The Double Hook by Sheila Watson

Author:Sheila Watson [Watson, Sheila]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-55199-244-0
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2008-08-04T16:00:00+00:00

8

Inside the house Greta put her hand on the door bolt as if to feel its strength. She had stepped back from the window when she’d seen the boy’s eyes on her.

They’re on me now, she said. The pack of them.

What have I done? she asked. What’s a moth done that a man strikes it away from the lamp?

There was no one to answer.

Then she heard William’s voice: They interfere with a man’s proper business. Some eat cloth that’s needed for human flesh.

She heard Angel’s voice: What do you know about moths? You never felt the flame scorch your wings. You never felt nothing.

She began to laugh.

How much is nothing? she thought.

She felt the weight of it in her hands. She turned to Angel’s voice.

You don’t know, she said.

She heard Ara’s voice speaking on the other side of the door: Greta, we’ve come to help.

Then she heard William’s voice, outside now near Ara’s: Let us in and tell us where James has gone. There’s nothing so bad that a few rivets won’t set it in use again.

She felt hands on the knob. She felt hands twisting her ribs. Plucking the flowers on her housecoat and bruising them. Stripping off the leaves until her branch lay naked as a bone on the dusty floor.

She heard Ara’s voice again and the boy Wagner’s: Ask her if she knows anything about Lenchen.

There’s a good girl, Greta, William said. We want to do what we can. Steady on and open the door.

Then she heard voices again, but not what they said. Then the squeak of a boot as someone walked away from the house. Through a crack in one of the door planks she saw the circle of Ara’s hat. Ara sat down like a watchdog on the step.

Greta turned away from the door. She pulled off her housecoat. She rolled it into a ball and stuffed it into the stove. Then she went naked except for her shoes into the pantry and came back with a tin of kerosene.

Ara must have got up from the steps. Greta heard fingers on the door. She heard Ara’s voice: Where’s James, Greta? Tell me what you know about Lenchen and James. The girl’s gone too. We must all help. We want to help you. That’s why we came. Open the door, Greta. The men have gone to the barn.

Greta reached for the matches. She laid the box on the stove and poured kerosene from the tin. The flowers in the stove-box were breathing out fragrance which filled the whole room. They were raising purple faces and lifting green arms into the air above the stove.

She heard Ara’s voice: Tell me what you know about Lenchen.

She wanted to cry abuse through the boards. She wanted to cram the empty space with hate. She wanted her voice to shatter all memory of the girl who had stayed too long, then gone off perhaps to die in the hills. Die suffering so that James would remember the pain of her.

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