The Swan's Egg

By Zenda Vecchio

This is seventeen-year-old Ruth’s story of her determination to find a place for herself in a world very different from the one she had imagined as a child.

Zenda Vecchio is an award-winning South Australian author whose numerous short stories and poems have been published in a variety of literary journals and magazines. She has ha

• Language: English
• Publisher: Debbie Lee
• Release date: Sep 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781760412180

Zenda Vecchio

Zenda Vecchio is an award-winning South Australian writer whose numerous short stories and poems have appeared in a variety of literary journals and magazines as well as collections published by Ginninderra Press. She is the author of three novels - Listen for the Nightingale and Becoming Kirsty-Lee, both for young adults, and the semi-autobiographical The Swan's Egg.

Book preview

Chapter One

The kitchen’s too big. Unfriendly. I look around me, frowning. Hard surfaces of bench and sink and stove. The blank eyes of the windows. For a moment I hesitate and almost go back to my room. But…but…I set my books carefully out on the table and sit down. With the door open I can hear them from here. Mum. My sister Isabel. Marley. All of them watching television with Sir Angus in his room. Voices. Laughter. A connection so I’m not alone. I feel my mouth quiver and I clench my hands in my lap until my nails dig into my palms and I have to stop. ‘It’s all right,’ I tell myself. ‘It’s all right,’ and, reassured, I reach for my pen.

German first. Max Frisch. Andorra. I close my eyes for a moment so I can see them: Barblin, the doomed Andri, all the others surrounding them like dark shadows, the Soldier, the Carpenter, the Teacher. I start writing. ‘The theme of the play is summed up by the priest when he says, "Du sollst dir kein Bildnis machen…"’ German’s easier this year. I feel myself grimace. After almost four years, it ought to be.

I’ve almost finished my essay when my mother comes in. She glances at me and her mouth purses but she doesn’t say anything until she’s plugged in the kettle and organised cups and saucers on a tray. ‘Shouldn’t you be in your room? It’s cold in here.’

‘My room’s just as cold.’

‘I suppose so.’ She comes closer and peers over my shoulder. ‘What’s that you’re doing?’

‘German.’

She goes back to the hissing kettle. ‘I don’t know why you’re bothering. The hours you waste with your books. You ought to leave school now and get a job like Beatrice Anderson’s daughter, Sally.’

‘I want to go to university.’

‘Want. Oh yes, want. You’re good at that. Wanting what you can’t have.’

‘I’ll get a scholarship. That will pay for it.’

‘What if you don’t? What then?’

I duck my head and watch my pen draw tight little spirals down the margin of my notebook. ‘I got one last year for Intermediate. You didn’t even think I’d pass.’

Grim-mouthed, she reaches for the tea caddy. ‘That’s not the point. Sir Angus thinks you should give it up. He thinks all this studying is making you unhappy.’

‘He’s never said that to me. He’s said…’

‘Well, he’s saying it now and you ought to take notice. He’s an old man and he’s done a lot for you.’

I lift my head and force my eyes to meet hers. ‘He said he was proud of me. He said he hoped I’d win out because I was single-minded. He said I was like him.’

She’s angry now. The colour blazes in her cheeks but she doesn’t say anything. She can’t. She’s got too many secrets and she’s not sure how many Isabel and I have guessed. My lips twist. My respectable, church-going mother, Jean Halliday, Sir Angus’s housekeeper. I make my mouth smile but my eyes go on watching her until she turns away, discomforted.

After a moment, she tries again. ‘Sir Angus said you could stay home here with us like Isabel.’ Her hands falter among the teacups. ‘Wouldn’t you like that, Ruth? Nothing to worry about like…like when you were little.’

‘I’m not like Isabel.’

‘Yes, well…’

‘Anyway, I thought you said before you wanted me to get a job like Sally Anderson.’

The shuttered look’s back on her face. It’s like she thinks she’s given me enough of herself. When she talks to Isabel, she’s not like this. She trusts Isabel.

