeral of their Aunty Muffy. She’d been asked not to attend it due to bad blood on her mother’s side of the family, the result of a falling out between herself and her Scottish cousin David over an inheritance which she felt he’d stolen from her.

The ivory antique broach was a reminder of a shared, albeit quarrelsome past, but she took it anyway, demonstrating some signs of relief. They settled in and drank tea from the Jade Chinese pot, they’d sanctioned last Christmas from Singapore, discussing their news. Her mother would have wanted her to attend, but Muffy’s cruel letter made her intentions clear.

Upon reaching an agreement, they made tentative dinner plans. There was no point in the couple driving all the way back up to the city tonight. The T-bone steaks defrosted quickly on the kitchen window-sill which afforded them a view of the brick patio. The pool glimmered like the last hope of an oasis in a lost desert and the pump churned, rousing them into action.

Outside, the two husbands swapped sob-stories about the stern matriarch whom they’d feared when they were courting. One threw spoilt Foster’s Lager on a spitting hot grill and the other mopped up with a roll of paper towels in preparation for cooking. At the kitchen sink, the sisters were preparing potato salad and sausages, when the girl had done a very strange thing.

Her aunt noted with some alarm that the child had taken off her underwear; the kind she used for playing netball in the dining room and inspected them as though they might be contaminated. Then she had brazenly fingered her vagina as if for comfort with no apparent compunction as to her surroundings or the possible consequences of her illustrious actions.

The act had struck her aunt as very inappropriate and she gasped. Then a darker thought had entered her mind. It seemed that the girl was reliving some kind of event as though she were mechanically rehearsing for an audience.

She was too young to have a boyfriend and the idea the girl could be a trollop offended her Presbyterian values. She decided then to confront her sister, who dismissed the incident with a casual excuse:

“Stop that right now Shell,” her mother rebuked, her eye twitching. The girl plonked down at the table obediently.

“Well, she is getting her period”, she said nonchalant. “Mind you she has always been strange. Nothing this girl does really surprises me,” she sighed whipping the eggs into a mayonnaise.

The wall clock above the stove struck 12:00pm and the fridge magnet broomstick Witch cackled her silent approval. “Ha, ha, haaa…”

Her aunt dropped the tongs she was about to carry out with the meat tray and pounced. “Why did you do that dear? Got your period?” she said as she took the black bloomers from the ten-year-old-girl’s hand noticing the damp patch. It bore a milky stain, not a speck of blood could be found on it. The girl touched her vagina again as though her fingers were familiar with this risky action.  Her aunt pulled her hand away.

“Don’t do that! You shouldn’t take your pants off in here child,” her aunt corrected her. The girl cast a furtive eye at her mother, fearing reprisal. Anne followed her glance, puzzled by the child’s fear when Elizabeth’s hand slipped. She managed an oil-spill, dropping the entire contents of the bowl of potato salad onto the brown tiles of the neglected kitchen floor.

“Shit! See what you made me do Michelle! How many times have I told you to knock it off?” This action brought Anne to an important realization. Shock settled on her pale Gaelic cheeks in the same manner as an unwelcome shadow crosses the sun at noon-day. At first, she thought Liz was bitter over the funeral, but then she realised her rage was much deeper.

It was ground-in like a permanent stain. Her daughter represented some kind of problem to her that was better left alone, but she was aware of the danger. This evil would continue if she let it. But, it was always difficult with Elizabeth to work out what she was thinking. She’d never communicated much since she’d been the one who found father in the yellow barn.

It was rumoured that his death was an accident. In all probability this served to appease the delicate beliefs of the church minister and the uneasy members of the small North-West community as they huddled together in the country kitchen on the cold jarrah floorboards until the body was returned by the pal-bearers struggling with the casket.

Her father had been found with his brains splattered against the tractor, yellow sequeous fluid dripped from its shiny wheels. The butt of the rifle was still smoking.

Instinctively Anne had rebelled against staying and fled to Edinburgh on the arm of some Dandy to escape the burden, whilst her sister was left to comfort their mother and run the farm as best she could. There was no secret that they were going under and their debts were mounting. The bank manager had set up shop on their doorstep and the wife complained unceasingly about her labours.

If it wasn’t the shearers and how expensive they were to keep, considering the few livestock they possessed. Then, it was the flies, the snakes, the heat and on it went. She, a lady, forced to give up her life in a swank West Perth society for this mess. And there was no return, no payment for her debt. They were robbed.

She supposed Elizabeth had some misgivings about her marrying in haste to satiate her mother’s fears. Years later upon her return, she noted the downward regression of her sibling’s personality. She’d married a working-class Australian on the rebound from a broken romance, whom Anne felt justly unsuitable for her, in spite of their thriving business venture.

She studied her sister’s face for some sign of empathy, but she artfully avoided her feelings   engaging the elegant pursuits of smoking and workaholism to fill the empty void inside her.  

Once over the Christmas holidays, Anne observed their business buddy off-load a case of stolen Cubans brought from the illicit trade centre in Port Moresby via boat from Garden Island; thereby avoiding the anal nose of customs altogether.

Dean was a pirate, but he had gotten away with a lot since his accident. Not this time chappy. She was determined to get to the bottom of this matter. Her impatience caused her to trip on the dense red carpet. Regrettably, she’d purchased her snake-skin sandals in Denpasar. She paused a minute to regain her composure. Hmph Asian sizes! The seller was probably a cannibal, she mused.

“Elizabeth, I would like to have a word with you, if I may?” she said sternly. Her warning duly ignored; the process of retrieving the survivors continued. The loose potato cubes appeared to have flung themselves from the bowl running for cover under the kitchen sink. Her husband’s anxious glance through the window indicated he was becoming impatient.

“Now Elizabeth.” She fixed her with a glare until she relented and the two disgruntled siblings disappeared into the walk-in pantry. Liz held out, aware of the time, hoping Anne would drop it when she lost patience. But Ann was determined. They had played this game before when Liz found out she was pregnant by the wrong man at the wrong time.

“He’s got to her, hasn’t he? She snapped, pushing her up hard against the Ryvita’s forcing an answer. Her loose heels slipped on the cold slate as she pinned her sister against the shelf. A long hard moment passed in which there was an intense struggle. Her hardened sister come out of denial for the briefest of moments. Then, unable to bear the pain, she retreated into the pail, cold shell she’d built.

“Tell me for goodness sake!” “No!” Liz shook her head and her elbow collided with the bottle of Rosella tomato sauce, knocking it to the floor where it smashed into a red river; its rivulets running in all directions. As their argument climaxed Anne kicked her big toe on the bottle-neck with the gilded bird.