by Birch, Tony;
‘Yes, your granddaughter,’ he said, his apparent knowledge of Sissy further discomforting Odette. He reached out and took hold of her arm. ‘The child, she is twelve years of age? That is correct?’
Odette had no doubt the policeman knew the answer to his own question. She freed her arm. ‘I’m sorry, but I need to be getting home.’
The policeman placed his cap on his head. ‘Before you go, let me introduce myself. I am Sergeant Lowe. I’m sure that we will be seeing more of each other.’
Walking towards the cottage, Odette heard the policeman’s footsteps on the gravel behind her. When she reached the front gate she turned around. Lowe had stopped in the middle of the narrow street. Odette closed the gate behind her, sat on the veranda steps and slowly removed her muddied boots, watching until Lowe had walked back down the rise and slipped away. She knocked her boots against a veranda post, freeing the mud from the heels, and went inside.
‘Sissy, I’m home,’ she called, opening the door and taking off her coat. Sissy didn’t answer. The bed had been made and the kitchen tidied but there was no sign of the girl. ‘I’m home,’ Odette called again.
The pain in her side had become worse and she had a headache to go with it. Odette rested her forehead against the back of the closed door. She was conscious of an unfamiliar fear. She’d taken care of her granddaughter for more than ten years and the authorities had mostly left her in peace. In the new policeman, Lowe, she sensed a threat. The man appeared to have been patiently waiting for her in the mist.
Lowe walked purposefully along the track beside the riverbed on his way back to the station. Few officers with his experience would have volunteered to be posted to a piece of scrub like Deane, but he had little care for socialising in either his work or private life. He had a few acquaintances from his years in military service, but no real friends or family, and preferred his own company. The offer to head the Deane Police Station, with the responsibility of managing its citizens, had been an attractive one. In his new role he was simultaneously appointed as Guardian to the Aboriginal population of the district. He found the title both enticing and apt.
In the years immediately after the war he’d been posted to occupied Europe, serving with the military police. Lowe had dealt with people in situations of great desperation and enjoyed the power he had over those he was responsible for. A person could live or die as an outcome of his actions. He discovered that in times of uncertainty some people made decisions based on moral conviction. For others, a packet of cigarettes, a bottle of spirits, or even a crust of bread was more influential. The contradictions fascinated Lowe and left an impression on him. Children, often hungry, sometimes alone, were the most vulnerable to the decisions of powerful men. More than a decade after returning to civilian life and joining the state police force, Lowe could still recall the faces of those children. He knew similar images haunted other soldiers who had served, having witnessed many horrors. Lowe felt proud that he suffered no such trauma.
He’d been in Deane for only a week, and with little to distract him he’d had time to examine the information on each Aboriginal person under his control, young and old. The station records revealed that in the decades following the town’s foundation, the blacks had been kept on a tight rein. The log book for the police cells indicated that a week rarely passed without an inmate from the nearby mission being locked up, from a period of twelve hours to several weeks, and for matters including trespassing, drunkenness, absconding and co-habitation with those of a superior caste.
Lowe also noted that in recent years the cells had rarely been used, and punishment more generally was almost non-existent. He had little idea of how Officer Shea spent his working day, but he was clearly not concerned with policing. Lowe was determined to bring about change. He would begin with auditing each of the Aboriginal children under his guardianship, with a view to deciding the best outcome for their future welfare.
Chapter Three
Sissy heard her grandmother close the front door on her way to the graveyard and listened to Odette’s footsteps recede down the path. Once she was sure her grandmother had left, she pulled the blankets up over her head. She enjoyed having the house to herself. Some mornings she stayed in bed reading a book until hunger pains got the better of her. She would then make herself breakfast, turn the radio on and switch the dial to one of the music stations. Finding a lively song, she’d shimmy across the linoleum floor in her socks. A girl from school, Katie Cole, had taught her the twist and it was her favourite dance, although she never liked to practise in front of anyone else, even Nan.
