The Homestead on the River

by Rosie MacKenzie

  Driving up through the paddocks with the horses grazing happily on either side, Kathleen felt her mood lift. Blow the stupid Quirindi Advocate. She would find something that paid much better.

  Even so, by the time she had prepared dinner and put it on the table that night, her mood had deteriorated again. She thought of telling James before dinner that she had lost her job, but something held her back. He looked whacked after a day of ploughing the lucerne field. I’ll tell him after dinner, she thought as she served him a piece of shepherd’s pie. When I’ve put the boys to bed. By that stage, James had fallen asleep in the armchair in the living room with his book on his lap and she was loath to disturb him.

  * * *

  The next morning, after she had driven the boys down to the bus stop, Kathleen was hanging out the washing when with horror she saw a snake wriggle out from under the jasmine vine near the house. James and Jack were in the paddock on the other side of Snake Gully Road doing some fencing so that they could move a couple of the older mares down there. Mesmerised, Kathleen stared in terror as the snake lay basking in the sun. I’ve left the back door open, she thought. If I try to scare it away by throwing something at it, it’s sure to get inside and crawl under a cupboard, or a couch, or worse still one of the children’s beds. She knew James kept a rifle in the woodshed. With her eyes still fixed on the snake, she sneaked over, went inside and found it. Then she looked for the bullets, which he kept on the high bench. Loading the gun, she crept outside and checked if the snake had moved. She shivered when she saw it was now nearer the back door and was about to slither inside. Lifting the gun, she took aim, grateful for the lessons she’d had in India during the war. The first shot blew its head off. But it still kept wriggling. Although she was sure it was dead, she shot again and this time she got it in the back.

  Now it lay motionless.

  Frightened that Dingo might come and start playing with its remains, she put the rifle back in the shed, got a spade and shovelled the mess to one side; she would take it down to the river and throw it in the water for the fish. She had read enough about snakes to work out it was a deadly red-bellied black, and shivered at the thought that it could have bitten one of the children if it had got inside. Once she’d got rid of its remains, she checked her watch. James and Jack would be coming in for lunch before too long. If it were just Kathleen and James they could settle for a sandwich. With Jack there, Kathleen felt she had to cook a hot lunch.

  She had put a cauliflower cheese in the oven before she went to hang the washing out. It would now be well and truly overcooked. Scrambling back up the bank she made her way to the kitchen.

  ‘I killed a snake,’ she announced, standing back after serving lunch and trying not to look smug. ‘It was outside the door. I thought it would get in.’

  ‘Gees, Mrs O’Sullivan,’ Jack exclaimed, putting down his fork. ‘How did you kill it?’

  ‘I shot it with James’s rifle from the shed.’

  ‘Crikey,’ Jack said. ‘I thought I heard a shot, but reckoned it was along at the neighbour’s place.’ He shook his head. ‘I’d no idea you knew how to use a rifle.’

  ‘I learnt in India.’ She was about to say who had shown her, then changed her mind with Jack there. ‘I threw the remains in the river.’

  James got up from his chair, put his arm around her and gave her a squeeze. ‘I’m very proud of you.’

  You wouldn’t be if you knew I’d been fired from the Advocate, she thought. Whether it was the emotion of having shot the snake, or losing her job, Kathleen decided to leave them be and go to her room, feeling she might burst into tears. Shortly, James came in and saw her sitting on the bed. It didn’t take Einstein to work out she was upset.

  ‘I can understand you being so emotional,’ he said, sitting down beside her. ‘You must’ve got a dreadful shock with the snake. You did so well to kill it before it got in the house.’

  ‘It’s not just the stupid snake,’ Kathleen blurted. ‘I didn’t tell you before, but I lost my job at the newspaper.’ She shook her head and fiddled with the edge of the eiderdown. ‘They’re replacing me with an agony column … Dear Abby. Can you believe it?’

  James smiled. ‘Well, it just shows the sort of readers their paper has if they’ve replaced you with that. Your column was way over their heads.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous, James. It’s not a bad paper, as you know. They didn’t think I was good enough. And, I must say, I can’t say I blame them. Although it was all right to begin with, I was running out of ideas. They must’ve seen that as well. What I should have written is the truth. How Finn left us with debts. How you and I bicker a lot of the time. And I know I shouldn’t feel sorry for myself, but I do feel lonely with the children at school. Maybe if I’d written that the readers might’ve had more empathy.’

