Colleen McCullough - The Thorn Birds

Yet for Fee it wasn’t a joy to have Frank home again; how could it be? Seeing him every day was simply a different kind of sorrow from not being able to see him at all. The terrible grief of having to witness a ruined life, a ruined man. Who was her most beloved son, and must have endured agonies beyond her imagination.

One day after Frank had been home about six months, Meggie came into the drawing room to find her mother sitting looking through the big windows to where Frank was clipping the great bank of roses alongside the drive. She turned away, and something in her calmly arranged face sent Meggie’s hands up to her heart.

“Oh, Mum!” she said helplessly.

Fee looked at her, shook her head and smiled. “It doesn’t matter, Meggie,” she said.

“If only there was something I could do!”

“There is. Just carry on the way you have been. I’m very grateful. You’ve become an ally.”

“Well,” said Justine to her mother, “I’ve decided what I’m going to do.”

“I thought it was already decided. Arts at Sydney University, isn’t that right?”

“Oh, that was just a red herring to lull you into a false sense of security while I made my plans. But now it’s all set, so I can tell you.”

Meggie’s head came up from her task, cutting fir-tree shapes in cookie dough; Mrs. Smith was ill and they were helping out in the cookhouse. She regarded her daughter wearily, impatiently, helplessly. What could one do with someone like Justine? If she announced she was going off to train as a whore in a Sydney bordello, Meggie very much doubted whether she could be turned aside. Dear, horrible Justine, queen among juggernauts.

“Go on, I’m all agog,” she said, and went back to producing cookies.

“I’m going to be an actress.”

“A what?”

“An actress.”

“Good Lord!” The fir trees were abandoned again. “Look, Justine, I hate to be a spoilsport and truly I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but do you think you’re—well, quite physically equipped to be an actress?”

“Oh, Mum!” said Justine, disgusted. “Not a film star; an actress! I don’t want to wiggle my hips and stick out my breasts and pout my wet lips! I want to act.” She was pushing chunks of defatted beef into the corning barrel. “I have enough money to support myself during whatever sort of training I choose, isn’t that right?”

“Yes, thanks to Cardinal de Bricassart.”

“Then it’s all settled. I’m going to study acting with Albert Jones at the Culloden Theater, and I’ve written to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, asking that I be put on their waiting list.”

“Are you quite sure, Jussy?”

“Quite sure. I’ve known for a long time.” The last piece of bloody beef was tucked down under the surface of the corning solution; Justine put the lid on the barrel with a thump. “There! I hope I never see another bit of corned beef as long as I live.”

Meggie handed her a completed tray of cookies. “Put these in the oven, would you? Four hundred degrees. I must say this comes as something of a surprise. I thought little girls who wanted to be actresses role-played constantly, but the only person I’ve ever seen you play has been yourself.”

“Oh, Mum! There you go again, confusing film stars with actresses. Honestly, you’re hopeless.”

“Well, aren’t film stars actresses?”

“Of a very inferior sort. Unless they’ve been on the stage first, that is. I mean, even Laurence Olivier does an occasional film.”

There was an autographed picture of Laurence Olivier on Justine’s dressing table; Meggie had simply deemed it juvenile crush stuff, though at the time she remembered thinking at least Justine had taste. The friends she sometimes brought home with her to stay a few days usually treasured pictures of Tab Hunter and Rory Calhoun.

“I still don’t understand,” said Meggie, shaking her head. “An actress!”

Justine shrugged. “Well, where else can I scream and yell and howl but on a stage? I’m not allowed to do any of those here, or at school, or anywhere! I like screaming and yelling and howling, dammit!”

“But you’re so good at art, Jussy! Why not be an artist?” Meggie persevered.

Justine turned from the huge gas stove, flicked her finger against a cylinder gauge. “I must tell the kitchen rouseabout to change bottles; we’re low. It’ll do for today, though.” The light eyes surveyed Meggie with pity. “You’re so impractical, Mum, really. I thought it was supposed to be the children who didn’t stop to consider a career’s practical aspects. Let me tell you, I don’t want to starve to death in a garret and be famous after I’m dead. I want to enjoy a bit of fame while I’m still alive, and be very comfortable financially. So I’ll paint as a hobby and act for a living. How’s that?”

