The Underworld

On the way to Averley, Martha was aware of the distance between her and her mother. Judith, keeping her eyes on the road ahead, hardly spoke, and when she did – ‘I wonder if the weather will hold,’ ‘Be nice to see Dianne,’ ‘Glad we left early’ – it was more to herself than to Martha. ‘Distance is the magnitude of displacement between two positions,’ Miss Gilbert, Martha’s science teacher, had explained. In regard to her mother Martha felt as if she hardly had a position at all.

She shifted in the seat; her lower back was beginning to ache and the journey in the car was not helping. Really, it ought to be her father in the front beside her mother. Parents belonged in a couple, the way Augustus, founder of the Roman Empire, had paired the deities: Pluto and Proserpina, Mars and Venus, Neptune and Salacia.

She stared out at the traffic, full of families heading north like them, for the break. At least they would be staying with John and Dianne.

An hour later Judith pulled into the drive of their hosts’ beach house in Averley – a large white villa three streets back from the water. Martha climbed out of the car, glad to stretch her legs. John and Dianne Walker were on their way down the stone steps.

‘Hello, Marty.’ Dianne kissed her cheek.

‘Hi, Dianne.’ Martha smiled; out of all her mother’s friends, she liked Dianne the best.

‘I hear you’re doing well at school.’

Martha blushed. Pleased. She was a boarder at Dalheath, in the Southern Highlands, where Dianne herself had once been a student along with Judith. Dianne was now a member of the Dalheath Fellowship, an organisation that connected old girls with the school, and kept up with all the news.

‘You must be proud, Judy,’ Dianne said as John took their cases from the boot.

Martha walked up the steps behind the women. She couldn’t tell if her mother was proud. Her school reports were sent home to Hadleigh but Judith never said a word about what was in them. Babs, Martha’s grandmother, who’d also attended Dalheath, had told Martha numerous times that Dalheath provided something more important than an academic education: ‘Il y a des traditions, depuis des générations . . . un art de vivre . . . de vivre.’ It felt as though her grandmother, who wasn’t French, but at moments liked to speak it, was providing clues to something so right and natural that it oughtn’t to be explained.

Maybe that was why her mother didn’t mention the reports.

‘Lucy will meet us at the beach.’ Dianne ushered them into the house.

‘Perfect,’ said Judith. The circle of friends who gathered for Easter all came from her mother’s side. Judith was from a good family. Unlike her father. ‘After all, raised by a single mother . . .’ Babs would say, sitting on the balcony with Tutu, her Pomeranian Shih tzu cross, on her lap: ‘I have all the admiration in the world, but that doesn’t alter the facts. Judith’s mind was made up, of course. What could I do?’

Her parents had met at a fundraising event called the Diamond Ball, where Judith had arrived on the arm of another man. ‘Hamish Petersen,’ said Babs. ‘What a pair, your mother in the georgette cream beside Hamish in black tie. He’s married to Trudy West’s daughter now, of course; lucky Trudy. Your mother came home from the ball looking defiant. Nothing could touch her now. Certainly not me. I called Hamish’s mother and she informed me that my daughter had given all her attention to a newcomer.’

Andrew Mullins, Martha’s father, had grown up in Rencroft, an outer western suburb of Sydney. ‘A town famous for its fire engines,’ Babs said.

Dianne showed Martha to her room. ‘You’ll have this part of the house to yourself, Martha,’ she said, helping her to lift her case onto the luggage rack. ‘I just feel sorry you’ll be the only young person here this weekend.’

John and Dianne’s two boys were away with friends and though Dianne was apologetic, Martha was relieved. They were a little older than her and she was shy around them. She was an only child. In primary school, she’d thought her mother might have another. A sister, perhaps. Why was there never another? Was it because of her? Her parents had no siblings either. Maybe being an only child was hereditary. Once, when she was much younger, she’d asked her grandmother, ‘Why don’t I have a sister?’ Her grandmother had looked at her sadly. ‘C’est comme ça, insensé,’ she’d said with a sigh. It seemed to Martha that a family was made from a set of questions not to ask.

In maths, the girls had been studying geometry. Mrs Manning said that there was no shape stronger than the triangle, due to its having three angles. It was the only polygon that, if constructed from metal, would remain rigid, withstanding any amount of pressure. It felt to Martha poor compensation.

Her window looked on to the Walkers’ backyard. There was the boys’ treehouse and swing-set, long since outgrown. Martha drew the blind and lay down on the double bed, a hand to her aching back. She wished she’d been allowed to stay at school. Only the small number of girls whose families lived in the city, like her and Fiona, returned home for Easter. She envied the others still there: the long walks they’d be taking into Calver South – the bushland Emmaline Calver had acquired with the settlement in 1908 – the almost-empty dining hall, the hours devoted to lying on beds reading and drawing. She could have spent Easter learning more about Roman religion. Miss Brinkotter had explained to her class that the Romans were ‘polytheistic’, which meant they worshipped multiple gods and goddesses. There was one for almost every aspect of Roman life, even doorways.