  James walked over to the window and looked out for a long moment before he turned back to her. ‘I was only thinking the other day, now that Arthur’s gone, why don’t you get more involved with the horses? Melody, one of the mares who’s not far off dropping her foal, seems to be in difficulties. It’d be great if you could sit with her for a while. Although the vet came out, she needs someone to calm her down. She seems to be in a lot of pain and quite disturbed.’

  Kathleen joined him at the window and looked onto the garden, which was now a riot of colour. ‘You’re trying to make me feel useful.’

  ‘No,’ James said. ‘I could genuinely do with your help. Come with me now and I’ll show you where she is.’

  Kathleen was silent, mulling over what James had asked. Since Arthur had left, James and Jack were flat out keeping up with everything. If it were just the running of the stud, they would be well and truly on top of it. It was all the work that needed doing on top of that. Apart from the ploughing for planting lucerne, many of the paddocks seemed to be overrun with thistles, which needed to be chopped down or pulled out. And some of the fences in the far paddocks still needed upgrading. Although she often helped out with the feeding and filling the water troughs with the hose from the dam, she had thought before of asking James if he needed more help, then decided she might be getting in the way. Yet, she couldn’t bear to think of a mare in pain. She remembered how painful her own childbirths had been. Besides, it sounded as though James could really do with the help.

  Furnishing him with a small smile, she said, ‘If you really think I’ll be useful … well … give me a moment and I’ll come on down and see what I can do.’

  Fifteen minutes later James led her into the far stall where Melody was lying on the hay. When Kathleen saw the distressed look in her eyes, she knelt down next to her head and rubbed her behind the ears. As soon as the mare felt Kathleen’s hand and heard her soothing voice she seemed to calm down.

  ‘There,’ James smiled. ‘I told you you’d be a help to her.’

  And that’s where Kathleen remained, on and off between her duties at the homestead, until the cutest little black foal with a white star on his forehead arrived at three o’clock one morning. Kathleen was about to rush and get James and Jack to help with the birth, but then time ran out and it was just Kathleen there to catch the foal as it came out and tried to stand up on wobbly legs. The moment Kathleen saw him he reminded her of Joker, the horse she had often ridden at the Tollygunge Club in Calcutta. After much deliberation they decided to call him Shannon Boy after the Shannon River, which was so dear to James and Kathleen as they had spent their honeymoon at a private hotel on the shores of the Shannon in Tipperary. The foal now gave her a role she relished, and a whole new subject for her photography. She photographed him and his mother from every possible angle as he frolicked in the front paddock, scampered up and down the dam wall and scooted from one fence to the other. He really is the cutest thing, Kathleen thought as she developed one of his photos in the small darkroom she had set up next to the stables. And she couldn’t help thinking that Finn would have loved him, too.

  CHAPTER

  24

&n
bsp; ‘You want to come and stay at my place next weekend?’ Deb asked Lillie. It was the Friday after Lillie’s fifteenth birthday, and the girls were sitting up the back of the school bus on the way home from Tamworth.

  ‘That sounds great,’ Lillie said.

  She and Deb were three seats behind Sandra. Lillie hadn’t spoken to Sandra since their last altercation, when she had come up to her in the playground and asked if she still believed Finn Malone hadn’t bashed up his wife. What Sandra didn’t realise was that Deb was standing around the corner and overheard her, and Deb had raced around to give her a piece of her mind.

  ‘If you say anything like that again,’ Deb shouted, eyeballing her, ‘I’m going to tell Mother Superior what you’re doing. And, what’s more, you tell your father if he spreads any more untrue gossip around the place, my dad will get the police to sort him out.’

  Deb had been so angry her cheeks looked as if they were going to explode right there and then, and Lillie thought she would hit Sandra in the face. Sandra must have thought so too, as, with much muttering, she shoved off. Since then, every time Sandra came near her, Lillie would quickly move away. And she made sure that she never went anywhere on her own where Sandra and her group might find her. If she wanted to go to the toilet in the playground Deb always came with her. Fortunately Sandra wasn’t a boarder, as she lived with an aunt during the week, so Lillie didn’t have to worry about her after school hours.

