Even though Lillie was excited to be starting a new school, she also felt tears threaten and tried hard to hold them back. ‘Don’t be sad,’ she said. ‘I reckon you and Dad will be glad to get rid of me. And in any case, I’ll be home at weekends.’
‘I know. I’ve got kind of used to you being around all the time, that’s all.’
At Rathgarven Ma always had Alice or Maisie to talk to. Now there would be no other women around during the week. Even though she had Jack, Arthur and Dad there, and, of course, Marcus and Freddie when they weren’t at school, it wasn’t the same. She was bound to get lonely.
Before she had a chance to say anything, Ma put her arm around her and gave her a squeeze. ‘You can’t spend the rest of your life at Eureka without an education. So let’s get this cupboard in order and then we can go and have “the last supper”.’
They had dinner at the Central Hotel on the corner of Peel and Brisbane Streets, and stayed the night upstairs with the sound of the juke box downstairs vibrating through the floorboards. The next morning Ma dropped her off at the school gate. A week earlier Lillie had sat an exam and was pleased to be told she would be in Deb’s class. But as she walked down the long corridor to her classroom, she felt even more nervous than on her first day at the convent in Cork. She was glad that at least she knew Deb, who knew all the other girls.
‘Come and I’ll introduce you to my friends,’ she said to Lillie at the morning break. She pulled a yoyo out of her tunic pocket and wrapped the string around her finger. ‘You’ll love Sasha. She’s a real hoot.’
And Sasha was. When Lillie was at school in Cork there was a girl in her class who was the class clown. Always mucking about, being silly and getting into trouble. That was Sasha.
It also turned out that the girl from the milk bar in Gullumbindy was a real bully, like Deb said. Her name was Sandra and her uniform was shorter than the others. Since Lillie had last seen her she had peroxided her hair a brassy blonde. For some reason she and a couple of her friends took a real dislike to Lillie. On her second afternoon, Sandra and her friends bailed Lillie up in the loo downstairs as she washed her hands in front of the mirror. Lillie was on her own.
‘Where the hell did ya learn to talk like that?’ Sandra sneered as the other girls looked on and sniggered. ‘On another planet, eh! For sure as an emu egg it ain’t this one.’
‘Your accent’s not that great either,’ was all Lillie could think of to say. ‘At least people can understand what I’m saying. Now … if you’ll excuse me I’ll leave you here to ogle your ugly face in that cracked mirror. You may even crack it a bit more if you keep looking.’
Sandra whipped around and poked her in the chest. ‘Ah yeah,’ she spat. ‘I reckon you’re the one who broke the mirror. With a face like that it’s not hard to see why.’ She looked Lillie up and down. ‘And with a figure like that I don’t reckon you starve at home.’
‘Leave me alone,’ Lillie said. ‘Why are you so mean?’
‘Yeah, leave her alone,’ one of the other girls said, beckoning for Sandra to come with her. ‘She’s not worth worrying about.’
‘I haven’t finished yet,’ Sandra snarled, pulling Lillie’s ponytail so hard tears came to her eyes. ‘Did you know that Finn Malone, the fancy man who left you everything, was a rotten drunk and used to bash up his wife? My dad reckons that with that on his conscience, who could blame him for shooting himself.’
‘Stop it,’ Lillie shouted. ‘Uncle Finn’s wife came to his funeral. Why would she do that if he used to bash her up?’
‘Oh, Uncle Finn is he now?’
‘I hate you,’ Lillie threw at her. ‘You’re the meanest girl I’ve ever met. And I’ve met some, believe me.’
With that she rushed out and ran as fast as she could up the stairs to the classroom, which thankfully was empty. She sat at her desk and let the hot, sticky tears trickle down her cheeks. Taking out a handkerchief she wiped them away before anyone could see.
A few minutes later Deb came in looking for her. ‘You okay?’ she asked. ‘I saw you flee up here.’
‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ Lillie muttered, trying to stop from blubbering.
‘You’re not fine,’ Deb said, giving her a worried look. ‘Is it Sandra?’
Lillie nodded. ‘Why does she hate me so much?’
‘Probably because she doesn’t like me and she knows you’re my friend. She’s nothing but an ugly bully.’