‘You do what you like, Ruth. You will anyway. I don’t care.’

Even though she leaves the door open, she’s spoiled something. I’m as alone as if I’d stayed in my own room at the other end of the house.

Winter is almost over. The end of July and after that August. On the way home from school, a little wild tree, its branches embroidered over with dark red buds. I stand by the kitchen window staring out at the darkness. Behind me, at the sink, Isabel’s scrubbing at a burnt saucepan.

‘Mum’s going with Sir Angus next week to Port Augusta.’

I put the plate I’ve been wiping down on the bench and reach for another. It’s one of the old ones, green with a border of yellow daisies. I tilt it so the light slides across it. Spring. Daisies in spring. Sighing, I give my attention to Isabel. ‘Why? Why’s he taking her and not you? You always go.’

Isabel turns her face away. ‘I don’t know. Auntie Daphne wrote and asked for it to be her.’

‘But she doesn’t like Mum. Remember that letter she wrote when Sir Angus was in hospital? She said…’

‘Oh, Ruth, that was ages ago. They’ve got over that.’

‘I haven’t. And if I were Mum I wouldn’t go. I’d…‘

‘Mum wants to go. She’s all excited. A holiday, she says. Auntie Daphne’s always coming here but Mum’s never been there.’

‘She isn’t our aunt. We’re too old to call her aunt now.’

‘She’s Sir Angus’s daughter. That counts for something, Mum says. Anyway, we ought to call her Aunt. It’s only polite.’

‘Her children don’t call Mum Aunt. They…’ I stop suddenly. My hands are shaking. I stare at them. It’s like they don’t belong to me.

I turn my head quickly to where my books are already spread out across the table. My books define me. They have to. I’ve got nothing else. I press my lips together and push my hair back from my face. Other people, the girls at school, Virginia and Carole and Nicky and Jill, they’ve got families, proper families. I want to be like them. I want to say, shrugging as if it doesn’t matter, ‘My father,’ ‘My little sister.’ or…or…’ My parents have gone to Port Augusta to stay with my Aunt Daphne…’

I take another plate and concentrate on wiping it. ‘What’s going to happen to us?’ I ask at last. ‘I mean, when they’ve gone. What are we going to do?’

‘Do? What do you mean, do? We’ll stay here. It’s only a week.’

‘Marley? They’re taking Marley?’

‘Course not. Why would they? Marley and you’ll go to school like always.’

‘But…’ I hesitate. Even when I’m looking at her, I can’t tell what Isabel’s thinking. ‘You’ll be here all day by yourself. You won’t like that. You know you won’t.’

Isabel shrugs. She upends the saucepan on the draining board, swirls the water round the sink with the dish-mop and jerks out the plug. ‘Lyn Evans has promised to give me some more piano lessons. I can go there.’

‘I guess.’

‘You’ll be here in the evenings anyway, you and Marley. It’ll be good. There’s the ducks of course. I’ll have to see to them but that won’t take long.’

She sounds like someone else. Competent. As if she’s worked everything out and knows what to do. The other Isabel, I think, the one she used to be before she got sick. Or…or the one she could be now if…if…

I nod but I don’t say anything. I don’t like thinking about what’s happened to Isabel.

They leave early Tuesday morning. Isabel, Marley and I go down to the side gate to see them off. The car bumps along the driveway, hesitates a moment and then swings bravely out into the traffic.

‘Well. That’s that,’ says Isabel. ‘I thought we’d never get rid of them.’

‘Yes.’ I turn to her suddenly. ‘Oh, Izzie, it’s like we’re the Famous Five and the adventure’s about to begin.’

Marley lifts a small, frowning face and pulls at my arm. ‘Who, Ruth? Who’d you say we were?’

The three weird sisters. I don’t say it, though. Instead, I grab her hands and whirl her around. ‘Doesn’t matter, Kitten-face. We’re going to have fun, fun, fun.’