Sissy also preferred staying home on Sunday mornings as the mission frightened her. She knew some of the older kids at school snuck into the graveyard at night to smoke cigarettes and drink beer. They returned with stories about the ghosts of children who rose from their burial plots crying out they were lost. While Sissy didn’t believe the stories, they disturbed her enough to keep her away.
She fell back to sleep and was woken some time later by a bird pecking at the iron roof above her head. She got out of bed and went into the kitchen. As she did each morning, Sissy looked up at the photograph of her mother. She often thought about Lila, but avoided speaking about her, as nothing upset Nan as much as being questioned about her daughter, particularly by Sissy.
The window looking out to the veranda had misted over. Sissy pulled the sleeve of her pyjama-top over her fist and rubbed it in a circular motion to create a port-hole into the front yard. She put her face to the cold sheet of glass, peered through the hole but quickly drew away. A man in dark clothing was standing in the street, watching the house. Sissy crossed to the other side of the room, stood by the stove and waited for the kettle to boil. She made herself a tea, cupped her hands around the mug and went back to the window. When she looked through the port-hole again she was relieved to see that the mysterious figure had vanished.
After breakfast, she decided to surprise her grandmother by preparing their weekly bath. Sissy was worried that Odette had been looking worn down recently and getting the bath ready was heavy work. She didn’t want her grandmother getting sick. She would make sure the tub was full and the water was heating by the time Nan returned from the graveyard. As she fetched the wood Sissy thought about how her great-grandfather Ruben first rescued the bath from a muddy ditch along Deane’s Line. It was a story Odette had told her many times and she never tired of hearing it. The bath had fallen from old Jed Lamb’s buggy, and Jed, being too lazy to retrieve it, left it where it fell. Ruben had only recently moved to Quarrytown and was walking the Line one afternoon after visiting family on the mission when he saw the bathtub. He wasted no time calling in at the junkyard to enquire about taking possession of it.
‘You don’t want that tub?’ he asked Jed Lamb.
‘Don’t matter if I want it or not,’ Lamb grunted, scratching frantically at his crotch like a rat digging for scraps of food. ‘It took four men and a donkey to get it onto my horse and cart. Didn’t make it as far as the yard, as you can see for yourself, Ruben. I tell you now, the track along this way is worse than our boys had to deal with over there in the trenches. That was a terrible time,’ he added, seemingly revisiting the trauma he’d suffered as a foot soldier.
Ruben knew Lamb hadn’t left Deane during the Great War, unlike several Aboriginal men from the mission who’d volunteered to fight. He returned Jed to the subject at hand. ‘The bathtub here. Can we do a deal on it? I can arrange to have it picked up.’
‘You and who?’ Lamb smirked. ‘You must be a friend of Samson the strongman himself.’
‘Maybe I am,’ Ruben said. ‘But I won’t need to call on him. I’ve got a way of getting that tub. I’m willing to pay you for it.’
Lamb’s eyes lit up. He was well aware that Ruben was earning good money, a white man’s wage, at the mine. It was a widely known fact that upset some folk in town. ‘Oh, you would be paying, son, and a l
ittle more than you might be prepared to part with, I’d reckon. I’m not running a charity here.’
Ruben had already given consideration to the amount the tub was worth. He’d calculated a fair price of ten shillings. ‘Five shillings,’ was his first offer.
‘That bathtub is worth more than that,’ Lamb scoffed, theatrically slapping a knee. ‘I would need to be looking at twelve shillings before I’d give this transaction serious consideration. If I didn’t drive a good price, I’d be called a fool across the district, and there would go my reputation as a businessman. Old Jed Lamb would be known as a soft touch for every sly old fox within a hundred miles.’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time.’ Ruben laughed.
The comment grated with Lamb. He tolerated blackfellas who’d come off the mission and made a go of it for themselves. Many walked by his gate, some even doffing their caps as they passed by. It didn’t mean he’d tolerate cheek from them. Jed Lamb might have been a junkman, but he was also a true white man. ‘Don’t you be a smart-arse fella with me, Ruben. I could fetch twelve shillings for that bath tomorrow. Jesus Christ himself would tell you, you’re out to rob me.’