Lillie looked at Deb and the tears she was trying so hard to curb flooded down her cheeks. ‘She said dreadful things about Uncle Finn,’ she sobbed. ‘That he was a drunk and used to bash up his wife. She said everyone’s saying so.’
‘They are not,’ Deb said, coming over and putting an arm around her. ‘She’s jealous your family inherited Eureka Park, that’s all. Her family live in a pretty ordinary place outside of Gullumbindy. Her father’s an alcoholic. Rumour has it he beats her mother.’ Deb stood up straight. ‘Perhaps he beats Sandra as well … and …’ She paused and Lillie thought she was about to say something more, but there was the clatter of feet running up the stairs and soon the rest of the girls would be pouring into the classroom.
Wiping her eyes with her sleeve, Lillie tried a smile. ‘Thanks, Deb. I’ll be fine, truly I will.’ She then picked up her pen and pretended to be writing in her exercise book.
It wasn’t just Sandra who gave Lillie a hard time. Most of the nuns were great, except for one, Sister Bernadette, who seemed to dislike her intensely, making Lillie chew her fingernails whenever she was in her class. One morning, as Sandra and her friends sniggered in the background, she whacked Lillie over the knuckles with a feather duster and berated her for getting her algebra wrong: ‘You dense Irish girl,’ she shouted in front of the class. ‘Why in the name of the Lord can’t you work that simple problem out in that thick brain of yours? Coming from the land of saints and scholars. Who would believe it?’
The harder she hit, the more Lillie was determined not to show it hurt. That night she cried herself to sleep behind the white curtains of her cubicle in the dormitory. To stop herself being heard she put the pillow over her head. I hate this school, she thought. I’m never going to fit in. Even if Deb’s nice to me, everyone else thinks I’m a freak. She couldn’t wait to go home to Eureka Park on Friday, where she could go down to the stables and talk to Jack, who would be nice to her.
* * *
This weekend Deb was staying up in town with a cousin who lived in North Tamworth. Before Lillie got on the bus she came over and said goodbye.
‘I’m sorry for what Sandra’s doing to you,’ she said. ‘I told Sister Margaret about it. Maybe you should tell her as well.’
‘And get bullied even more? No thanks.’
When she got on the bus she sat next to Ronan and told him what had happened with Sandra and showed him her bruised fingers from the feather duster.
‘Good on you for not crying in front of the nun, li’l sis. Why give her the satisfaction of knowing she was hurting you?’ Something in the way Ronan said this made Lillie wonder if his teachers hit him.
‘Do you get hit?’ she asked. ‘By the brothers, I mean.’
Ronan shrugged. ‘Everyone gets the strap now and then.’
‘But you’ve never said.’
‘Because that’s just how it is.’
Lillie sighed. ‘Anyway … What about the horrid things Sandra said about Uncle Finn?’
‘She’s making it up. And, as Deb told you, her father’s an alcoholic. His mind’s probably half shot.’
‘Like Uncle Finn’s was?’
‘Something like that.’
When Lillie was sitting beside Ma in the car at Gullumbindy, waiting for Ronan to come back from the milk bar where he’d gone to get a cool drink, Ma asked her how it had gone.
Lillie looked out of the window to where a couple of dogs were scavenging through a rubbish bin, scattering litter all over the ground. ‘It was fine,’ she said, trying to sound cheerful. ‘I liked i
t a lot.’
Kathleen eyed her. ‘You don’t sound as though you liked it a lot.’
‘I’m tired, Ma. That’s all. The bus was hot.’
‘How was Deb? Did she introduce you around?’
‘She was great. And yes, I met lots of other girls.’
‘What about the nuns? Are they nice? And the girls in your dormitory?’
Lillie thought Ma had enough worries trying to keep the wolf from the door at Eureka Park without having to worry about Lillie as well.
‘Ma, they were all great. I really liked it. And it was fun.’
Fortunately, at that moment Ronan came back and Ma turned her attention to him.
When she got home Lillie took off her uniform and went outside, where she found Dingo lying under a wattle tree chewing on a bone. She sat beside him and stroked his head. She was so pleased to be home and not in that awful school. She wasn’t sure how she was going to be able to go back up on the bus on Sunday night. All of a sudden she felt really homesick for Rathgarven. For Sheelagh. And Maisie and Paddy. Most of all she wished with all her heart that Grandma was here. Lillie mightn’t be able to worry Ma with what had happened, but Grandma would have listened and given her good advice.