Isabel’s laughing too. ‘Come on, you two. Hurry up and get your things and I’ll drive you to school in the Volkswagen.’

Chapter Two

When I get home from school, Marley’s standing on a box at the sink washing dishes. She turns when she hears me and her face brightens. ‘Ruth, Ruth, come and see what we’ve found for you.’ She grabs my hand and pulls me round the other side of the table. ‘See. It was in the shed. A little heater. Isabel’s going to fill it with kerosene and you can sit by it while you’re doing your homework.’

‘That’ll be good. Where is Isabel?’

‘Feeding the ducks. She wanted me to help but,’ she wrinkles her nose, ‘I don’t like ducks. They smell. I’m doing the dishes instead.’

‘So I see.’

‘When she comes in, we’re having tea. Sausage rolls. I helped make them.’

She’s all flushed with pride. I clear a space at the end of the table and start unpacking my books. Something wrenches inside me. She ought to look like this all the time. Instead… I tighten my mouth and snap shut the locks on my satchel.

‘And, and, Ruth…’ Now she’s started, she can’t stop. ‘Guess what? Isabel says we can sleep in Sir Angus’s bed, her and me, and watch television till really late. She said she asked Sir Angus and he said we could.’ Suddenly her face changes and she hesitates. ‘You…you won’t mind will you, Ruth, being all by yourself in your room with none of us near?’

‘Of course not.’

‘I would.’ Her lips quiver. ‘I wouldn’t like it up there by myself in the dark.’

I laugh to reassure her but even to myself my laughter sounds forced. ‘Oh, Marley, I’ve told you before, I like the dark. It’s friendly. It helps me think.’

‘No.’ Her eyes have widened and I know I’ve said too much. ‘No. Mummy…she…she…’

I kneel down in front of her and put my arms around her. ‘It’s all right now, Marley. Nothing bad’s going to happen to you here. Sir Angus promised your grandfather.’ I reach up and trace down the curve of her cheek. ‘Why, you’re our little sister now, mine and Isabel’s.’

Her eyes are still remembering but she lets herself lean against me. I can feel her heart beating, trapped birds, hers and mine together, but I don’t want it to be like that. I don’t want to feel close to her. I don’t want to feel close to anyone. ‘Come on,’ I say softly. ‘You finish off the dishes and I’ll set the table.’

All of a sudden, Isabel’s back. Without even taking off her boots, she clatters through to the kitchen and holds something out to me. ‘Look, Ruth. Look what I found.’

It’s a duckling. A little dead duckling. I take it from her and hold it in my cupped hands. It’s perfect. Bristles of yellow fuzz. Pink half-open bill. A dangle of tiny webbed feet.

‘Oh. Oh, Isabel’

‘It was in the mud by the water trough. I don’t think there are any more.’

‘The mother…’

‘Still on the nest. I didn’t disturb her.’

I turn my head away but I can’t bear to give it back. ‘Maybe,’ I whisper. ‘Maybe…’ I touch its wings, the knob of its head, the thin stalk-like legs. ‘Isabel, do you remember? A long time ago when we had goslings and they were like this and Sir Angus brought them in, Mum put them on a hot-water bottle, do you remember, and they came alive again.’

‘But…’

‘We can try. It won’t hurt to try.’

‘It’s dead,’ says Marley, coming closer. ‘When things are dead, they can’t come alive again.’

‘Isabel…’

‘Oh, all right. I’ll get Sir Angus’s hot-water bottle. You find an old jumper to wrap it in.’

‘It’s dead,’ says Marley again. ‘It’s…’

‘No.’ I press my lips together. ‘No, it’s not.’

Marley’s eyes stare into mine and then they look away again. Sighing, I put the duckling on the table next to my books and go to find a box and something warm to wrap it in.

