The Homestead on the River

by Rosie MacKenzie

  Lillie shook her head. ‘Who?’

  ‘Sandra.’

  Lillie’s eyes opened wide. ‘Sandra! My God.’

  ‘Spot on. As soon as I started at St Dominic’s. When I asked Mum if it was true, she told me what had happened.’

  ‘Jeepers! But who was your mum’s first husband?’

  Deb waited a while before answering. During the silence Lillie heard the crackling of embers within the fire and the high-pitched chirp of crickets in the bush. It was as if they were one heck of a squeaky choir.

  ‘Sandra’s dad,’ Deb said finally.

  Lillie sat bolt upright. ‘You’re joking, surely?’

  ‘Nope. That’s him all right. They reckon that’s why he turned into an alcoholic. Why he’s pissed out of his mind most of the time. He used to be a miner but I don’t reckon he does much now. Sandra’s probably so mean to you because you’re my friend. If the rumours hurt you, they’d hurt me. And also my mother, who her father loathes so much for what she did to him.’

  Lillie thought for a moment. ‘When was Sandra born? I mean … It must’ve been soon after your mother left him, cause she’s our sort of our age, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yep. As soon as her father kicked Mum out he took up with Sandra’s mum, Winifred.’

  ‘Winifred?’

  ‘There’s only one Winifred around here that I know of. You met her? She used to help out in the corner store in Gullumbindy, but she doesn’t do that any more. Not since she got sick a while back.’

  ‘Oh. I sort of met her outside the church once,’ Lillie said. ‘But she had to rush off. Mum said she was a friend of Finn Malone’s wife, Dawn. Evidently Dawn told Ma and Dad that she had asked Winifred to look in on him at Eureka now and then after she took off to Sydney. Ma thought she might have gone out not long before he died, seen what sort of state he was in. But Ma didn’t get a chance to ask. She sort of took off like a rocket when we were introduced.’

  ‘I wonder why? Mum says she’s a lovely person, so she can’t understand how she ended up with Sandra’s dad. But there you go … Interesting story, eh?’

  Now that Lillie knew about Deb’s parents, she thought back to when she had met them earlier on. They didn’t look like a couple that would have had a passionate affair. Even though Deb’s mother was really nice and was probably much the same age as Ma, she was a bit scrawny and her skin was marked by the sun and deeply wrinkled. And Deb’s father was no oil painting, with sandy freckles and sunspots all over his face, and wispy ginger hair. Lillie wondered what they had both looked like when they had fallen in love. Were they ever in love? Or did Deb’s mother fall pregnant and they’d been forced to get together? Though if that was the case, maybe Deb’s mother would have stayed with Sandra’s father and pretended Deb was his. Whichever way it was, it made Lillie’s family seem so ordinary. Still, it did make her wonder what her own parents had been like when they had fallen in love. She couldn’t imagine them being young and courting. She wondered if they’d been each other’s first love. Or, like Deb’s parents, had they been with someone else before they got together?

  ‘How about a Milo?’ Deb asked, bringing her thoughts back to where they sat by the campfire. ‘I’ve got some powdered milk. I’ll put some water on to heat in the billy before the fire goes out.’

  ‘That sounds great,’ Lillie said.

  When they were sitting with steaming mugs in their hands, Deb said, ‘I’m surprised you didn’t know about my parents. I reckoned everyone round here knew.’

  ‘Well, I certainly didn’t. And I don’t think my parents do either. In any case, who cares? Or if they do care, they’re not worth worrying about.’

  ‘I’m glad you think like that. And,’ Deb added, sipping from her enamel mug, ‘I’m glad I’ve got you for a friend.’

  Later, as the girls lay in their sleeping bags, which they’d carried rolled up beside their bulging leather saddlebags, Lillie, too, was chuffed she had Deb as a friend. It also made some sort of sense of why Sandra was so awful to her. Lillie had been flummoxed as to why she had taken such a dislike to her when she didn’t know her at all. She also wondered if in some strange way that was why Sister Bernadette had been awful to her as well. Mind you, since Lillie had refused to let the nun see she had upset her, and had also made a bit of a mark by practising for hours to get in the hockey and softball teams, Sister Bernadette had let up on her somewhat.

