Book of Lost Threads

14
Sandy and Rosie Sandilands

THE NEXT MORNING, SANDY SAT at his computer, swearing softly. He was sure he’d read the article in the last couple of years. He googled ‘stillbirths’. He refined his search: ‘stillbirths Melbourne’. There was a lot of medical information but no historical references. He tried again. ‘Stillbirths, Melbourne, 1940–44.’ This search turned up a little historical information, but not what he was seeking. He searched ‘Melbourne Hospital for Women’. Plenty here, but no link to stillbirths. He tried ‘Melbourne General Cemetery’. No information at all, beyond a map that marked out the multitude of reference points for gravesites. Bugger! He knew he’d read somewhere of a memorial service at the Melbourne General Cemetery for parents whose stillborn babies had been buried in unmarked graves.
He got up to find the chocolate biscuits he always kept as a bulwark against frustration, and stood looking out his window. He finished the first biscuit and reached for a second. The early spring sky, blue and cloudless, mocked the parched paddocks. He watched a flock of galahs crowding on the telephone wire, their sheet-metal screeches shredding the air. Of course. Old technology! He’d ring the cemetery. That was his best bet. He hurried to the phone.
‘Yes,’ a woman’s voice responded. ‘There are several neonatal sites scattered throughout the cemetery. They’re looked after by the SANDS group.’
‘SANDS?’
‘Stillborn and Neonatal Death Support. I have their phone number.’ She read it out to him and he wrote it on a post-it note. ‘Now, do you have any information at all about this baby?’
‘As far as I know, the baby was taken and buried without a name. Probably some time in 1941 or maybe ’42. My mother tried to find out once, and the hospital told her that the babies were buried in common graves—no plaques or headstones or anything.’
‘That’s right. You might try the hospital again,’ the woman said doubtfully, ‘although I believe their record-keeping wasn’t too brilliant at the time. There was a war on, remember.’
Sandy thanked her and hung up. He decided that his best course of action was to visit the cemetery. That might give him some information he could work on. He told Moss his plan and asked if she’d like to come. Bored and restless, she agreed.
‘I could help you, and visit Linsey at the same time,’ she said.
When he invited Finn, he was startled at the response. The other man’s face rapidly registered shock and shame. Then confusion.
Finn’s last visit had been to seek out Amber-Lee’s grave, but the sight of the raw mound on the fringes of the cemetery had been more than he could bear. Not far away, elaborate tombstones and well-tended burial plots turned their backs on the graves of the poor and nameless. He had stood beside the mound and promised he’d be back, that he’d rescue her from this awful obscurity. But although he never forgot her, he hadn’t kept his promise. And with this new opportunity, failed to do so again.
‘I just can’t,’ he mumbled in distress. ‘Maybe another time.’
Leaving the small car park that adjoined the main gates, Sandy and Moss went into the gothic-style bluestone building that housed the cemetery’s administration. The young woman at reception was helpful, giving them a map on which she marked the various sites where the infant graves could be found.
‘You’ll find some commemorative plaques,’ she said, ‘but very few compared to the thousands buried there.’
As they were about to leave, Moss asked on impulse, ‘Where are the public graves?’
‘You won’t find those any more. They used to be around the perimeter fence, here and here.’ She circled the locations apologetically. ‘There’s no marker or anything. The plots have been reclaimed.’
Moss ignored Sandy’s raised eyebrows and scanned the map with feigned concentration. She felt sick at heart to think of the total annihilation suffered by the inhabitants of those graves.
‘Come on, love,’ said Sandy. ‘Let’s do what we came here to do.’
The cemetery was bristling with tombstones, which grew from the earth like rows of grey teeth, some carious and crooked with age, others straight and perfectly aligned. The graves came one upon another in tight formation, with their crosses and angels, their stars of David, their Chinese characters; some with photographs, some with plastic flowers, a few with fresh blooms. There were tall monuments crowned with kneeling angels, arms crossed and heads bowed. Other angels held a trumpet to their stone lips. Silent trumpets: it was not yet time to waken the dead.
They passed the Elvis memorial beside which sixty-year-olds in tight T-shirts and leather jackets posed for photographs. They passed the grand tombs of Melbourne’s forefathers, and graves of the humble whose names were all but obliterated. They walked in silence until Sandy, who had the map, indicated that they should leave the main road and take a narrow path to the right. There were no signposts, and it was almost by chance that they came across the place they’d been seeking.
