Finn's Folly by Ivan Southall

Author:Ivan Southall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ligature Pty Limited
Published: 2021-11-09T09:35:41+00:00

Eleven

State Of Mind

Brenda dragged her feet, stricken with the cold of the water from the spring. She had plunged in her hands, there was no slime on them now, but she was numbed to the marrow of her bones, the chill of the water aching deeper and deeper even after she left the spring behind. Was the chill more deadly than the poison washed off?

The hillside going down was a haze in which she had lost her way, in which every dragging step was the same as the one before. The night fenced her about with walls of cold that she could not pass through, the walls moved with her like a cage. Only her thoughts ran free, breaking out of the cage, and their freedom was a wildness she could not control. She knew they were stupid, that her mind took her to places where she’d rather not go, that her thoughts should have been held very firmly down. As Dad often said: ‘For a practical young lady you can panic like a fool.’

But it was cold, it was cold, and down below in the shack beside the lake Tony half-asleep was waiting on her word. What could she say to Tony? He adored his Dad. What could she say to David? How would David ever be made to understand?

‘They’re dead, David. They’ve gone away. God’s taken them to Heaven. Heaven’s in the sky. I don’t know where Heaven is. Oh golly, what can I say? I’m sorry, David, I wouldn’t have had it happen to you for worlds. I can’t bring them back, David. There’s nothing I can do. It’s the end. Like a story that comes to the end and it’s gone. It’s not like the wolf in the fairy-tale. You can’t cut it open and get the people back again. But do you know what I mean when I talk about a story? Do you know what a story is?

‘Tony, you try. You tell David. Sometimes you can get through to him. But first Tony himself has got to understand. Oh, David, what will we do with you? Put you in a home? People were always at Mum to put you in a home. People always said to her that carting you miles every day to the Training Centre was mad, that she was wearing herself into the ground.

‘You’re nothing now, David. You’re nobody any more. Just a dim-witted little kid that nobody will bother with, that nobody will understand. I can’t look after you, David; I don’t know how. I’ve got to go to school. I’m not fifteen till January 23rd next year. I’ll never be a teacher if I leave school now. All of us are nobodies now. That’s what Gran always says; a woman’s nothing without a man. Well, what are kids without a Mum and Dad? No one to earn the wages or cook the meals. They won’t let kids stay in a house on their own. There’s only Gran and she lives miles away and Dad always reckons she’s too old to raise an arm.

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