  Nestling down in her sleeping bag after Deb had gone out like a light in her own bag beside her, Lillie listened to the eerie sounds of the night. Hearing something rustling in the undergrowth, she was terrified it was a snake. She pulled the sleeping bag tight around her face just in case. Again she thought of Deb’s parents. I must look at them more closely tomorrow, she thought. Should she tell her parents they weren’t married and that Deb’s mother had fallen pregnant to Deb’s father when she was married to someone else? Maybe they’d be horrified and would refuse to let Lillie come out to their place again. Before she fell asleep she decided to keep it a secret from them. But she might tell Ronan.

  * * *

  ‘So what do you think?’ Dave asked Ronan. It was Saturday afternoon in Fitzroy’s milk bar; Chuck Berry was rocking out on the jukebox and they were celebrating their rugby win that afternoon. Dave was with Jude, a girl he’d been dating for a few months. He’d asked Ronan to come on a double date, as Jude’s friend Meg was also coming. The girls had gone to powder their noses and the boys were sitting in a booth.

  ‘She’s really nice,’ Ronan said, fiddling with the straw in his milkshake.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘You reckon you might like to take her to the movies next week?’

  Ronan shook his head. ‘I promised I’d head home next weekend.’

  Ronan hadn’t committed to going home. Even so, he didn’t want to commit to going to the movies with Meg either. Although she was a great girl and very pretty, with lovely brown eyes, Ronan wasn’t really interested. The whole time he had been sitting here talking to her he was thinking of Clara. What she was up to? Was she on a date as well? With one of those boys Jessica had picked out for her?

  ‘Well, another weekend, then?’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Ronan said.

  ‘Think about what?’ Jude asked, as the girls came back to the booth.

  Ronan and Dave stood up to let them slide in next to the wall.

  ‘Whether we want another milkshake,’ Ronan said. He looked at Meg. ‘What do you think?’

  At that moment Maria, who ran the milk bar with her husband Leonidas, waddled over to clear the table. Maria’s Greek accent was so thick it was sometimes hard to understand, but she always made a great fuss of the young ones when they came in, which was one of the reasons her milk bar was so popular.

  Meg patted her stomach. ‘After that doughnut I don’t think I could have another thing.’

  ‘Ah, get ons with you,’ Maria laughed, patting her own rounded stomach. ‘The milkshakes theys be good for you.’

  ‘Come on, Meg,’ Jude said. ‘Let’s have another one. Then Dave and Ronan might dance with us. There’s some room up the back near the jukebox.’

  Dave winked at Ronan. ‘Now that sounds like an offer too good to refuse.’

  Ronan smiled. ‘Why wait?’ He stood up and held a hand out to Meg. ‘Let’s have a dance now while Maria gets our order.’

  And, as he walked to the back of the milk bar with Meg, Ronan decided to try and put Clara out of his mind. Going over to the jukebox he chose ‘Come A Little Bit Closer’, a song by the Dell-tones. He was soon mouthing the words and with a smile he pulled Meg close to him. But as he did, he wished with all his heart that the girl in his arms was Clara, which was unfair to Meg. So as soon as the song ended he took her back to their booth. When they’d finished their drinks the two girls caught a bus going in one direction and Ronan and Dave caught a bus going in the other, back to the Thompsons’ house. As soon as he got to his room, Ronan
sat down and picked up his guitar. When they first moved into Eureka Park he had found a guitar leaning against the wall in the living room, which he assumed must have been Uncle Finn’s. Although it was totally different to the harp, he soon found that he could strum a tune. And before long the family would sometimes sit in the living room after dinner and Ronan would play and they would sing along. His father had a good voice so Ronan would let him lead. But every time Ronan played he would think of Clara and how she would sing along when he played the harp back at Rathgarven. At first this made him sad, but as time went on he was comforted by the music he played. The only song he couldn’t bring himself to play was ‘Molly Malone’, for that was Clara’s song. He looked at the card she had sent him last Christmas here at the Thompsons. On the front were two deer standing side by side in the snow under a fir tree on the edge of a frozen river. Inside she had written:

  I wish we were those two deer, side by side in the snow by that river. Instead I’m here in London. And you are on the other side of the world. When Mummy and I go to Dublin and go down to the Fitzpatricks I can’t believe I’ll be in Kerry by the Kenmare River and you won’t be there.