Ronan came and sat down beside her. ‘You okay, li’l sis?’
Lillie threw him a half smile. ‘Yeah. I’m fine.’
‘There’s bullies everywhere,’ he said. ‘The best thing to do is try to steer clear of them. That’s what I do.’
‘You get bullied too?’
‘Yeah. It happens. I guess it might be to do with the fact that we have inherited Eureka Park. People get jealous.’ He grinned. ‘Can’t say I blame them.’
‘We didn’t ask to inherit it! Or for Uncle Finn to die! And we lost Rathgarven.’
‘That’s how the cookie crumbles.’
‘It’s not fair,’ Lillie said. ‘I’ve done nothing to that girl. And I did nothing to that nun. They’re awful.’ With that she burst into tears.
‘Come on,’ Ronan said, giving her his handkerchief. ‘Let’s go find Jack. We can have a whip-cracking competition.’
After a moment Lillie took his handkerchief, wiped her eyes and forced a smile. ‘Oh yeah! And you win. As always.’
‘Of course.’
As she walked towards the stables with Ronan her mood lifted. At least she had two whole days before she had to go back to school. And she was looking forward to seeing Jack. And the horses.
CHAPTER
23
The children love exploring the Australian bush, the excitement of finding a kangaroo in the paddock or discovering a discarded snakeskin. Ireland doesn’t have snakes, as folklore tells us St Patrick put his crook into the ground and drove them all into the sea. Outside the window I can see two brilliantly coloured rosellas perched on the fence and our dog, Dingo, is happily chewing a bone under the wattle tree. In the oven is a batch of pumpkin scones and I even made some Anzac biscuits yesterday. I think I am fast becoming an Aussie bush wife …
Kathleen sat at her desk looking out the window at the cold winter’s morning. It wasn’t exactly the truth she was writing in her column. Despite her initial relief at having inherited Eureka Park, with Lillie and Ronan away at school all week she struggled with homesickness and the isolation. She missed the ruggedness of Kerry, the smell of salt and seaweed, and not having Alice and Maisie around. She missed the Fitzpatricks and her girlfriends in Kenmare and being able to pop into Burn’s Butcher or Kelly’s Bakery in Sneem to talk to the locals. Here at Eureka there was no one. She even found herself pining for her time at the Telegraph Hotel, where there were always people coming and going. Despite her daily chores, her photography, her column and the garden, she couldn’t wait until it was time to collect Marcus and Freddie from the front gate. What’s more she and James were snapping at each other as they struggled to make ends meet. Finally Finn’s money had come through; however, rather than being twenty thousand pounds it was only seven thousand. And James and Kathleen had insisted that Dawn get her two thousand pounds first before any was given to them.
‘I’m afraid the rest has been eaten up with debts,’ Colin Towers told them.
Although they hadn’t had to sell the land on the other side of Snake Gully Road, they had borrowed money from the bank, which was costing them in interest and repayments. So it wasn’t long before that seven thousand pounds had a huge hole bored into it. Kathleen thought James was spending too much money on the stud, even though he had let Arthur go in order to cut costs. James thought Kathleen wasn’t economising enough in the household, despite the veggie patch thriving and the chickens keeping them in eggs. James and Jack ran a few sheep in the far paddock and Jack slaughtered one every now and then to put in the freezer. But there were endless other necessities, like the boxes of groceries she got once a fortnight from Quirindi. Not to mention petrol and the children’s expenses at school.
Now, as she typed, James came in to get the chequebook. Kathleen sighed. ‘Another cheque! Who’s it for this time?’
‘The vet.’
‘Does it need to be paid right now?’
‘I said I’d put it in today’s mail.’
‘It’s never-ending, isn’t it? Whether it’s Rathgarven or here. Too many bills. Not enough money.’ She opened the drawer to get the chequebook out. ‘I’m beginning to know how Finn felt. It probably was his money worries that sent him off the rails. We’ve got to be careful we don’t go the same way.’