It was a small space under two peppercorn trees. There had possibly once been a lawn, but now a few lone weeds struggled in the hard soil. There was a wooden bench and four stones studded with brass plaques. The largest stone was inscribed with the words:
Never held. Never seen.
But never forgotten.
Cherished but not cradled.
The other plaques had names and dates and expressions of loss all the more poignant for their simplicity. We had a home ready for you, Moss read on one unadorned plaque. There were a few weathered toys, and two bunches of fresh flowers that had been placed there quite recently. As there were no dates after 1972, these fresh flowers were a testament to the longevity of grief. Moss could see the elderly mothers and fathers after forty, fifty years, still mourning their loss, visiting the baby they had never seen. Most of the plaques had no name, just dates: the birth day and death day of anonymous children. She sat down on the seat with Sandy and looked at the colourless sky, shivering as the cold wind moved through the trailing branches of the peppercorn trees.
‘There’s not much more we can do here,’ said Sandy at last, heaving himself up with a sigh. Moss took some blooms from the flowers she had brought for Linsey and placed them gently beside the nearest memorial. Their warm yellow contrasted with the cold grey stone, creating a momentary illusion of sunlight.
They retraced their steps to the entrance and stopped at the row of walls where ashes were immured. Moss checked a piece of paper and found her way to Linsey’s commemorative plaque. It was the first time she’d visited since the memorial service, and she read the inscription with dismay. In this last tribute to the life of her mother, she was not even mentioned. Felicity couldn’t have chosen a better way to hurt her.
Moss arranged her flowers with numb fingers. It’s no more than I deserve, she thought. But I did love you, Mother Linsey. You have to understand that I just couldn’t take the bullying. She paused mid-thought as realisation dawned. I guess you faced your share of bullies and bigots too. Maybe you understood more than I imagined.
Moss glanced back at Sandy in mute apology for the delay.
‘Take all the time you need, love,’ he said.
Moss turned back to the wall. ‘I’m glad I sang for you, Mother Linsey,’ she whispered. ‘If it weren’t for you, I would never have found the discipline.’ She paused. All at once, Felicity’s words came back to her. Her exact words. Linsey’s last request was that you sing at her funeral. At the time, Moss was still in shock and had not heeded the significance of these words. Linsey had wanted her to sing. Linsey had known she would sing. Had her mother sent her a message through Felicity? And if she had, did it mean that Linsey had forgiven her?
Moss spread her palm over the plaque. The cold metal resisted her touch.
‘I’m sorry, Mother Linsey. I’m so sorry.’
‘Come on, love,’ said Sandy gruffly. ‘It’s okay.’ But reminded of his mother’s epitaph, he knew it wasn’t okay at all.
Leaving the cemetery, they drove a short distance to a café, where they ordered coffee and sandwiches.
‘I have the phone number of the organisation that set up the memorial,’ Sandy told Moss. ‘We don’t know if the site we saw is where Aunt Lily’s baby was buried or if it was one of the others. This group might be able to help us. There’s no point in getting the poor old thing’s hopes up.’ In fact, Sandy had another source of information but chose not to tell Moss. It wasn’t his secret to share.
As soon as he returned home, Sandy went to what had been his mother’s sewing room. He stopped in the doorway and looked at the mess. Rosie had been fond of sewing, and when she died, her fabrics, cottons and notions had been bundled into two plastic garbage bags for donation to the charity shop. Neither Sandy nor his father had bothered to deliver them, and the bags now shared the space with boxes of magazines, old ledgers, books and sundry household items too good to throw out but not good enough to use. Rosie’s sewing machine was still there. He remembered how happy she’d been to trade her old Singer treadle for an electric model. Now it sat there, its bland plastic cover casting a dumb reproach.
I should’ve given Mum’s sewing machine away, Sandy thought. She’d call this a wicked waste.
But it was not the sewing machine that he’d come for. He went to the window seat and, sneezing violently, threw the dusty cushions onto the floor so that he could access the lid. He took a screwdriver from his pocket. The screws had rusted over the years, but they yielded one by one. He wheezed a little as he stood up and stretched his back. Even with good intentions, he felt reluctant to expose his mother’s secrets.