-

Dianne had prepared coffee and slices of chocolate torte, which she served on the balcony. For Martha she’d bought hot cross buns and lemon squash.

As Martha sipped from her drink, she caught the scent of Gratelle on the breeze, her mother’s fragrance. One minute it reminded her of roses, the next jasmine, the next another note, unnameable and uniquely Judith’s. The scent was a mystery. Like a pathway to a house you could never reach.

She looked up at the cloudy sky, grateful, at least, for the weather –there’d be no sunbathing or swimming. She was a weak swimmer, and self-conscious in her swimming costume. She wasn’t sure she was developing at the same rate as other girls in her year – probably because she was one of the youngest. She picked at the sultanas in her Easter bun and looked out to sea. Just before the break Miss Brinkotter had introduced the girls to the underworld, the place where the Ancient Romans believed everybody went after they died. It was a realm invisible to the living and deeper than any ocean. It was, in fact, underneath all human life.

Miss Brinkotter explained that the idea of the Roman underworld originated in Greek mythology but that cultures preceding the Greeks also had underworlds; that the idea of an underworld was as old as humanity itself; and that there were words for the underworld in almost every ancient religion and culture. In Hinduism it was called Patala, and was believed to be more beautiful than heaven, filled with jewellery and lakes. In Egyptian mythology the underworld was called Duat and was ruled by Osiris, who lived there alongside lots of other gods, some of whom were demonic. The ancient Mesopotamian underworld in 6000 bc, named Irkalla, was a dark cavern deep under the earth reached by a long staircase.

‘How’s Andrew?’ John was asking her mother. Dr John Walker was a cardiologist at St Vincent’s Hospital in the city.

‘He’s well,’ Judith answered, breaking off a small piece of torte. ‘Working hard, of course.’

‘That’s where Martha gets it from, isn’t it, Marty?’ Dianne said, warmly.

Martha smiled. Shrugged.

‘I read in the paper that Ampol has just opened its Research and Development Laboratory,’ said John. ‘Full steam ahead, apparently. Lytton, too.’

‘Yes . . . He came on board at the right time.’ Judith sipped her coffee.

Andrew, Martha’s father, was an accountant for Ampol, and had also taken on a consultancy role at Lytton, the refinery Ampol had opened in Brisbane. Martha had seen his photograph in the newspaper; he was shaking hands with a senior executive. ‘Lytton needs Andrew Mullins, and is willing to pay.’

‘Regardless of how much wealth one acquires, one can’t change where one is from. Il y a des choses que l’argent ne peut pas acheter,’ her grandmother had said to Martha, the ice tinkling in her glass. ‘One might spend one’s life in the pursuit of a goal that can’t be attained.’

Is that what her father was trying to do? Change where he was from? Or did Babs mean her father couldn’t properly attain Judith? Martha was confused.

‘Well, Judy, it’s a shame he couldn’t be here.’ Dianne finished her coffee.

‘He’s afraid I’ll beat him on the green,’ John said. ‘He’s in hiding.’

‘You might just be right, John.’

Judith never said a word about her father’s absence in Averley. Martha wasn’t sure whether that meant it mattered more, or less. Did her mother agree with Dianne, Martha wondered, that it was a shame her father couldn’t be here? She turned back to the horizon. The adult world was vast and mysterious; the adults themselves only ever providing hints. All the things that weren’t explained, the questions that couldn’t be asked, swirled like underwater currents, impossible to detect with the naked eye; like rips that could drag a child out to sea.

Dianne stood and began to gather the empty plates. ‘Lucy’s waiting for us on the beach,’ she said to Judith. ‘Coming, Martha?’

Martha knew she was expected to join the women. She only wished she could read while doing so, but of course it would be impolite. Her novel, The Gard of Glenforth by Susan Priestley, would have to wait.

-

If there was ever a time when Martha and Judith were close, it was before Martha started school. When she was a very little baby – Babs had told her the stories – Judith would take her to Ryde Pool, where they would both go underwater. Martha, in her mother’s arms, would open her eyes and gaze at her, Babs crying from the side, ‘Judith!’

How many times had Babs shared the story? Judith! The infant will drown! Mother and daughter beneath the surface, eyes open.

But once Martha grew older and began to speak for herself, it must have been clear that she would not have the same looks as Judith, would not reach the same height, would not behave in the same way. Perhaps each time her mother saw her, she was a reminder of something. But what? At that point the magnitude between their two positions seemed to increase significantly. Martha’s heavy bag of library books. Her peculiar interests. Her shyness. It seemed Judith had the wrong daughter.