I don’t know how long it takes. An hour perhaps. Maybe a bit longer. I’m writing my history essay. ‘During the 23rd and 24th of February 1848, insurgents got control of the whole of Paris, forcing Louis Philippe to abdicate and flee…’ I can see it. The grey, cobbled streets, the barricades decorated with banners, the haunted face of the defeated king. I shudder with the pity of it and put down my pen.

From the box by the heater comes a thin, querulous peeping. The duckling, I think, the duckling and something leaps inside me and I hear myself shout, ‘Isabel! Isabel! Marley!’

Isabel unwraps him: she’s the oldest; she found him.

He’s altogether different. Bigger somehow, brighter.

‘Gold,’ I whisper. ‘True gold.’

He turns his head to one side and watches us out of round, black eyes.

I put my hand inside the box to lift him out. ‘It’s like magic,’ I whisper. ‘Didn’t I tell you, Marley? Oh, didn’t I tell you?’

I hold him out to her but she puts her hands behind her and steps back.

‘Don’t you want to hold him? Just for a minute?’

‘No.’ Her eyes are big with the wonder of it but her mouth goes prim and she turns away. ‘I told you. I don’t like ducks.’

‘Oh, Marley…’

Isabel busies herself with spreading newspaper on the floor. ‘Put him down, Ruth. Let him run around for a bit. I’ll get him a saucer of water.’

Marley picks up her Barbie doll and goes back to the television but Isabel and I kneel down to watch him. Peeping, he darts from one to the other of us, dabbles at the saucer of water, at the porridge oats I’ve scattered in front of him, at Isabel’s fingers when she puts her hand out to him.

‘It tickles,’ she says, giggling. ‘His beak tickles.’ Her face, flushed with the reflected glow from the heater, is younger than Marley’s. ‘What’ll we call him, Ruth? He’ll have to have a name. You choose. You made him come alive again.’

‘Louis Philippe,’ I say, going back to my books. ‘Louis Philippe, the citizen king.’

Chapter Three

Isabel, busy with bread and peanut butter for Marley’s sandwiches, looks up when she hears me come in. ‘You’re late up.’

‘I couldn’t sleep and then…’ I shake my head. I’m still caught up in the dreams I had before I woke.

A swoop of dark images, red on black, someone was screaming, I was running, running and then it was over, I was in the doorway, watching. Sir Angus was ill again. He was begging my mother to turn to the wall the photograph of me as a baby that hangs opposite his bed. ‘I don’t know her, Jean,’ he’d whispered. ‘She’s changed too much. You know she has.’ It’s like it’s really happened, like I saw…

I shudder and take the empty kettle over to the sink. ‘Where’s Marley?’

‘Watching television. I said she could. She’s all ready.’ Isabel hesitates a moment before she says, carefully, ‘Lyn wants us to go there for tea tomorrow night. I said I’d have to ask you.’

I press my lips together. ‘Why? Why ask me? You want to go, we’ll go.’

‘Lyn said you wouldn’t come, that at the last moment you’d make up an excuse so then Marley and I’d have to stay home with you.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

She doesn’t like that. It makes her defensive. ‘You’re wrong about Lyn, Ruth,’ she says, all big-eyed and earnest. ‘She does like you. She said so. She even said she’d give you piano lessons too.’

‘I don’t want piano lessons.’

‘Oh, Ruth, that’s not true. You’ve always said…’

‘That was a long time ago. I don’t want lessons now. Not from Lyn Evans anyway.’

‘Why? Why not? You used to like her. You used to go there all the time last year when she and Keith first joined the church. You know you did. And then, suddenly, for no reason, Lyn told me, for no reason at all you stopped.’

I pour boiling water over the coffee granules in my mug and carefully stir them round. ‘I didn’t stop. She did.’

‘But…’

‘Lyn Evans doesn’t like me.’

‘That’s stupid, Ruth. You’re imagining it. She told me, she said…’

‘That’s what I mean. She says all sorts of things. Most of them aren’t true.’