Children living in a violent or conflicted household learn invisibility at a very early age. Sandy Sandilands was no exception, and he managed to move shadow-like through his childhood, avoiding any unnecessary contact with his parents. He must have been about eight when he first saw his mother opening this window seat and placing a book inside before screwing down the lid. He remembered his main feeling at the time was surprise to see that his mother could use a screwdriver. The Major liked to ensure that she was reliant upon him for everything. He sensed that this was a secret, and was guiltily glad to know that his father was out on the tractor. He slipped away, and thought no more about it until some years later when he came upon his mother writing at her small sewing table. She looked up with a start, protecting the book with her hands. There was fear in her eyes. She didn’t need to speak; Sandy understood. ‘Don’t worry, Mum. I won’t tell.’ And he never did.
That was one of only three occasions when his mother had entrusted him with a secret. The second time occurred when he was about fourteen, and she was helping him to pack for the new school term. The Major, of course, was nowhere to be seen. There’s women’s work and there’s men’s work, he always said.
‘Sandy,’ his mother approached him timidly. ‘I need to ask a favour.’ His nod was neutral, but she continued. ‘I’m afraid it means keeping a secret from your father.’ Sandy’s reading had recently taken on a racier tone. Good Lord, he thought, was his mother going to confess to an affair? He foolishly hoped she was. These romantic hopes were dashed when she gave him a letter to be sent to the Melbourne Hospital for Women, in which, she told him, she was making enquiries as to the possible whereabouts of Lily’s baby’s grave.
‘Men don’t understand these things,’ Rosie said. ‘I’m afraid your father might think I’m an interfering fool.’ She looked steadily at her son. ‘I’ve asked that the reply be sent care of you, at school. You can give it to me when you see me at half-term. Will you help me, Sandy? It’s for Aunt Lily.’
Sandy was really afraid of his father by that time, and he visualised the consequences of participating in this deception. He wanted to say no, and that she was a fool to risk discovery.
What made her think she could trust him not to tell? But she did trust him, and after all the times he had implicitly or explicitly sided with his father, this was a rather wonderful foolishness. For once he felt worthwhile.
‘Okay,’ he said roughly. ‘Give it here. I’ll post it from the station. It’s alright, I won’t tell the old man.’ But he pulled away as she kissed him.
The third time, just before her death, Rosie told him about the books in the window seat. ‘My journals,’ she whispered, still afraid. ‘I had no-one to talk to, you see. Please destroy them for me.’
Again, ‘Okay, Mum.’ But his voice was kinder. ‘I’ll do the right thing, I promise.’
When the time came, though, Sandy couldn’t bring himself to destroy the journals. They were all he had left of his mother’s life, and he safeguarded them from all prying eyes, including his own. So they lay where she left them: under the cushions in the window seat. Biding their time until her son came, screwdriver in hand, to retrieve them.
Sandy hadn’t made this decision lightly, and had set himself some ground rules. Firstly, he would only access the book or books from around the time the letter was sent to the hospital. Then he would scan the entries as quickly as possible, looking for keywords like baby, Lily, hospital, letter, grave—words that would point to the information he was seeking. In all other ways, he would respect his mother’s privacy. He was only doing this to help Aunt Lily, he told his mother.
There were nearly thirty books in all, stacked in three neat piles; some were covered in black or green or blue cloth, others were no more than exercise books, but all were meticulously dated. Some were tied with ribbon. Sandy’s hand hovered over these. They were the earlier ones, when Rosie was still a hopeful young girl. He picked up the top book and, despite his vow to the contrary, couldn’t resist reading a little of his mother’s early married life. The first book was marked 1936, and Sandy was surprised at the emotion he felt as he scanned the first page.
12 March. Arrived home today. Our honeymoon was wonderful but I can’t wait to settle into real married life. Father and Lily met us at the station. Lily had prepared tea but George said we had to go straight home. I think they were a little disappointed, but George was understandably eager to bring me to our home. He’s so practical. I asked if he was going to carry me over the threshold and he said that it was all women’s nonsense. But he kissed me and called me his little duffer. I can’t believe that I live in such a fine house. It needs a woman’s touch, though.
