The Cedar Tree

by Nicole Alexander

  ‘Don’t worry, lad. I have become argumentative in my older years, which undoubtedly comes from having a young person draining my finances. But it’s important to gauge an Irishman’s sentiments before he’s welcomed into an Englishman’s domain. The times are ripe for disagreement, which makes us more wary than usual.’ He continued moving along the side of the homestead, Brandon following. ‘You’ve had some schooling?’ he asked with interest.

  ‘I went to school in Tipperary for a time and there was a teacher on the ship we came over on. We talked of many things, from ancient lands to the oceans and currents. What New South Wales might be like. And she was kind to my stepsister,’ explained Brandon.

  ‘An educated Irishman. Excellent. You and I will have plenty to discuss then when you’re not cutting down my fine stand of trees. It’s too late to be walking to the village now, Brandon. If you go over to that cottage, Hetty will feed you. You can leave in the morning.’ He indicated the small house Brandon had seen Hetty walking towards earlier, and then went indoors.

  Brandon retrieved his axe from the veranda, and made his way to the cottage Mr Truby had pointed out. He knew Sean wouldn’t be pleased with this new arrangement, but the Englishman’s offer was an opportunity for both of them to learn something new beyond felling, sheep and the growing of cabbages and potatoes. And there was the added benefit of longer-term employment and a roof over their heads. And perhaps a home for Maggie at last.

  Chapter 15

  The cottage was tiny, with a sloping veranda and two small square windows on either side of the door. Some fault in construction had caused one end of the building to drop into the ground so that the other end slanted slightly upwards, giving the illusion that the lone chair by the front door could slide off the end of the veranda at any time. Brandon was about to take a single step up onto the veranda when Hetty appeared at the front door, a child tugging at her skirt and a baby in her arms.

  ‘Yes?’ she asked briskly. ‘What do you want?’

  Brandon removed his hat. ‘Mr Truby said I should see you about staying the night.’

  ‘What, with me?’ said Hetty, affronted. She jiggled the baby impatiently, its small head bobbing with the movement. Next to her the small boy placed a hand in the pocket of his short pants and stared at Brandon.

  Brandon’s cheeks instantly grew warm. ‘No. That’s not what I meant.’ What was he to tell her, that he was hungry and hopeful of a bed? ‘I’m sorry I bothered you.’ He stepped clear of her withering gaze and was ten feet away before she called out.

  ‘Wait. Don’t leave.’ She took a step towards him. ‘Please. If he sent you to me, then I’m to feed you. Come in.’ She waited until he was on the porch again and then said, ‘Boots.’

  Brandon scraped his shoes off on the edge of the veranda and placed them close to the door, resting his hat on top. He placed the axe to one side and then took up a position in the doorway, not quite inside and not quite out. The fire in the hearth was smoking miserably, turning the air grey. Hetty settled the baby in a basket under the table, while the boy clambered up onto a chair. She opened the windows a little wider. The still evening did nothing to alleviate the smoke.

  ‘You can come in,’ she finally said.

  ‘Shall I leave the door open?’ suggested Brandon.

  ‘Come dark I’m not meant to have the door open. Or the windows. It’s rules, you see,’ she said.

  Brandon considered this strange but decided not to ask for further explanation. He lingered near the door, unused to being in such proximity to a woman. Hetty took a three-legged pot from the coals and sat it on the table. They stared at each other across the scrubbed surface, both sufficiently uncomfortable that they dropped their mutual scrutiny almost immediately and concentrated on the unimportant – in Brandon’s case, the gappy timber under his bare feet, while Hetty became enamoured with the battered vessel and the wooden spoon that she used to swirl its contents.

  Now that Brandon had time to consider her entire face, he saw that Hetty’s lips weren’t bulbous but in proportion. They were offset against a broad forehead, green eyes and blonde hair that appeared to have been plucked back a good inch or so on the left side of her face. Each element suggested a trademark beauty but combined, her features were mismatched. Her eyes too big, her mouth too wide, her elongated brow resembling the portrait of an English queen and her hair long and stringy. A thick scar reached down across the contour of her temple on the left side of her face, skirting the delicate eye area, to end in the middle of her cheek.