  ‘We could camp out on Saturday night,’ Deb was saying. ‘To save the feed on our place we run some of the stock on the long paddock.’

  Lillie raised an eyebrow. ‘The long paddock?’

  ‘The side of the road. A couple of our stockmen stay out with the sheep. Sometimes on the weekend I help out. It’s kinda fun. We have a campfire and bunk down in sleeping bags.’

  ‘Don’t you get scared? I mean … snakes, spiders and things.’

  ‘If you zip up your sleeping bag they can’t get in.’

  ‘I’ve never slept outside at night. It’d be fun if you’re sure nothing will get me.’

  Deb glanced along to where Ronan was sitting with a couple of boys from his school, including the one Deb had told Lillie she fancied. ‘You reckon your brother would like to come?’

  Lillie smiled. ‘Oh yeah? And if he comes, he might ask Dennis. Is that the idea?’

  ‘No. I’ve gone off Dennis.’

  The penny dropped. ‘Ah! So you fancy Ronan? Is that it?’

  ‘Well, he’s not a bad sort.’

  ‘You think so?’ Lillie giggled, eyeing her brother as he laughed with his friends. ‘I’ve never really thought of him in that way. Still, I suppose he’s not bad looking.’

  ‘You reckon he has a girlfriend?’

  ‘Not that I know of. He sort of likes a girl back in England. We’ve known her since we were little. Her mother’s a good friend of my mother’s.’

  ‘What about in Tamworth? I heard he’s really good at rugby. And the team and a few girls sometimes hang out at Fitzroy’s milk bar after a game.’

  ‘He hasn’t hinted he’s got a girlfriend. Mind you, I’m probably the last person he’d tell.’ Lillie glanced at Ronan again. ‘Why don’t you ask him yourself if he’d like to come camping?’

  ‘He’d probably reckon I’m chasing him or something.’

  Lillie laughed. ‘Isn’t that exactly what you are doing?’

  ‘Please, Lillie.’

  Lillie sighed. ‘All right then. I’ll ask him over the weekend. But he often plays rugby on a Saturday. Sometimes he doesn’t come home at all on the weekend. Other times my parents go up and get him after the match.’

  ‘Ask him anyway.’ Deb reached into her school bag and pulled out a packet of Twisties and offered some to Lillie. ‘What’s the girl in England like?’

  ‘Clara? Pretty. Blonde. Wears gorgeous clothes.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘As I said, she’s more like a cousin to us really. So I wouldn’t worry too much about her.’

  Which wasn’t exactly true, but she wasn’t going to tell Deb that. If she did and Ronan found out he would kill her for telling Deb his business.

  ‘What about you?’ Deb asked. ‘You fancy anyone? Like that fellow, Jack? The bloke you said’s working for your dad? You reckoned he’s really nice.’

  ‘He’s a lot older than me. Still, he’s so easy to talk to. And knows so much about horses. You should see him crack a whip. He taught us all.’

  As the bus was about to pull into Gullumbindy, Deb scrunched the packet of Twisties into a ball and squeezed it into the pocket of her tunic. ‘Well, see if your parents will let you come. And make sure you ask Ronan. It could be a heap of fun.’

  Lillie stood up and grabbed her school bag from the rack above their heads. She saw Ronan also getting his bag and made her way towards him.

  ‘Sure. I’ll ring you tomorrow,’ she called to Deb, who was getting off at the next stop. ‘Let you know.’

  ‘Let you know what?’ Ronan asked, stepping down from the bus beside her.

  ‘Deb’s asked me to stay at her place next weekend and to go camping with the stockmen.’ She grinned. ‘She asked you as well.’

  ‘Really!’

  ‘Yeah. For some absurd reason she fancies you. She wanted to know if you had a girlfriend.’

