At first there were loud wolf-whistles, and cries of ‘Hello darlin’’ and ‘What’s your name, then?’ any time I came into the room. My cheeks were usually flushed from working in the hot kitchen and I hoped they wouldn’t think I was blushing.
‘Pay them no heed, Clara,’ Arthur Williams said the first time this happened, and told the men to behave themselves. I held my head high, smiled at everyone, and said nothing.
One man leaned across to his neighbour and said, ‘Now there’s a sight for sore eyes.’
‘Yeah, how about a kiss and a cuddle, darlin’ – later – out the back?’ the other man shouted.
‘Hah! ’Tis dead in a ditch you’ll be if you go spoilin’ her before I gets me chance,’ another voice called. The men laughed loudly, nudging each other and downing their drinks. I was so tempted to tell them where to get off, but kept my mouth shut and went back to the kitchen.
‘Sure ’tis only the drink talkin’, Clara,’ Mrs Fagan said. ‘They don’t see many women out here – especially not young ones. Carry a big stick when ya go out the back on yer own, and ya’ll do all right, so ya will.’
‘Oh, I’m not afraid of them,’ I told her. ‘I have two older brothers. They taught me to stand up for myself.’
Mrs Fagan looked hard at me, then she smiled. ‘That’s the spirit,’ she said, and deftly ladled meat and gravy onto plates. I added thick slices of the bread we’d baked that morning and loaded the plates onto my arm. As I placed them on the bar I felt a pinch on my bottom. I swung around and slapped the offending prospector’s hand – hard. The shocked look on his face told me he wouldn’t be trying that again. I looked at Mr Wisdom to see if he was cross, but he was smiling broadly.
‘Serves you right, Joe Quigley,’ he said, just loudly enough.
One morning after I had been in Coolgardie for a couple of weeks, I walked out to Fly Flat before I started work for my first glimpse of Bayley’s Reward. Although the mine had been set up at one end there was still almost a mile of reef lying there untouched. The sun was just rising above the top of the ridge, lighting up patches of gold embedded in a jutting rock at the other end. The faint glow seemed to come from deep within the rock, enticing me closer and adding an air of mystery to the sleeping giant.
The day would be blazing hot, but I had quickly come to love those early mornings when the light was pale and soft, the air cool and dry and the birds all squabbling, calling to each other and shouting a warning if I came too close. This was the time when the men in the camps were sleeping off the loud activities of the night before, resting ahead of another day of backbreaking work.
Mr Snell’s coach arrived just before midday one Thursday in mid-November, which was earlier than the week before, so the crowd of waiting prospectors was still quite small. I hurried across the road to see if there was a letter for me from Mother or Susan.
‘Clara! How are you?’ Mr Snell called as he climbed down from his seat behind the horses.
‘Fine, thank you, Mr Snell.’
‘You are certainly looking well – better than I had expected,’ he said, as he pulled out the mailbag from the rack under the coach. ‘Mrs Fagan’s parcel is here, but no letters for you today, I’m afraid.’
I took the mailbag from him, trying not to feel too disappointed about the letters. ‘Have you seen my mother and sisters lately?’ I asked.
‘Oh, yes. I sometimes see them shopping in the town, but they are all working every hour God sends. The Cross is bursting at the seams with all this gold rush traffic and Tom Farren’s hotel is doing well. His missus had a baby boy, so they’re on top of the world.’
‘Please give them my love, if you’re talking to them,’ I said, and walked back across the road, promising myself I would write to them as soon as I finished work.
‘Ah, at last!’ Mrs Fagan exclaimed when I handed her the large parcel wrapped in brown paper. It was firm, but flexible, and I wondered what could be inside. Mrs Fagan quickly loosened the string and slipped it off. The paper began to unfold at one end. ‘Just the ticket,’ she said, shaking out a length of turkey-red twill and testing it between her finger and thumb. She looked me up and down, her eyes resting on my hips. ‘Aye,’ she nodded. ‘I’m thinkin’ we could tweak the pattern to fit ya, right enough.’