Distressed, Isabel bites at her lip. ‘Ruth…’

‘I don’t trust her. Just wait and you’ll see. She likes you at the moment but it won’t last.’

I’ve annoyed her now but I don’t care. I watch the colour rise in her cheeks.

‘You don’t know that. You’re just being clever. Lyn said that too, you’re always trying to be clever.’

‘Well then. Proves I’m right, doesn’t it? She doesn’t like me.’ I take a mouthful of coffee and watch her over the rim of my mug.

Isabel’s had enough, though. She puts Marley’s lunch box in her case and slams down the lid. ‘You know what’s wrong with you, Ruth?’ she says, beginning to shout. ‘You spoil things. You’re always looking for hidden meanings and twisting things and…and…’

‘I have to,’ I say, deliberately calm. ‘I’m not going to end up like you and Mum, always making fools of yourselves, always believing the wrong people.’ I lift my chin. ‘I’m going to make my life count.’

Without looking at her, I snatch up my satchel and make for the door. She can drive Marley to school if she likes but I’m not going with them.

I walk home slowly from school. Every day this journey between my separate worlds. There, I am someone quite different, I have to be someone quite different – Ruth Halliday, thin, dark, enigmatic – but at home I am myself, I can let myself simply be. I fling back my hair and stare, smiling, at the overcast sky. God talking to Moses from the burning bush. I am that I am. Nothing else to explain. Simply being. We did it in German the very first lesson. Ich bin, du bist, er, sie , es ist…

Isabel’s in the kitchen when I go in, kneeling by Louis Philippe’s box, fussing with the old jumper covering him.

‘He getting on all right?’ I say, putting down my bag and going over to the kettle. ‘Any sign yet of the others hatching?’

‘I think so. The mother was quite fierce when I went near her this afternoon and I think I heard…’

‘You want anything to drink. Tea? Coffee?’

‘No. No, I…’ She stops again. There’s something. I know because when I look at her, she turns her head away.

This morning, I think, perhaps she’s still upset about this morning and I try to think of something to say to mollify her.

‘Ruth, Louis Philippe, he…’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I can hear him.’

‘Yes but…’ Her words come suddenly all in a rush. ‘Oh, Ruth, I never thought. The rabbits. When I went to Lyn’s I put him in with Marley’s rabbits. I thought he’d be all right there, warm, and the rabbits…’ She hesitates. ‘I pretended I was you,’ she whispers. ‘I told the rabbits to look after him.’

‘And?’

She doesn’t answer. Instead she bends down and lifts him out. The rabbits have bitten through one of his legs. I reach out to touch it but then I stop. When I thought he was dead, he was perfect. Now he isn’t.

‘Ruth, Ruth, what are we going to do?’

‘We should put him out of his misery. He’ll never be any good like that.’ The harshness of my voice shocks me. I sound like Sir Angus, like Virginia Russell at school who wants me to be her best friend.

‘Can you?’ Isabel’s mouth quivers and she puts her hand up to hide it. ‘Can you, Ruth?’

I’m myself again. ‘No. No, I…’

Very carefully, Isabel returns the duckling to his box. He murmurs to himself sleepily once or twice and then he’s quiet again.

I take a deep breath. ‘What happens, Isabel, what happens when you put him down on the ground? What does he do then?’

‘He sort of hops. He doesn’t…it doesn’t seem to worry him. I mean before you got here, he was, you know, eating and…’

I lift my head. ‘Well then, he’ll have to manage as best he can. When the others hatch, we’ll put him in with them and it will be up to him.’ Like us, I think. Like Marley and Isabel and me. I clench my hands against the ache of pity in my throat and turn my attention back to the kettle.

Chapter Four

It’s come too soon. Thursday evening. I pack my books away and go into Marley’s room to see if she’s ready. She’s got on her Sunday pinafore dress and she’s sitting on her bed, pulling on her tights.

‘Want me to do your hair for you?’

‘All right.’

Together we