  Since that Christmas card he’d heard nothing, despite having written to her. Shifting his eyes from the card to the strings on his guitar, he tried to concentrate on what he was playing, but soon found he had no feeling for it. He put the guitar down and picked up a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, one of the books his class had been given to read for English literature. Turning the pages slowly he forced himself to put Clara out of his mind and become immersed in the racial injustice of the American Deep South in the 1930s.

  CHAPTER

  25

  When Lorna Medlow drove her jeep up to Eureka’s homestead one Wednesday afternoon and greeted Kathleen with a warm hug, Kathleen felt as though she had known Lorna all her life. She loved her down-to-earth, easygoing attitude. When she’d phoned, she explained she would have been in touch earlier except she’d been back and forth to Sydney for treatment for skin cancer — treatment that, happily, had been successful.

  Kathleen made them a pot of tea and they took it out onto the verandah, where they sat and chatted for over an hour, and Kathleen felt she’d found the friendship she had been missing so much. Lorna confided the problems she was having with her daughter, Maddie, who seemed to have gone off the rails, and Kathleen found herself confiding how she and James were often bickering about money.

  ‘Ah, Brian and I were always at each other’s throats about that. Nothing surer to try a marriage like money worries. Fortunately we’re a bit better off these days, so it’s not money we argue so much about. It’s more likely to be Maddie.’ She scrunched up her nose. ‘Brian reckons I’m too hard on the kid. Believe me, if I wasn’t strict, I reckon she’d be in real trouble by now. In fact, that’s something I wanted to bring up with you. It’s Jack, the young brother of one of our stablehands, who I know’s up here working with you. Nice young man. But not the sort of bloke I want Maddie to end up with. That’s why I suggested to Brian he get Jack to come up here. Blow me down didn’t I find him back at our place the other day. What’s more he and Maddie were smooching down behind the stables when I came across them. I soon gave him short bloody shrift and told him to get going. I’d be grateful if you could keep an eye on him. Try and tether him here as much as you can. I reckon it’s only a passing fad on Maddie’s part.’ Lorna grinned. ‘She’s fallen in and out of love more times than you could count on your blessed toes since she was the ripe old age of thirteen. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if Jack isn’t taking it more seriously.’

  ‘Oh,’ Kathleen said. ‘I’d no idea. I knew he goes down there a bit. I presumed it was to see his brother.’

  ‘Ah, he sees his brother all right. He also sees Maddie when she’s home.’

  ‘Do you want me to talk to Jack?’

  ‘No. Just see if you can keep him busy here. If you talk to him he’s sure to leak it to Maddie. Then all hell will break loose.’

  Later on the two women went down to the front paddock and Kathleen showed her Shannon Boy and his mother, Melody. When he saw them, Shannon Boy neighed and galloped towards them, tail frisking.

  ‘Damn good-looking horse,’ Lorna said. ‘Wouldn’t be surprised if he wins a few. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Tommy Brown, the Sydney trainer, dropped in to our place the other day. He and Brian have known each other forever and a day. He’s always on the lookout for a promising young horse he can train up. What’s say I tell him to pop in here next time he’s up this way? He can have a look.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Kathleen said. ‘That’d be great.’

  * * *

  When Tommy Brown drove up in his big black car ten days later, tilting his wide-brimmed hat to Kathleen, she took to him straight away. He had a wonderful smile and honest eyes. He’d rung a few days earlier to say he was coming up to Tamworth and could drop in to look at Shannon Boy. Now here he was, watching Shannon Boy galloping around the paddock. Kathleen got Jack to put him through his paces on the lunging rope, and Tommy poked and prodded and ran his hands all over him. He was more than impressed.

  ‘Bring him on down to me next year,’ he said, patting Shannon Boy on the rump. ‘I know a lot of other trainers like to get them training earlier on but I prefer to wait until they’re at least eighteen months.’

  After he’d gone, Kathleen was so excited she rushed in to ring Lorna.

  ‘He doesn’t take many on,’ Lorna said. ‘So he must think he’s got a real chance.’