It was not until all the mail was sorted and we had gone back to the kitchen that Mrs Fagan revealed the reason for the length of red material.
‘Bloomers,’ she said. ‘I never can get them white, no matter how much I’m washin’ them. So I’m after thinkin’ some red ones would do better – match the colour of the water, like.’ Her cheeks were rosy and she looked very pleased with her purchase. I had noticed that, when she smiled, she nearly always kept her mouth closed. It was her way of keeping the flies out, without having to flap her hands at them all the time. Her hands were rarely free for such luxuries while she cooked and scrubbed and swept. ‘There’s material aplenty here, Clara,’ she added. ‘Enough to make bloomers for ya an’ all … if ya’d like.’
‘That is very kind of you, Mrs Fagan,’ I said, hiding my own smile as I turned away to carry the kitchen bin out and empty it on the compost heap behind the dunnies.
Early the next morning, Mrs Fagan was busy in the kitchen, but she wasn’t cooking or washing dishes. She had spread the red material out on the table with a paper pattern laid on top. Quickly and confidently she cut around the edges of the paper. When she had finished cutting out two pairs of large bloomers, she handed the remaining twill to me. ‘Do ya know how to sew?’ she asked.
‘Yes, but my stitches are not very neat. My mother is much better at sewing. She usually does mine.’
‘Ah, wait we’ll see,’ Mrs Fagan said. ‘When I’m done I can help with yers.’
Mrs Fagan liked the old-fashioned style of bloomers with the frills around the legs. Two pairs were duly sewn but, before she would wear them, she insisted they must be washed. Washing day was Monday and, after the hotel closed for the night, Mrs Fagan hung her new bloomers out to dry on the piece of wire stretched across the opening of the brush shed out the back.
In the morning I went for my usual walk. As I passed the open shed, I noticed that Mrs Fagan’s bloomers were not hanging on the wire clothes line.
‘She must have already brought them in,’ I thought, although I hadn’t heard her moving around yet.
Leaving the town behind me, I walked out to my favourite rocky outcrop. It rose only a few feet from the surface of the plain and the largest rock had a scooped-out shape to it, almost like a low chair. I sat in it, leaning back and filling my lungs with the cool, fresh air. I lifted my arms to feel the gentle breeze all the way down my body. Far out on the horizon, the distant hills of the breakaway country interrupted the flat line between earth and sky. A few spindly gum trees caught the breeze, their clumps of leaves swaying thirty feet above some dusty tents that were almost invisible in the red-brown landscape. With all this empty space around me, I felt like the only living, breathing thing in the world, but I wasn’t lonely. Mrs Fagan and Mr Wisdom were very kind. Arthur Williams often brought me cold drinks in the middle of the day and I was getting to know some of the other men. A great sense of freedom filled me and I smiled to myself.
The sun rose above the plain. Pale shadows slanted across the sand and I knew it was time to make my way back to town. I began to skip, then run, lifting my skirts and thrusting my chin high to celebrate the morning. A startled family of kangaroos scrambled to their feet, stared at me, then loped away. The two smaller ones stopped briefly, looked back, then scampered off to catch up with their parents.
The track took me past a stand of kurrajongs, their trunks now glowing pink and purple as the sun rose higher. In the distance I could see the straight strip of road going up the ridge to where the coach had stopped and we had looked down on the roof of the hotel for the first time. How long ago was that? It seemed like a lifetime since I arrived, slightly nervous, but determined to make a good impression. I th
ought back and counted on my fingers. Just over a month had passed. Coolgardie had been officially declared a town. Every day brought new people, new challenges and a sense that the known world was behind me, a new one almost within my reach. Was this the same feeling that drove the early explorers so deep into this country, in spite of the hardships, and the dangers they faced?
I noticed how high the sun had risen and quickened my pace.
As I came closer to the town I could hear a lot of voices shouting and laughing. Clusters of men had gathered in the main street. They were all looking in the same direction, some bending double with laughter, others slapping their knees and pointing. Then I saw what they were looking at.