  Hetty angled her head, hiding the deep redness from view. The little loveliness she’d been born with suddenly became more vivid with the temporary absence of her scar.

  ‘He’s asked you to cut the trees, I suppose.’ She polished a spoon on her apron. ‘The previous men lasted four days. One of them was a bird fanatic. Fed the pigeons with the bread I baked. The little things gathered in like they were starved. There were droppings all over the statue. You did see the statue. It’s a beautiful thing. I couldn’t blame Miss Schaefer for letting Glanville out. Not really, although it was a terrible sight the way he went at them birds.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Are you a bird lover?’

  ‘I like all animals,’ said Brandon.

  ‘Miss Schaefer says a person can’t possibly like all animals. There’s absolutely no prettiness in some. Take cats, for instance. They whine and screech and pee in any freshly ploughed soil, as if it was theirs to do with as they like. And dogs. A good dog will follow you about, happy to do your bidding. Chase a cow into the pen. Bark at the night’s shadows. But turn your back and they’re hunting the fowls, biting the postal rider and snapping at heels. Miss Schaefer says a person has to be quite selective about the company one keeps. And it’s the same with animals. They have to be trainable, amenable and serve a purpose. And most importantly, they have to be the best of their breed. Where are you from then?’

  Brandon gathered his wits, understanding that he’d be needing them with this girl. ‘County Tipperary. And you?’

  ‘I’m not rightly sure. Clare, I think, although my papers say Limerick. As one borders the other, it matters little. I came out as an orphan and was emptying bedpans for a time until Miss Schaefer hired me. Interviewed me in person, she did. It’s just as I said, she’s selective about the company she keeps.’

  What a motley twosome we are, Brandon thought. He a runaway. She a foundling. Thousands of miles from their island home.

  The baby under the table gave a squeal and Hetty nudged the basket with her foot.

  ‘There’s parrot soup. I wasn’t expecting company.’ She ladled out the broth, apportioning it between two bowls and sat the dishes on the table. Then she tore a small loaf of bread in half and shared it with him as well. She lifted the boy from the chair, placing him on the floor and sitting down, gestured to the remaining seat.

  Brandon sat and drank from the bowl. The soup was hot and tasty. As he ate, he took the opportunity to look about the cramped interior of the house, and then through the window where the fading light emphasised Truby’s garden fence and a low hedge. ‘Do you like working for Mr Truby and his niece?’

  ‘It’s not really about liking them, is it? I mean, I need a job and a roof over my head. A woman wants to be safe. And it’s not all bad. I help clean their house and dress Miss Schaefer. Do you have a wife?’ she asked. ‘You don’t look that old.’

  ‘I’m old enough,’ said Brandon. ‘And no, I don’t.’

  ‘I had a husband. And he left me with these two. I thought Mr Truby would let me go, for squatters don’t like single women on their runs. Causes problems with the menfolk. That’s why I have to keep my door and windows shut. It’s either I bolt myself in, or he does it for me. ’Course, he says it’s because one of the men will break in and have their way with me, but I wonder. It’s something, isn’t it, to be Irish and to be trusted,’ she concluded, with a roll of her eyes. She drained the bowl and then, as if realising she had company, dabbed
at the corners of her mouth with the hem of her apron. ‘But they do trust me.’

  ‘I believe you,’ said Brandon.

  ‘There’s few other women here, you see. Only Miss Schaefer, Polly the cook and me. The men’s wives, those that have them, live in the village. Mr Truby has one of the men help clean house and cut wood. He was a domestic in England before he was sent out here for stealing. It was Glanville that saved me. You see, he doesn’t mind me about. He’s happy for me to feed him. Think on it. I can thank a falcon I’ve still got my job.’

  Silence fell between them. Brandon slurped down the rest of the soup.

  ‘Where’s your husband?’ asked Brandon, his mind shifting through the menagerie they’d just covered – cats and dogs and birds.