‘Well, I’ll give you eight shillings then,’ Ruben offered. ‘Eight shillings and no more. I can bring some of the boys along here tonight and collect it.’
Lamb showed his tongue. It was grey and cracked. He rubbed his hands together. ‘I reckon we’re in business. I’ll need you to pay upfront, of course. And don’t be thinking that it’s because I don’t trust you. Your health is my main concern right now. Lifting this monster will kill you, I’m certain of it. If your heart doesn’t explode in your chest under the strain, you’ll most likely snap your back in two.’ Lamb offered a gnarled and calloused hand. ‘We have a deal.’
Ruben’s crew moved the iron bath from the side of the track with more ease than Jed Lamb, or any of the sceptical locals who came to witness the operation, believed possible. Ruben’s younger brother, Elias, worked as a rigger at the mine. With the aid of pulleys, ropes and a wooden frame, he rigged an elaborate contraption between the bathtub and a buggy. In less than half an hour the iron bath was secured on the dray with ropes to ensure that it would not fall a second time.
‘It’s all about physics,’ Ruben explained to the bewildered Jed Lamb, watching as the bathtub lowered onto the back of the buggy. ‘My brother, Eli, he knows all about physics.’
As they rode off in the direction of Quarrytown, Lamb shouted to Ruben, ‘I should have held out for the twelve, you bugger.’
The men set the bath on blocks of stone in the yard behind the cottage. The bath was screened from the hut on the next block by the toilet and laundry. Ruben had promised that one day he’d supply full plumbing to the tub, a task he never completed.
As Sissy carried another large log to rest beside the bath she wished he had. Instead, Ruben had run a length of pipe from the tub to the nearby vegetable garden. Odette still grew potatoes and pumpkins all year round in the same spot, as well as tomatoes in the summer. Each and every Sunday without fail, Ruben would light a fire beside the tub and place the hot coals underneath. Her nan had inherited the task from her dad, and now Sissy, having watched her grandmother prepare the bath for her each Sunday, was returning Odette’s generosity.
Odette found Sissy busy arranging wood in the fire pit beside the cast-iron bath. She knocked on the window to get her granddaughter’s attention. Sissy looked up and smiled. When she was satisfied the fire was ready to be lit she washed her hands under the backyard tap and walked into the kitchen.
‘Morning, Nanna.’ She hugged her grandmother.
‘Morning to you too. Have you had your breakfast?’ Odette asked.
‘Yeah,’ Sissy said. ‘I had some bread and jam after I got out of bed. But I’m hungry again. What about you?’
Odette brushed Sissy’s fringe away from her eyes and tucked it behind an ear. ‘I’m not surprised you’re hungry. You’ve been out there working hard. Take your jumper off and I’ll make you a sandwich.’
‘You walked all the way to the graveyard and back. That’s harder work than I’ve been doing.’
Odette felt the pain in her side and grimaced.
‘What’s wrong?’ Sissy asked.
Odette dismissed Sissy’s question. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me, Young Miss.’ She picked up a box of matches and went into the backyard. Sissy had prepared a good fire. Odette lit the match, stood back and watched as the flames quickly took to the timber. She went back into the kitchen and made lunch. After they’d eaten, Sissy got up from the table and looked out the window at the bath. ‘I reckon it’s ready, Nan. It’s my turn to spread the coals to heat the water.’
‘It’s hard work,’ Odette said, ‘but don’t let me stop you.’
‘You can have first bath today, Nan.’
Odette wouldn’t hear of it. ‘No, I won’t be. You always go first. We’ll leave it at that.’
Odette was in the laundry struggling to saw through a rock-hard block of Velvet soap when Sissy called out to her, ‘I’m ready.’
Until the previous summer Odette had always helped wash and dry Sissy at bath time but now that her granddaughter was developing, Odette left the girl to enjoy some privacy until it was time to wash her hair. She came out of the laundry carrying a tin pail, a hairbrush and a bottle of castor oil. She moved a wooden chair alongside the tub, sat down and dipped the pail into the water. ‘Pass me the soap, Sis, and put your head back.’
