The Art of Preserving Love

into focus; her bed, her wardrobe, her dresser and the sad picture of Jesus on the wall that gazed mournfully at her no matter where she was in the room. Sometimes she shut Jesus up by throwing her shawl over his face. She felt sure she had just been dreaming and it was time the stove was lit. She sat up and suddenly the world was a cold place compared to where she had just been. Beth got up from the bed and the room spun and she held her hands to her dizzy head. Maybe she’d got a sickness and needed to get Edie to give her a double dose of Boomerang Tonic for good measure, or maybe she had just spent too much time lying in the warm morning sun. She felt her abdomen murmur uneasily and she rubbed it gently. Then she felt her forehead for fever and decided she was definitely a bit hot and then her head went blank and she gripped the bed to steady herself. It was as though her head had been pulled up into the cloudy mists on top of Mount Buninyong and was lost in grey-white rain clouds. Her brain was full of nothing and everything at the same time, and she suddenly remembered it was a Sunday, the day of Theo Hooley’s visits.

There would be another rose.

Beth breathed deeply until she felt she could stand up without fainting, then grabbed her skirt and bodice from where they hung over the end of her bed. She remembered that Edie had recently given her another hand-me-down and she pulled it from the walnut wardrobe and put it on instead. She slipped her feet into her boots and tied them. Then, down on her hands and knees, she pulled the preserved rose from under the bed, clipped the lid shut and carefully carried the rose back to the laundry, putting it back exactly in its place and making sure to lock the door behind her.

On her way back to the house she gathered kindling from the box under the back verandah and paper from the paper box. She moved the basket of clothes out of the way and lit the kitchen stove. Beth made a pot of tea and because she still felt like she was trying to walk on a tiny boat that was being tossed by tidal waves she poured a cup for herself and sat at the kitchen table and gripped its sides to stop everything moving.

Gracie bounded up and down the hallway, squealing and whooping that it was her birthday, and her noise ricocheted around Beth’s head.

‘Wake up, everybody,’ Gracie hollered as she ran up and down. Her feet thumped the floorboards and rattled the teapot on the kitchen table. She jumped into the kitchen in bunny hops, her hands up like paws, her hair in its rags bouncing in all directions, her eyes eager for the day ahead. She couldn’t keep her balance as she hopped and nearly toppled over and she and Beth laughed.

‘You’re still in your nightgown,’ said Beth, rubbing her head as Gracie hopped around her.

‘It’s my birthday.’ Gracie smiled at Beth. Her six-year-old excitement was contagious and Beth reached out to hug her. Gracie tore into her arms.

‘It’s Gracie’s birthday, remember,’ said Edie, coming into the kitchen in her summer dressing gown, followed by Paul in his night shirt and gown.

‘How could I forget? She’s been reminding us all week,’ Paul said and he motioned to Beth to pour him a cup of tea. But Beth just sat nursing her strange head. Edie looked at her and asked gently, ‘Should I do it?’ Beth nodded and ignored Edie’s concerned gaze. She couldn’t tell them what was wrong with her because she didn’t know herself.

‘Do you know what day it is, Beth?’ asked Gracie, pulling on her sleeve.

‘I don’t think Beth is feeling one hundred per cent, Gracie, perhaps don’t tug at her,’ said Edie

‘Umm — nope, no idea,’ Beth teased.

‘It’s my birthday.’

‘No kidding,’ said Beth and then she looked at the clock and said, ‘Oh my goodness, is that the time? There’s hours yet before your birthday. You weren’t born until the afternoon so you’re not officially six until then and I have to prepare lunch. There’s potatoes to peel and peas to shell and we all have to go to church first.’

Edie offered to help with the lunch but Beth wanted to be alone. She had something to figure out, though she couldn’t work out what. She didn’t want Edie’s concerned looks and questions.

‘I’m sure if I just have some quiet and another cup of tea I’ll be right,’ she said and hoped her brain would sort itself out. Beth was sure she was ill, otherwise she was going mad. When Edie had taken Gracie away to help her dress and Paul had gone off to his room, Beth pulled the potatoes from the sack beside the cooker and began peeling. She cut her thumb because she was watching the clock and not the knife and stood mesmerised by the red running from the cut. She came to her senses and ran her finger under cold water and tied a rag tight around it to stop the bleeding. When the potatoes were cut she started on the pumpkin and lost great chunks of the flesh as she slashed at the tough hide of the pumpkin because she was watching the clock. She shelled the peas but absently ate most of them, distracted by the aching slowness of the hands of the clock. She walked to church in a daze and didn’t hear one word of Reverend Whitlock’s sermon and walked home absentmindedly, occasionally bumping into fences. At one point Paul had to pull her back as she nearly stepped into the path of Doctor Appleby’s new Napier motor car, the only motor vehicle in town.

It was no better when they got home. Beth had forgotten to put the leg of lamb in