13 March. George was gone when I woke but last night he was very masterful as we . . .
Sandy snapped the journal shut and mentally begged his mother’s pardon. He felt he might be on safer ground in the war years and shuffled through the pile to find 1943.
12 May. George has returned to camp, and I feel such relief. It is a sin, I know, to feel so about one’s husband. He has very little patience now with his little duffer. I feel he has lost all affection for me, and if it weren’t for the conjugal act I fear he would barely tolerate me. Thank God I have been able to provide him with a son.
13 August. I went with Father to visit Lily today. My sister is so unhappy in that place. If ours were a different household I would bring her straight home and care for her here. Why must good men like Arthur die in this horrible war while George . . .
14 August. I am so ashamed of my entry for yesterday. George is an excellent provider and we want for nothing. I pray that he will return safely.
Be careful what you pray for, Sandy thought grimly. So it had taken only five short years for his father to reduce his new bride to the timid, apologetic ghost he remembered. He was sickened, but a dreadful fascination impelled him to continue. He picked up the next volume and opened it at random.
19 June. I couldn’t go to church today. My back still aches from George’s blows. He would have forced me to go with him but my cheek is bruised from where he pushed me down the steps. He’s usually more careful. Now he blames me for bruising where it might show. I’m not able . . .
Sandy sat in the room that had been his mother’s refuge and felt a terrible desolation. There, in his mother’s handwriting, was the truth he had always denied. For the first time since his father’s death, he looked, really looked, at his childhood. He saw his mother’s pretty face become more ravaged, more haggard, as she strained to please her jeering, violent husband. He saw the warning in her eyes, felt the protective hands tighten on his small shoulders, tasted the treats she offered to sweeten the bitterness of their lives. Ashamed, he heard his youthful self speaking to her in his father’s voice. He saw the bruises and the tears he’d chosen to ignore. Yes, he had been a frightened child at first, but as he grew older, he’d joined the oppressor. He could have found a job and taken his mother away, but he was too craven, and in the end too complicit, to challenge his father’s power. And now, he realised, he was planning to build a memorial to the war hero who abused his own wife and all but stole her child.
Sandy had disciplined his memories for years, refusing to face the truth of his past. Occasionally dreams or rogue memories breached his defences, but he learned to put them aside, unaware of a slag heap of suppressed emotion that was becoming dangerously unwieldy. Now it collapsed, and he was horrified to see the slimy, eyeless creatures that lay hidden there.
Unable to continue reading, he went down to the kitchen and made a coffee laced with a generous portion of whisky. Then he sat on the sofa and had three more whiskies, neat this time. Finally, he went to bed with the bottle and fell into a drunken sleep.
The next day he awoke with a dry mouth and throbbing head, cursing the whisky, which always gave him a hangover, even when drunk in moderation. He made some strong coffee and went outside. The morning was crisp and clear, with some frost evident on the ground, on which there were pathetically few green shoots. The sky was cloudless: a hard, uncompromising blue. A flock of marauding galahs was attacking the old wooden shed by the home paddock. He thought of getting his shotgun—I’ll blow them to pink and grey pieces—but he was too weary to move. Instead, he sat on the verandah and gazed out at the dry, flat terrain. I am a great galah. You were right there, Dad. Maybe I should use the shotgun on myself. I’m just a great, useless galah.
Staring out across the paddocks, he ignored the phone the first time it rang. I’ll tell you one thing, Dad: there’ll be no Great Galah now. When I die, you’ll be forgotten, you f*cking bastard. Anger energised him and when the phone rang again ten minutes later, he got up to answer it. It was Moss.
‘Sandy,’ she said. ‘I’ve been thinking. I’d like to help Finn the way you’re trying to help your Aunt Lily.’
Sandy was puzzled for a moment. He’d actually forgotten the reason he’d looked at the journals in the first place. That’d be right. Too busy with my own problems.
‘Sandy? Are you there? I want to find out who Amber-Lee really is . . . Sandy?’
‘Amber-Lee? Who’s she?’
So Finn hadn’t confided in anyone else. ‘Just someone Finn knew once. She was buried at the City General,’ she said vaguely. ‘How are you going with Mrs Pargetter’s baby?’
‘Nothing yet,’ he replied. ‘I’ll get back to you if I have any news.’
