‘That didn’t take long,’ said Lilly sadly, hoping that Beth would have written pages and pages to Theo.
‘Not much of a writer,’ said Beth crisply.
‘You should put on lipstick and kiss it,’ said Lilly.
‘Really Mum!’ squealed Beth and the two of them giggled. ‘I don’t have any pots of lipstick.’
‘No — no neither do I,’ said Lilly, wishing she did have such a thing, it might make her feel brighter in these dark times. ‘I have a beetroot though.’
So Beth pressed her lips to half a beetroot and then to the letter, leaving a crimson print on the envelope and she held it with the tips of her fingertips like a tainted thing and let it flutter into the box. Lilly quickly tied up the box to keep the beetroot kiss from escaping.
‘Paul was grumbling again today,’ Beth said as she lifted the box onto the floor. ‘“It isn’t right to employ a married woman and if you must keep working for us, Beth, you will only do so Monday to Friday,”’ she mimicked Paul’s voice.
‘Well, I like having you around on Saturdays and Sundays,’ said Lilly. ‘And you needn’t work at all if you don’t want to. Theo and I are quite capable of supporting you.’
‘So you keep saying, Mum, but working keeps me sane.’
‘Well, as long as you’re happy, dear.’ Lilly thought how lonely she would have been if Beth hadn’t come to live with her and she wondered if Theo had married Beth just so she would have company while he was away. Maybe he had and Beth knew and that was why they didn’t write to each other. She scolded herself and quickly pushed the thought from her mind. That would be a terrible reason for her son to marry. Cross at thinking such a thing, she grabbed a lemon biscuit to push the thought away and instead turned her mind to Maud Blackmarsh.
‘You’ve done a world of good for that girl, Lilly,’ Maud had said to her earlier in the day as she peered over the fence into Lilly’s place as if looking for a secret.
Lilly looked around her garden but couldn’t see anything that hadn’t been there before.
Not finding any secrets, Maud had stared pointedly at Lilly’s house. Lilly had got Theo to paint it a lovely cheery yellow some years back.
‘Are you going to repaint that house?’ she asked, not hiding her distaste.
‘Not while there’s a war on, dearie,’ Lilly said and walked inside, leaving Maud standing at the fence.
Lilly glanced at Beth, sitting up the end of the table again, the click-clack of her knitting needles making a soft comforting rhythm. The girl had grown, her breasts now fell soft and round, her stomach and hips spread out with generous friendliness. She was no longer the slip of a girl she had been when she married. She was what a wife should be: a safe place, a solid woman to come home to, able to make a man feel that his life was grounded and secure.
She thought her Theo would be happy to see Beth filled out. Beth had needed new dresses as her old ones became too tight, so Lilly had sewed them for her. Beth said, ‘Geez, Mum, no one has made dresses for me since I was little’ and then had given her a hug, which made Lilly feel that she really had gained a daughter. The two of them got into a groove of living together. Lilly did the cooking and when Beth got home from her work in Webster Street Lilly would make sure to have something ready and waiting on the stove, and when Beth had eaten the mains there would always be something sweet to top it off, like some pineapple cake or honey joy biscuits. After dinner they would sit in the lounge room near Theo’s piano and knit socks, scarves and balaclavas for the soldiers or make comfort packages to send to the men with tinned delicacies that wouldn’t rot on the long journey to the other side of the world, like condensed milk, tea — anything that they imagined the men wouldn’t be able to buy from stores at the front. And every week Lilly made a special care package for Theo filled with her cooking.
Sunday, 30 May 1915, the day before the Australian Imperial Forces change the rules to accept shorter men.
Edie was reading an article calling for more boys and men to fight for freedom. The rules for enlistment were to be changed starting tomorrow. Now you could enlist from the ages of eighteen to forty-five and you only had to be five feet two inches tall. ‘The war needs you. Wives — let your man defend your honour,’ she read out to Paul. He was writing on a pad of paper in his lap. His hair was greying and his brow more furrowed but he still insisted on righting wrongs when he could.
‘Hmmm,’ said Paul, ‘five and a half thousand boys. That’s how many are needed each month alone to replace the dead. Spring Street is talking about holding a referendum next year on conscription. How can we force boys to walk head on