“You’ve got an income from Drogheda, Jussy,” Meggie said desperately, breaking her vow to remain silent no matter what. “It would never come to starving in a garret. If you’d rather paint, it’s all right. You can.”

Justine looked alert, interested. “How much have I got, Mum?”

“Enough that if you preferred, you need never work at anything.”

“What a bore! I’d end up talking on the telephone and playing bridge; at least that’s what the mothers of most of my school friends do. Because I’d be living in Sydney, not on Drogheda. I like Sydney much better than Drogheda.” A gleam of hope entered her eye. “Do I have enough to pay to have my freckles removed with this new electrical treatment?”

“I should think so. But why?”

“Because then someone might see my face, that’s why.”

“I thought looks didn’t matter to an actress?”

“Enough’s enough, Mum. My freckles are a pain.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be an artist?”

“Quite sure, thank you.” She did a little dance. “I’m going to tread the boards, Mrs. Worthington!”

“How did you get yourself into the Culloden?”

“I auditioned.”

“And they took you?”

“Your faith in your daughter is touching, Mum. Of course they took me! I’m superb, you know. One day I shall be very famous.”

Meggie beat green food coloring into a bowl of runny icing and began to drizzle it over already baked fir trees. “Is it important to you, Justine? Fame?”

“I should say so.” She tipped sugar in on top of butter so soft it had molded itself to the inner contours of the bowl; in spite of the gas stove instead of the wood stove, the cookhouse was very hot. “I’m absolutely iron-bound determined to be famous.”

“Don’t you want to get married?”

Justine looked scornful. “Not bloody likely! Spend my life wiping snotty noses and cacky bums? Salaaming to some man not half my equal even though he thinks he’s better? Ho ho ho, not me!”

“Honestly, you’re the dizzy limit! Where do you pick up your language?”

Justine began cracking eggs rapidly and deftly into a basin, using one hand. “At my exclusive ladies’ college, of course.” She drubbed the eggs unmercifully with a French whisk. “We were quite a decent bunch of girls, actually. Very cultured. It isn’t every gaggle of silly adolescent females can appreciate the delicacy of a Latin limerick:

There was a Roman from Vinidium

Whose shirt was made of iridium;

When asked why the vest,

He replied, “Id est

Bonum sanguinem praesidium.”

Meggie’s lips twitched. “I’m going to hate myself for asking, but what did the Roman say?”

“‘It’s a bloody good protection.’”

“Is that all? I thought it was going to be a lot worse. You surprise me. But getting back to what we were saying, dear girl, in spite of your neat effort to change the subject, what’s wrong with marriage?”

Justine imitated her grandmother’s rare snort of ironic laughter. “Mum! Really! You’re a fine one to ask that, I must say.”

Meggie felt the blood well up under her skin, and looked down at the tray of bright-green trees. “Don’t be impertinent, even if you are a ripe old seventeen.”

“Isn’t it odd?” Justine asked the mixing bowl. “The minute one ventures onto strictly parental territory, one becomes impertinent. I just said: You’re a fine one to ask. Perfectly true, dammit! I’m not necessarily implying you’re a failure, or a sinner, or worse. Actually I think you’ve shown remarkable good sense, dispensing with your husband. What have you needed one for? There’s been tons of male influence for your children with the Unks around, you’ve got enough money to live on. I agree with you! Marriage is for the birds.”

“You’re just like your father!”

“Another evasion. Whenever I displease you, I become just like my father. Well, I’ll have to take your word for that, since I’ve never laid eyes on the gentleman.”

“When are you leaving?” Meggie asked desperately.

Justine grinned. “Can’t wait to get rid of me, eh? It’s all right, Mum, I don’t blame you in the least. But I can’t help it, I just love shocking people, especially you. How about taking me into the ’drome tomorrow?”

“Make it the day after. Tomorrow I’ll take you to the bank. You’d better know how much you’ve got. And, Justine…”

Justine was adding flour and folding expertly, but she looked up at the change in her mother’s voice. “Yes?”

“If ever you’re in trouble, come home, please. We’ve always got room for you on Drogheda, I want you to remember that. Nothing you could ever do would be so bad you couldn’t come home.”