  They walked across the road to the large stringybark where they usually waited to be picked up by one of their parents. Sitting down on a log under the tree, Lillie pulled out a set of Freddie’s jacks from her school bag and started to play, throwing the knucklebones up in the air and catching them on the back of her hand. She knew she was far too old to play such games, but she didn’t care, Freddie loved playing them with her.

  ‘So have you?’

  ‘Got a girlfriend?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘None of your business, li’l sis. But as a matter of fact … no I don’t.’

  ‘Still pining for Clara, are you?’

  ‘Lillie! Because I don’t have a girlfriend doesn’t mean I’m pining for someone else. And, in any case, I’ve got a game of rugby next weekend. Thank Deb all the same. She’s a really nice girl. But I’m not looking for a girlfriend if that’s what she’s after.’

  Now their mother pulled into the side of the road and Lillie put Freddie’s jacks back in her school bag.

  ‘Hi there,’ Ma called out, winding down the window. ‘Hop in. I’ve got to go to the corner store. How about an ice cream?’

  Lillie slumped into the back seat behind Ronan and her mother and wondered how she’d break it to Deb that Ronan wasn’t interested in going camping — or in Deb. She also wondered if Ronan still kept in touch with Clara. Lillie hadn’t heard from her since that Christmas card, but she had no idea whether Ronan got letters from her at the Thompsons. If she asked him he’d just tell her to mind her own business, as usual.

  * * *

  The next Saturday night, Lillie lay by the campfire with Deb. She couldn’t get over how many stars there were in the sky. She had never really lain outside looking up like this at night before. It was as if the whole sky was alight with twinkles and sparkles. Earlier on she and Deb had cooked tinned sausages on a grill over the stones and gobbled them up wrapped in bread smothered in tomato sauce. Before she came to Australia Lillie had never eaten sausages this way. Now that’s the way she loved to have them, although she preferred the fresh sausages her mother got from the butcher at Gullumbindy, rather than the ones in tins.

  Because Lillie had come out to the long paddock with Deb, the two stockmen had gone into town for a few beers, leaving the girls to mind the sheep. Lillie had been given Buster, Deb’s mother’s piebald horse, to ride and Deb had her own grey mare, Madge. Both horses were hobbled on a stake close by. This was another thing Lillie had never seen before. At first she thought how cruel it was, then Deb assured her it wasn’t and the horses were used to it.

  ‘It’s better than waking up in the morning and finding the horses have taken off,’ she pointe
d out, doing up the buckle on the leather strap around Buster’s leg earlier on.

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’

  When she had done up the buckle on Madge’s leg, she turned to Lillie. ‘A pity Ronan didn’t come. He could’ve ridden Dad’s horse.’

  ‘I know. But he seems really set on rugby.’

  ‘You reckon if it wasn’t for rugby he would’ve come?’

  ‘Not sure. He didn’t really say.’

  Lillie had chickened out and not told Deb Ronan wasn’t interested in her as a girlfriend. She hoped Deb would take the hint and let it drop. And to give her her due, she hadn’t mentioned it again.

  ‘I love this time of night,’ Deb murmured as they sat by the fire. ‘When the fire goes out it’ll get quite cold. Now it’s perfect, isn’t it?’

  ‘It seems so different to Ireland. Ma says it’s the smells. Eucalypt and dust. And the sheep of course.’

  ‘Your mum’s really nice. How long have she and your dad been married?’

  Lillie thought for a moment. She’d seen a couple of wedding photos of her parents, but had never really asked when they were taken. As far as Lillie was concerned they’d been married a lifetime.

  ‘Gees, I don’t know. Before Ronan was born. He’s seventeen. So probably eighteen years. What about yours?’

  ‘They’re not married.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. Mum was married before. She had an affair with my dad. Then she fell pregnant with me and told her husband I wasn’t his, and he kicked her out. Seeing as Mum’s a Catholic she couldn’t get a divorce. She got a separation or whatever they call it, but she can’t get married again in the Catholic Church. Dad’s a Catholic as well. Mum said that seeing as the Catholic Church wouldn’t let them get married within the Church, there was little point in getting married at all.’

  ‘Wow. So your mother was pregnant with you when she was married to someone else?’

  ‘Yeah. They weren’t going to tell me. Guess who spilt the beans?’