Sissy closed her eyes and rested her neck against the edge of the bath. Odette gently poured the warm water over Sissy’s head, her hair darkening as the water ran onto her shoulders. Odette massaged Sissy’s scalp, working the soap into a rich lather. She then rinsed Sissy’s hair with several pails of water, poured a few drops of castor oil into one hand and raked the oil through Sissy’s hair with her fingers.
Sissy sighed with pleasure. ‘I love this, Nanna. It’s the best part of the week.’
‘I’m happy you do.’ Odette smiled. ‘I love it too.’
Odette closed her eyes, listening to the call of a bird in a tree branch high above. She had taught Sissy about the importance of birds, telling her that one day they would become the truest friends she could have. Without having to open her eyes Odette knew that the bird was a magpie, the same one that had been visiting the house for two years or more.
‘He’s a friend,’ Odette explained to Sissy when the bird first arrived in the yard. ‘As long as that magpie is here, we will be safe.’
‘Safe from what?’ Sissy had asked.
‘From everything,’ Odette had said. She continued to rinse Sissy’s hair while returning the magpie’s call.
‘Hey, Nanna,’ Sissy asked, ‘did you speak with the old people at the graveyard today?’
‘Of course, I always do. To my mamma and your grandpa. And the others.’
‘Are you ever afraid when you go there, maybe that there are ghosts in the graveyard?’
‘Rubbish. Who told you that?’ Odette asked.
‘No one, I was just thinking.’
Odette took a dry cloth from the pocket of her dress and wiped Sissy’s face. ‘Ghosts are what white people put in storybooks and picture shows. They do it to scare people about the dead. The church does the same. It’s about making people afraid. I’m sure they know nothing about the good of a person’s spirit and how it comes forward after death.’
The mission had converted many Aboriginal people into God-fearing Christians. They could sing and pray day and night, and hold to the truth of the Bible as good as any white person. Those on the mission who did not take to prayer were regarded with suspicion by the missionaries, and were sometimes punished. Ruben had taught Odette to sing just loud enough to keep them satisfied.
‘Do you believe in God?’ she had once asked her father.
‘No, I don’t,’ Ruben
answered. ‘Not their God. I believe in what the old people teach me, but not the church business.’
‘Why do you want me to sing then?’ she’d asked.
‘Because it’s best to keep them fellas happy, keep their meanness down,’ he’d answered.
‘Do you think I’ll be able to speak to the old people one day?’ Sissy asked, interrupting Odette’s thoughts.
‘Speak with them any time you like.’ Odette chuckled. ‘You can start with my cousin, Marcus. He’s two rows back from your Pa, Ruben, at the graveyard. Marcus never stops talking. If he doesn’t talk back to you none of them old people will.’
Odette fetched a length of clean calico for Sissy to dry herself. She turned her back on the girl until Sissy had stepped out of the tub and wrapped herself in the sheet.
‘I saw a man here this morning,’ Sissy commented, as Odette was drying her hair.
Odette stopped. ‘What man?’
‘When I got up and put the kettle on I saw him from the front window.’
‘Who?’ Odette demanded, raising her voice.
‘A man. He was dressed all in black.’
Thinking about her encounter with the new policeman, Lowe, Odette’s heart raced. ‘And what did he do?’
‘Nothing. He was standing out in the street. When I came back to the window after making my tea he was gone.’
Odette wrung her hands together. Sissy could sense Odette’s anxiety.
‘Is there something wrong, Nan?’
‘Nothing,’ Odette barked, before checking herself. She patted the small of Sissy’s back several times. ‘I’m sorry. It’s really nothing, Sis. You come inside now and we’ll put the brush through your hair before it dries and tangles.’
‘What about your bath, Nan? I can shovel more of the coals for you.’
‘And get yourself all grubby again? I won’t have you doing that. There’ll be no bath for me today. I’m going to be busy with the cards. I have an order to finish.’