Sorry by Gail Jones Page A

a truly innocent smile.
    â€˜Deeta!’ he called out. ‘Yah, Deeta!’
    Nicholas turned to look, but did not say anything. He simply seized his daughter’s wrist and dragged her away.
    Perdita carried through the day the image of a black man waving. The smell of hot tar. The clunk of heavy chains. The sound of her own name called out to her, as if it was Aboriginal.

    That day Nicholas took her to a convent. It was a large wooden building, lined with shutters. Black and white faces in wimplespeered at them curiously as they walked together up the gravel driveway, lined with purple bougainvillaea. In the front room, where they were told to wait in silence, there was a large crucifix on the wall, which Perdita stared at, fascinated. Christ had a face of famished hollows and softly closed eyes, and a look of calm, self-satisfied repose. Perdita remembered Stella’s stories, explicit and unbelievable. She wondered suddenly if Nicholas planned to leave her here, with these stiff, wimpled women in triangular dresses who worshipped this wretched, assassinated king. She experienced a moment of panic; why was she never told anything? Why did adults, always and anyhow, get to make all the decisions?
    Perdita was about to ask when a nun called Sister Immaculata led a young woman into the room: Mary. She had bronze-coloured skin and deep black eyes. She stood a little apart, as if in a different world from the convent sisters. Mary was sixteen years old, tall for her age, and had about her an air of maturity and self-possession. Perdita shyly smiled. The smile was more confidently returned. Nicholas explained that Mary had been raised in a Catholic orphanage down south, and that she would be coming to live with them, to cook and to clean, and to help with lessons, while her mother was away. Mary could read, he added. Sister Immaculata performed a little bow and Perdita wondered if her father was someone important. Then the sister lurched forward, all of a sudden, and took Perdita’s face in her hands.
    â€˜Dear, oh dear,’ she said, staring into her infected eye.
    She ordered the child to stay put as she fetched some ointment. Perdita felt the long explorative fingers of the nun, arthritic and witchy, holding open her eye as she applied translucent cream from a tiny metal tube. The nun’s thumbs rested beneath her right eye, then her left. Perdita was afraid. She understood the healing intention, but still she felt afraid. Botheyes were streaming uncontrollably with tears. At some point in the procedure Mary took her hand and stayed close, instantly affectionate, in an implicit companionship. It was a fond, easy handclasp. Perdita felt the lacing of their fingers. This was the moment, the very moment, that Perdita began to love Mary.

    On the return journey Nicholas and Mr Trevor sat in the cabin, and Mary and Perdita sat in the tray of the truck, sharing their space with boxes and crates of stores the men had bought. Before they left town they had been on a shopping trip to Streeter and Male, the general store, and had bought canned milk, cereals, biscuits, corn. At Fongs they had bought a sack of rice, and Perdita had wanted to linger there, where the exotic resided. Then at the bakery they had purchased a few loaves of still-warm bread. This was an unusual treat for Perdita; her mother never baked bread and she had rarely tasted it fresh.
    The truck broke down ten miles short of its destination. Mr Trevor and Nicholas stood with their heads under the bonnet, fiddling with the fan belt. They tapped on the radiator with a spanner, and talked in technical whispers. Adjustments were made, the engine attended to. It click, click, clicked, as by degrees it slowly cooled. Mary and Perdita sat in the dirt eating bread and honey, tipped directly from a brand-new jar, spread with their fingers. Flies swarmed all around, buzzing, insistent, but they simply ignored them and ate like they were starving. Perdita