  It was Lorna who suggested that, as Maddie had grown out of her dappled-grey pony Muffin, they pass her on to Lillie, who was so happy to have her own pony again. There was no way that they could have afforded to buy her one.

  CHAPTER

  26

  Lillie took Muffin for a long ride along the river, letting the pony splash in the water. As she rode, her thoughts were fixed on next week’s dance. It was a fundraiser for the rural fire brigade, to be held in Gullumbindy’s community hall. Everyone was talking about it, and people were coming from all around the district. A bus was even bringing people from Tamworth, and another bus from Quirindi.

  ‘I think I’ll wear my red skirt and a white t-shirt,’ she’d said to Deb as they made plans for the big night.

  ‘Mum said I could buy that dress in Marcus Clark’s,’ Deb gushed excitedly. ‘You know … the one we saw in the window last week.’

  ‘Gosh,’ Lillie had said, trying to hide her envy at the thought of that yummy yellow dress. ‘You’ll look gorgeous.’

  As she brought Muffin back to the stables, she thought again how she would love to have something new to wear. But she didn’t want to ask her parents, as she knew finances were still tight. Her mother hadn’t had a new dress since they got here, so for Lillie to ask if she could get something new would send her into one of those talks about being grateful for what she had and ‘making do’. And, unlike Ronan, Marcus and Freddie, she hadn’t grown much, so the clothes she already had still fitted her. Even so, she couldn’t help thinking of Deb’s new yellow dress. For some reason she thought of Clara, and how she would have something spectacular to wear if she happened to be here. Even Sheelagh would have concocted something special. Thinking of Sheelagh made her wonder about that fella, Seamus Flaherty, and she wondered if he was liking Canada.

  ‘G’day, Lillie,’ Jack said, disturbing her thoughts as he sauntered out of the feed shed.

  ‘Are you going to the dance?’ Lillie asked. ‘You know … the one the Farmers and Graziers’ Association is putting on to raise money for the fire brigade.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. But I won’t be here. I’m heading to Sydney. Your dad’s given me a few days off.’

  ‘Oh. So what’s down in Sydney to take you away from a dance? Or should I say, who’s down in Sydney? I bet it’s a girl.’

  ‘Mind your own business, Lillie O’Sullivan,’ Jack laughed.

  ‘That’s what Ronan always says.’
/>   ‘Well … I reckon he’s on the right track.’

  But as she put Muffin back in the paddock, she knew she’d hit the nail on the head. Though how he would have met a girl that far away she had no idea. Maybe he’d known her from before he came here? Was that why he showed no interest in Lillie? She tried not to be jealous, for at times she still fantasised about kissing him. If she was being really honest she sometimes had what Father Fog-arty would describe in the confessional as ‘bad thoughts’, imagining Jack fondling her breasts and even touching her a bit more, which made her quiver all over. But any passion she felt for him was obviously wasted, as he already had a girlfriend. And seeing as the other fella she fancied, Brad Hickey, also had a girlfriend, she wondered if she’d ever fall for anyone who was unattached. She knew one of the boys on the bus fancied her, because Deb told her so, but she didn’t fancy him. Maybe at the dance she would meet someone. Which made her look forward to it even more.

  Despite this, when the night of the dance arrived, she was a bit nervous as she and her family drove up to the community hall. Kero lamps hung from the rafters inside and gave out a welcoming glow, and hay bales were spread around to sit on. Just outside the side door there were a number of old oil drums with onions and sausages sizzling on the top. Lillie had seen them used before at Deb’s place when her mother was cooking for the shearers. They worked like a sort of barbeque with a wood fire inside. In a corner a band was playing and there was a makeshift bar where glasses of beer were being handed out to the men from a large keg.

  Lillie was carrying a sponge cake, which she and Ma had made that afternoon, as everyone had been asked to bring a plate with something for pudding.

  ‘Talk about taking coals to Newcastle,’ Ma laughed, pointing to a table already overflowing with cakes, pavlovas and tarts. ‘But better take ours over, Lillie.’

  Lillie placed the cake down with the others and saw Marcus and Freddie race over to their friends in the far corner. She went back to join her parents and Ronan, and Deb came over in her new yellow dress and greeted everyone.