With much love,

Phoebe

78

It was not the ghost that made me fearful. I was already fearful before it came. It was the counterweight to my contentment and the greater my contentment grew the greater was my fear of losing it. The eucalypts I had planted now thrust out tender pink shoots that glowed in the spring sunshine like blood-filled skin. My wife's belly pushed against her dress. Her breasts swelled. Everywhere life seemed tender and exposed and I did not need a whistling ghost to make me consider the risks of both life and death.

I could not bear to hear my wife discuss aviation. This subject, which had, so short a time before, contained the juices of happiness itself, was poison in the air we breathed. My mind was filled with visions of ruptured organs and broken struts and I wished to encourage her in gentler safer pursuits. This was one of the reasons I invited Horace to stay. I built a room for him. And while Molly clucked her tongue in censure I cut new timber with my saw and inhaled the sweet sour smell of blackbutt. This was a real room, fifteen feet by fifteen feet, with shelves for books and a proper desk for poetry.

Horace was cosy and comfortable and domestic. He was as fearful as a guinea pig and his nervousness soothed me and made me feel safer. It was comforting to have him in the house, like a pet who can be relied upon to give affection. Also: he could read. I had it in mind that I would learn the knack from him so that when my ink-stained wife offered me her poetry I might have some idea what it was, that I would no longer stare dumbly at the dancing hieroglyphics, my skin prickling with suspicion while I counterfeited understanding and enthusiasm. In the meantime I could have him read the work aloud, pretending that I liked his feathery voice.

Horace was a nice man, but far too gentle. He was no match for Phoebe's will, and when she wished the subject to be aviation he could not and would not swerve her from it. When Phoebe demanded to have her knowledge of Sidwell tested it was Horace who held the tattered volume in his warty hand while I, watching from my place at the head of the uncleared table, did not know whether to be jealous that my position was usurped, pleased that my illiteracy had not yet been uncovered or delighted that I had, at last, a home, a family, a domestic hearth.

"Should the engine stop suddenly?"

"The cause will be failure of the ignition or fuel supply," said my wife, her brow untroubled by the thought of such a calam-ity.

"To cure it?" Horace turned the page with the same leisurely sweep of hand he brought to his prized edition of Rossetti.

"To cure it, test the magneto and switch off the petrol supply."

"If the engine is misfiring?"

"Ah," said Molly, replacing her fluffy pink knitting in its paper bag and standing. "You should be reading recipe books, my girl."

"If the engine is misfiring on one cylinder," Phoebe smiled at her mother, "it is a faulty plug."

"Or ironing your husband's shirts," said Molly, putting the big kettle back on the stove.

"Herbert doesn't mind. If the misfiring is accompanied by loud banging or rattling it is probably a broken valve. Anyway, Horace irons the shirts."

"If irregular or infrequent firing occurs?" asked Horace, colouring at this public mention of his housekeeping. He looked up at Molly then looked away quickly when she caught his eye.

"You spoil her," she said to me. "I'll never know why you signed that silly paper. It's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen."

The paper she spoke of was a legal document that I had signed to honour my promise to her about the aeroplane.

"It will be because the rocker arm on the magneto contact-breaker sticks occasionally," said Phoebe smiling at me. "It's only sensible," she said to Molly. "He's a liar."

"Phoebe!"

"I love him, Mother."

"Oh dearie me," said Molly, clattering with teacups at the sink. "Perhaps I'm just old-fashioned."

"No doubt about it, Mother. Or", she told Horace, "because there is oil or dirt on the distributor or the platinum points require timing."

The document in question is probably worth including here. I only signed it to demonstrate my kindness to the ghost. this indenture made the twentieth day of September 1921 between Herbert peter Badgery of Dudley's Flat West Mel-bourne in the State of Victoria (hereinafter called the Grantor) of the one part and phoebe matilda Badgery his wife of the other part. whereas the Donee is possessed of a desire to pilot an aircraft and whereas in the course of their marriage the Donee has become and is currently with child to the Grantor and whereas the aforesaid pregnancy has greatly frustrated the Donee in her aforesaid desire to pursue her career as an aviator and whereas the Grantor is the owner of an aircraft, to wit one Morris Farman Shorthorn (hereinafter called the Aeroplane). now this indenture witnesseth that the Grantor in consideration of his natural love and affection for the Donee and other good and sufficient consideration hereby covenants (subject to the final proviso set out below) that he will not again during the currency of this Indenture impregnate the Donee or make any advances such as may induce the Donee to desire union with the Grantor during such times as she is susceptible to becoming pregnant or otherwise have a second child and the grantor further covenants that he will provide the Donee with all the means and support and will use his best endeavours to teach the Donee to fly and navigate the Aeroplane and that he not withhold either monies or information needed for the maintenance of the Aeroplane in an airworthy condition and the grantor further covenants that from such time as she is delivered of child he will do nothing to discourage the Donee from flying the Aeroplane at any time irrespective of the clemency of the weather or the time of day or night AND THE GRANTOR FURTHER COVENANTS that he will provide the Donee at all times with sufficient funds to purchase her requirements of fuel, oil, mechanical assistance and ground support staff provided however that the Donee will not fly more than eighty (80) miles from her matrimonial home except with the prior written approval of the Grantor which approval shall not be unreasonably withheld and the grantor further covenants and the parties hereby agree that in the event that the Donee does once again fall pregnant to the Grantor this Indenture shall operate as an assignment of the Aeroplane to the Donee free and clear of all encumbrances and in such event the Grantor shall provide the Donee with sufficient funds to maintain herself and the Aeroplane in an airworthy condition and with sufficient funds to fuel and fly the Aeroplane without any limitation whatsoever in terms of distance or time and irrespective of whether the Donee continues to live as the wife of the Grantor or in the matrimonial home and the grantor further covenants that in the event that the Aeroplane is destroyed or otherwise becomes unairworthy and beyond repair he will replace it with another aeroplane of the same make and model or failing that with an aeroplane of equivalent performance and capacity provided however that nothing in this Indenture shall detract from the liberty of the Grantor at all times to sustain the marriage by vera copula consisting of erectio and intromissio without ejaculatio. in witness whereof the Parties have hereunto affixed their hands and seals on the day and date first herein before written.