‘The least I can do for Mum is to finish the job,’ he muttered to himself as he hung up. ‘I owe it to Aunt Lily too. I think she was the only person who really loved Mum.’
He returned to the sewing room and rummaged through the diaries to find the year he estimated the events took place. There it was: 1954. He opened it at random and then closed it again, taking it out to the kitchen where he made himself another coffee. After yesterday’s revelations, he felt like a guilty child and didn’t want to read it in his mother’s room.
It was the beginning of the second term, he recalled, skimming the pages. They were packing football gear and his winter blazer. His eye caught an initial and he was unable to resist reading on.
9 May. I have entrusted the correspondence to S. He’ll do the right thing, I know. He has a good heart, despite his father’s influence. I must be patient and wait. I do miss my boy when he’s at school, but it’s safer there. G is becoming surlier by the day and this is such an unhappy house. I’m glad the bruises were gone by the time S got home for the holidays. He’s so fond of his father. Perhaps in time he will see things more clearly. I was right to trust him. I’m sure I was right . . .
Such a little thing to ask . . . Sandy felt shame seep out through his pores where it lay, a clammy film on his skin. He read on.
10 June. S came home today for the long weekend. He has grown even taller in the last couple of months. Bought some linctus for his nasty cough. I’d like to know if they give him enough blankets at night but I daren’t ask him. Sandy winced. No letter from the hospital. Poor Lily . . .
He moved on to the September break.
22 September. S home tomorrow. Have made cream sponge and some chocolate slices. G seems a bit mellower at the moment. I hope he stays that way while S is home.
23 September. S home. Taller than ever. He’s put on even more weight. I’m sure he’ll grow out of it. Neither his father nor I carry any weight. His school report was good. Nearly all As. He doesn’t take after me, thank goodness. I never was a scholar. Not sure if S has a letter from the hospital. Will wait until G goes into town tomorrow.
24 September. The hospital has been no use at all. They say that the baby would have been buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery, but have no records of the birth. I was hoping we would at least know if it was a boy or a girl. Poor little mite may as well have never existed. I don’t know what else I can do. Surely there are records somewhere? If only George were more sympathetic. He has a way of getting things done. But I daren’t ask.
Sandy sighed and closed the diary. He felt immeasurably older. The temptation was to succumb to weariness and sleep for days, weeks, forever . . . it didn’t matter. But having read her journal, Sandy knew that he owed it to his mother to carry through with his plan. Soft and flaccid on the outside, he had a small, hard core of courage, and he called upon it again now as he had when, as a frightened schoolboy, he agreed to post the letter.
If there were no records in 1954, it was unlikely that there’d be any now. Nevertheless, he fished in his wallet for the crumpled note on which he’d jotted down the phone number, and dialled the Stillborn and Neonatal Death Support group.
The volunteer introduced herself as Eva. ‘Record-keeping was very poor in those days,’ she affirmed. ‘You say your mother tried to trace the baby through the hospital records?’
‘Yes, but with no luck. You’d think there’d be something.’
‘You have to remember that stillborn babies were not really regarded as children by the medical and legal authorities. They had no understanding of how a parent might grieve. We try to support these parents as best we can, but to be honest, it’s very hard to locate babies born in the forties. You can usually only do it through the mother’s medical records, but if you’ve already tried that . . .’
‘What do you suggest, then?’
‘You could take your aunt to one of the communal burial sites at the cemetery. They’re scattered through the various denominations. Did she attend church at the time?’
‘Church of England. She still plays the organ.’
‘Well, perhaps if you took her to the Church of England area . . . She may find some comfort there. I’m sorry I haven’t been much help. I can send you some information about our support groups, if you like.’
‘Thank you. You’ve been a great help. Much appreciated.’
Sandy replaced the receiver and wrote a generous cheque to the support group on behalf of his mother and aunt. He addressed the envelope, began to rise, then sank back into the chair, irresolute. Perhaps he was stirring up things that should be left to lie? There was very little to tell. Lily’s baby boy, or girl, may or may not have been buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery, possibly in the Church of England site. Should he take this meagre offering to his aunt or just let her be? She was eighty-three and becoming frail. He felt unequal to the responsibility and decided to talk to Moss and Finn. They’d know what to do.