  ‘Who knows?’ She wiped out her bowl with a towel and, filling it again, gave it to the child, who was playing on the floor with a clothes peg. ‘He went up into the hills and never came back. It’s been a year. Miss Schaefer said that if he was alive she’d send Glanville to find him and peck his eyes out for leaving me, but of course he’s dead. He must be. Don’t you think so?’

  ‘I really couldn’t say.’ He placed the empty bowl on the table. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You don’t have to go. You can stay and talk awhile. It’s the children, isn’t it? Puts a man off, having young ones about.’

  ‘No, it’s not that. It’s nearly dark,’ said Brandon. He stood, went outside and pulled on his boots and hat.

  ‘Wait.’ She fetched a blanket of stitched pelts. ‘Here.’ She gave him the cover and then stepped onto the grass, keeping by his side as he searched for a place to bed down. ‘That’s made from those little furry creatures that climb trees. That’s one thing my husband could do. He was a fine hunter,’ she said, as if they were old friends strolling in the twilight. ‘Do you miss the sea? I do. I’d like to smell it again.’

  ‘It’s not far, you know,’ Brandon replied, not wanting to be drawn into talk that would remind him of a voyage across immeasurable water, and yet feeling her need for conversation. ‘You can take one of the ships from Wirra to the mouth of the river.’

  She followed him a little further until he found a stand of trees. Brandon scraped away the branches and leaves on the ground with his boot and then dropped the hide blanket on the cleared area.

  ‘Well then,’ he said, feeling uncertain at her continued presence.

  ‘Well then,’ Hetty repeated, a little more solemnly. Her reluctance to leave made Brandon nervous. He was aware of the inappropriateness of her presence, particularly as there was still enough light for any inquisitive soul to notice them. Worse, Brandon was growing more conscious by the minute of the soft femininity of her voice. The way her breath rose and fell as she spoke. It was a lulling, beguiling sound.

  He sat the axe down and then spread the blanket, unable to formulate any conversation that didn’t involve the felling of woody plants, while she shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

  ‘Will you cut his trees?’ she asked.

  ‘I have to speak to my cousin first,’ said Brandon. ‘I’m not really interested in being a hired hand, unless there’s the possibility of advancement in the future. There’s no money in it.’

  ‘You speak like a man who knows what he wants,’ said Hetty encouragingly.

  Brandon felt heartened by the genuineness of her interest. ‘I want a better life. That’s what my parents hoped for. Yours too, I expect.’

  Hetty’s face was concealed by the gathering darkness, but he heard her sigh. ‘We all want a better life,’ she agreed.

  ‘It’s something to aspire to.’

  ‘And what does that mean, “aspire”?’ asked Hetty.

  ‘I guess it means to rise up from where we’ve come; to try to achieve something great with our lives.’

  She gave a gentle laugh. Perhaps she thought his ideas folly. And perhaps they were. However, without hope of success then there was little else to cling to except the prospect of failure and Brandon refused to bow to that end. He wanted what his grandparents in the old country once had. A decent home, food and money, and the pride that came with such circumstances. Not a defeated, round-shouldered father who was prepared to barter his own stepdaughter for the continued right to exist.

  ‘Don’t you think that the betterment of one’s circumstances is a right every man is entitled to?’ asked Brandon.

  ‘My, aren’t we one for big words,’ said Hetty.

  ‘At least I’m not trying to speak with an English accent,’ said Brandon.

  Hetty pursed her lips. ‘It just happens. I don’t do it on purpose. Anyway, in my world the only way a person is entitled to something is if they take it.’

  The cries of a child finally forced Hetty to say goodbye, and Brandon was left alone. He sat on the stitched hides, watching as the silhouette of her slight body reappeared several times to stand in the doorway of the lopsided cottage. He was not sufficiently enticed to risk the displeasure of Mr Truby, though his urges made a compelling argument. Instead, he contented himself with the sight of crisp white stars through the treetops. The air was dense with the sweet, powdery scent of freshly harvested grain. Eventually he lay back on the blanket and thought of his old home and wondered what those of his blood that came after him would eventually say about his life.