‘Kathleen …’
‘I don’t mean suicide. We seem to be at each other’s throats about money all the time. It could destroy us, James, if we’re not careful.’
‘Things are bound to improve once we can sell a few more yearlings and those mares drop. … and,’ he smiled, ‘I’ve got quite a few more assignations for Caesar. Brian Medlow has really put the word out. And that ad I placed in the Leader seems to be working.’
‘I hope to God you’re right.’
After he’d gone she returned to her writing but her heart wasn’t in it. Instead, she went to the kitchen, made a cup of tea and took it outside. Perched on the edge of the verandah she listened to the sound of the crickets and watched a white cockatoo trying to peck a branch off the lemon tree. She stood and shooed it away. It hadn’t taken long for Kathleen to realise the cockatoos were a darn pest, just as Finn had said. She thought of him again now. Was it really money worries that had sent him on the road to destruction? Or was it something else? Once Dawn had left, had he become so lonely out here on his own that he could see no future, despite the O’Sullivans coming? She wished she had been able to make contact with Dawn’s friend Winifred Black to get a sense of the frame of mind he had been in when she last saw him. But it was obvious she didn’t want to be friends, or even talk to Kathleen. The last time Kathleen had been in to see Martha Hogan she had asked her if she’d seen Winifred around.
‘There’s something odd about that one,’ Martha said. ‘When I saw her at the post office I asked her when she’d last seen Finn Malone. Without so much as a word she was off out the door.’
‘I wonder why she doesn’t want to talk about him.’
‘Maybe it’s not him. Could be something else that’s eating her.’
Kathleen would have liked to ask Dawn if she’d heard from her, but Dawn had written to them wishing them luck with Eureka Park and saying she was going to use the two thousand pounds Finn had left her to go travelling overseas. Neither James or Kathleen had heard from her since.
The following afternoon, when she collected the mail from the letterbox at the front gate as she waited for the bus to bring Marcus and Freddie home from school, she opened a letter from the Quirindi Advocate. With horror she read that she’d been given the boot. Tim Lyons, the editor Kathleen had worked with, had moved on to the Daily Telegraph in Sydney and the new editor decided that although he liked her column, he was replacing it with a Dear Abby agony column.
She sighed angrily. Darn that new edi
tor! How could he? Though she couldn’t help wondering if he’d have kept her on if she’d told the truth, rather than making up a sort of fantasy of what life was like at Eureka Park. How could she tell James she’d been let go? She’d come to rely on the three pounds for housekeeping. Also the columns and photographs gave her a purpose each week and she enjoyed taking them in to the office, where she could talk to the staff. A couple of times she had had a cup of coffee with Tim Lyons, who made her feel special, telling her how much he liked her photographs.
‘You’ve got a real talent for capturing the Australian bush as it is,’ he said one day, looking at a photo Kathleen had taken of three kangaroos down near the dam. ‘Makes me feel as though I’m part of the scene you’re photographing.’ He picked up a photo of a flock of pink and grey galahs perching in a gum tree with a few of the horses grazing underneath it. ‘Your photos remind me a bit of Hans Heysen’s paintings.’
Praise like that gave Kathleen a feeling of worth, something she used to have when she worked in Calcutta, but had seemed to lose when she became reliant on James to provide. To be told she had talent boosted her confidence no end. Now all of that was gone.
She was still thinking of how she would tell James when a cloud of dust heralded the school bus. What would the children think of their mother being replaced by a Dear Abby column? Even though she was furious, she couldn’t help smiling. She might even write to the column herself.
Freddie burst from the bus and scrambled into the back seat. He leant over the front seat and handed her a piece of butcher’s paper. ‘Ma … Look what I did. It’s a painting for you to put on the fridge. See … it’s Dingo riding on Caesar. Isn’t he clever?’
‘You’re the one who’s clever,’ Kathleen said, giving him a kiss on top of his mop of unruly hair. ‘I think it’s a terrific painting.’
‘Why would Dingo be riding Caesar?’ Marcus asked sulkily.
‘Because he’s clever,’ Freddie said.
‘And because he and Caesar are good friends,’ Kathleen added. ‘Now, shut the door and we’ll go on up and have a snack. Even I’m hungry. I made some chocolate crackles this morning. Jack loved them.’
The Homestead on the River Page 22