Boroondara Literary Award 2017 - Highly Commended. Published in Boroondara
They’re waiting for me outside.
My husband of course won’t talk to them.
He’s coming to collect me soon.
I’m at a loss how to fix my hair.
You miss fashion information in here.
I look in the mirror. No style can distract from my ugly hooked nose.
Luckily my mother has sent me a low-brimmed hat.
When their flash bulbs go off, they will end up with only a fragment of a hollow face to take with them.
I have made sure my clothes are neat and freshly laundered.
No matter what label people wish to assign me, I never look other than appropriate.
I don’t want to give the wrong impression; I never wanted this. I wanted what I didn’t have, nothing unusual in that. People misunderstand. I was always willing to accept my punishment. I would’ve been happy to die. I tried to die right after. But now I will bow to my husband’s wishes. I have caused him enough problems. He had to take time from his work.
*****
I’m waiting for a man who is not my husband. He arrives, in between his scheduled play at the 1920 Sheffield shield test. A war hero, carer of the sick and gleaming captain of the state team is on my North Shore doorstep. Today however, he is pale and there is the slightest tremble in his hands. An ordinary acquaintance might miss it. But we are not ordinary acquaintances. He sits in the living room ignoring his cup of tea. He doesn’t embrace me after the housekeeper has left, and he calls me Mrs Mort.
I realise he is trying to wind life back. There is no tool in his bag that can do that, not if he pulls out his stethoscope to listen to my heart, or grips my wrist to check my pulse. As it is, he knows my blood rushes faster through my veins when he is near, but he avoids this fact, as he avoids my eyes. The cheerful banter of our earlier days is also absent. Now he says ‘it was important to be adult about the situation,’ in a solemn voice that doesn’t suit him.
I pretend I accept his parting, I pretend I agree that he should do what is expected,
‘Yes you should marry a nice girl.’ My nails are buried so tight in my palms that later I discover a neat little row of spotted blood.
‘I have a present for you. Just a little memento of our time together.’
I walk behind him. His handsome head, with his gorgeous chestnut hair that I had run my fingers through so many times, is poking up from the back of the couch, telling me I can no longer touch. I go over to the shelf and pull out my gift, which I prepared earlier. I point. He doesn’t see it. I’m not cruel. It’s quick.
I fold myself in his arms. I swallow my medicine. I had travelled to different chemists all around Sydney, saving it up drop by drop. I am familiar with medicine. Prescriptions for female ailments have been handed out in generous amounts by doctors who have come and gone before him. I could paper the sitting room walls with scripts. My love was writing another, when I came up behind him and pointed his present at his head.
I wake up, not dead. I’ll try again, with my love’s gift. I aim for the heart that he broke.
I wake up again, this is really too much. I go to my room, locking the sitting room door behind me. I notice I’ve stained my dress. It trickles down, leaving a red trail to my room. I lie on my bed. It is silent as the grave at first, but later this is shattered. Shadows come in and out, prattle and hoots come from their mouths but I don’t care. I know who I must speak to.
She visits me. She calls me Mrs. Mort. As Mrs. Mort I try to do my part. I tell her what I’ve done.
I tell her not to worry however. I say I’ll give her the child he and I are
expecting, that should make up for the loss of her son. She will be a mother all over again.
****
When I’d bought the gun, when I bought the laudanum, when I was with my love, I was not Mrs Mort, I was Diana Rey. Diana was to be a moving picture star, not something a Mort could be. Diana had attended acting classes and auditions, and at any moment she could have been discovered. Her leading man had found her after all.
****
They tell me that I’ve got things wrong, that I’m not going to have his child. The doctor calls me Dorothy; the barrister my husband has chosen, calls me Mrs. Mort. My husband hands over his role of protecting me to him.
My advocate very gently takes my hand. He tells me I should let him speak for me.
Murder was in Dorothy’s blood, my barrister tells everyone. They had to bring that up again. My father’s aim had failed. To be fair my mother and brother had not been sitting targets. When they finally released him, we were all out of his reach, so he threw himself down the stairs. A successful killing at last, if only his own. Unfortunately the Mort home doesn’t have stairs.
My advocate says Mrs Mort from the North Shore could not be a criminal. She could not intend to kill. Not anymore than she would leave the house bare-headed. She is insane. I am insane.
I do what is appropriate.
My, the newspapers made such a fuss.
****
In the prison there was a woman of the streets who killed her procurer. He had beaten her for years. No one thought she was insane; she was locked away for life.
****
I’m fully aware that when I return home today, I will be a Mort again. Freshly laundered clothes and neat hair for whatever time I have left. I know my husband will always do his duty by the one who has been joined to him by God. I also know my husband sought comfort with the housekeeper.’ I am not a hypocrite, and it at least keeps him from pestering me. Although a good housekeeper is hard to find these days. We don’t discuss it, or anything much.
The tea will be served at the correct time. He will ask me how I am every morning. I will nod and murmur and lower my eyes. He will no longer take me to engagements. It will be best to keep out of the public eye. Also not to overtax myself with the children, who are really hardly children any more. They are perfect Morts. I am so fragile that too much activity may cause me to break.
I will be visited regularly by medical practitioners, but ones only a few years from the grave themselves. Their hands will shake when they hold mine, but not out of desire. None of them would be able to hit a cricket ball, even with a bat the size of a motor car door.
I will be grateful and obedient. When the time seems appropriate, I will stare into space, lost in thought. I will most likely be thinking of our love, the one starring role in my life; of his charm, his ardor and then unfortunately the bitter aftertaste of his betrayal. My sour look will be a signal for my keepers to gently draw me back. I will lower my eyes again. It is not so bad.
*****
Who would’ve thought that I needn’t die? That I would be let out before I was old and grey to resume the role of Mrs. Mort, even though I’d put such a glittering star into the ground. I remind myself that I was mad. I was told I was by a room of men, so it must be true, mustn’t it?
Mrs. Dorothy Mort died in 1966. She kept out of Public Notice after her release in 1929. The family of Dr Claude Tozer always denied that he had betrayed the trust of his profession and the story of their affair was part of Mrs. Mort’s illness[1].