  Chapter 16

  Kirooma Station, 1942

  Life, Stella decided, had a strange way of morphing into the fiercely unexpected. Joe carried her up onto the veranda, over the threshold and into the homestead. He twirled her around in circles and then finally told her to open her eyes. Stella did so, doing her best to feign excitement, feeling the pounding in her husband’s chest, his enthusiasm undiminished by the miles driven and the land that unfurled about them, warped by heat. Joe hugged her firmly but she saw that his attention was consumed by the view beyond her, out the back door towards his new existence. He set her down on the floor.

  ‘I’ve waited all my life for this.’ Joe took her by the wrists, his grip hard, as if by sheer action he could transfer his excitement into her.

  Stella arranged her face into a pleased expression and said nothing. She still felt as if she were moving, like she’d recently disembarked from a ship and had yet to find her land legs. Their journey had encompassed mountains, plains, woodlands, creeks, lakes and rivers. Islands unto themselves. Strange places that were quite unfamiliar to her with names like Nevertire and Wilcannia. For hours at a time they saw no one, nothing. Not a person or animal, domesticated or wild. It was only them and the country. And the sheepdog, who was slobbering on the back seat. Once they left the hills, the land composed itself into a combination of folds and flatness, its vastness suggestive of eternity. On leaving Broken Hill Joe had detoured, turning north towards Silverton and then driven on to the Mundi Mundi plains. Here they’d stopped where the curve of the earth was visible and while Joe marvelled at the sight, she considered the very real possibility of falling off the edge of the world.

  It had not left, that feeling of instability. Her body ached from the long drive, from the bumps and ruts in the road. The searing heat and the stretch of flatness that first greeted them as they set out from the mining town faded into the gentle rise and fall of the land and the hills scattered with quartz skeletons, mounds of crystals shining in the sulphur light of the sun.

  It was beautiful, this new scenery, but also frightening. She was no sightseer, able to admire and then drive on. This was her country now. She would have to learn how to belong, when her entire being willed Joe to turn the station wagon around and go home. Even the kangaroos, which were such a novelty after they crossed the mountains, made her feel unwelcome. Now she was the exhibit and they, in their growing numbers, bemused spectators.

  ‘Here we are,’ Joe had exclaimed when they’d reached a gate partially twisted at one end. KIROOMA was stencilled on a battered wooden letterbox with a metal latch. He leapt out of the station wagon, opened the gate and then drove through, before
getting out again to close it. ‘There’s only eight gates to go,’ he told Stella, hopping back into the car.

  ‘Eight?’ repeated Stella.

  ‘Yep. We’ll take it in turns. It will do you good to stretch your legs and start building up those typewriter arms of yours.’ He pinched her bicep and she brushed him away.

  ‘Are you telling me that every time we want to leave we have to open nine of these?’ said Stella.

  ‘It’s not like we’ll be driving in and out every day. Why do you think we stopped to pick up six weeks of groceries at Broken Hill? You’ll have to plan our meals so we don’t run out of anything. It’s not like we’ll be able to run to the corner store. Well, let’s get going.’

  Gates. Endless gates that had to be dragged across a land that grew redder the further they travelled, as if the earth had suffered a mortal wound. It was too much for her. There was simply too much space. Too much air. Too much sky. And then the homestead, with its peaked iron roof and huge proportions. Large enough to accommodate all of the tenants in her old apartment block. There was a double garage, with a work truck parked inside, machinery sheds, a woolshed and yards, men’s sleeping quarters and old bough sheds from another age. It was deserted, a town without a populace.

  When Joe left her to walk further into the homestead, Stella felt the loss of him immediately. It was like being cut adrift from the world; he too was moving imperceptibly away from her. She would have laughed at these foolish thoughts had she not felt so uncertain. Instead she followed him into the darkened space. She reached for his hand, but Joe was opening a door that led to a massive walk-in pantry.

  ‘Let the explorations begin,’ he announced.

  They were in the kitchen, a space lined with cupboards, two stoves and an ancient fridge that needed kerosene to run.