November 1892
I squeezed my eyes shut then popped them open. I saw a donkey, large as life, staggering along the street. It had a pair of red bloomers pulled up over its back legs. Another pair was tied upside down on its head, like a bonnet, with one ear sticking out of each frilled leg-hole.
Just then Mrs Fagan came storming out of the hotel. She was waving a broom and shouting, ‘Which one of yeh thievin’ no-hopers has made off with me bloomers? Own up right now or I’ll be takin’ this broom to the lot o’ ya!’
When she saw the donkey, she stopped mid-stride. Her mouth fell open and she started to splutter as if, at that moment, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
The men scattered into doorways and around corners. The street was suddenly deserted, except for the donkey. It was bucking and braying at the top of its voice, turning in circles and not proving to be a good advertisement for the comfort of red bloomers. Finally two brave souls ran out and tried to catch it. They struggled, between fits of laughter, but managed to catch hold of the animal’s tail. It tried to bite them and they had to dodge its flying hooves while they tugged the splitting bloomers off its legs.
At this point I saw the accordion player, Padraig Murphy from the Tipperary camp, come out from Tobias’s Store to lend a hand. He grabbed the donkey’s head and untied the bloomers from around its ears. To show off this achievement, Padraig turned to his cheering audience and waved the bloomers in the air. The donkey saw its chance and butted him in the back. The bloomers flew out of Padraig’s hand, lifted up with the wind, then fluttered down to drape themselves over his hat. More cheers and shouts of laughter came from the men who had come out of hiding to get a better view of the action.
‘There ya go, missus,’ Padraig said, plucking Mrs Fagan’s bloomers off his hat and handing them to her with a bow. The donkey skittered away as fast as it could go and I couldn’t help laughing with the crowd. But Mrs Fagan was not amused. She banned all three men from the bar for a week, in spite of their protests.
‘Aw, come on, missus. We did you a favour!’
‘Ya did me no favour, ya scalpeen! Stealin’ me underwear from me very own backyard!’ Mrs Fagan declared.
‘Not me!’ Padraig protested. ‘I didn’t steal ’em.’
‘Nor me!’ the others chorused. ‘Fair’s fair …’
They might as well have saved their breath. By then Mrs Fagan had crossed the road, swung open the door of the hotel and trounced back inside, clutching both pairs of red bloomers and shaking her broom.
I went to my room, put on my apron, brushed my hair and wound it tightly around my head, tucking it in and pinning the ends. Then I wiped the red dust off my boots and joined Mrs Fagan in the kitchen.
‘Teapot’s still warm,’ she said, glancing in my direction, before turning her attention back to dividing and shaping the leavened bread dough, which had stood on the hob of the wood stove overnight and risen to twice its original size. The remains of yesterday’s loaf were set out on the table. I cut a slice, speared it on the wire prongs of the toasting fork and blew a fine layer of ash from the coals in the grate. They glowed, red and inviting, as I held the bread over them on the long-handled fork. The warm smell of toast filled the room.
‘Are your bloomers damaged beyond repair, Mrs Fagan?’ I asked, sitting down to eat my toast and drink my tea.
‘Aeh, lass, t’was just a prank,’ Mrs Fagan said. ‘There’s little enough entertainment for the boys out here, and no real harm done. That’s not to say ya can let ’em think they got away with it, mind. Ya must show ’em who’s boss.’ She carried the tray of uncooked loaves to the large brick oven and slid them in.
Drinking water was in such short supply that everyone looked forward to the arrival of Jack and his team of horses bringing the precious liquid from the dams and wells his father owned. When the anxiously awaited column of dust appeared on the horizon on a Saturday the men gathered with their billies, pans and converted kerosene tins with handles.
I also watched eagerly for that telltale dust. For me it meant that Jack would soon be here. Since he started coming regularly there were always things I wanted to tell him and he would bring me news of my family and gossip from the Cross.
When he arrived for his third run in late November, I went to the door of the hotel and waved to him as his team pulled up outside. He called back to me from his seat behind the horses while eager men crowded around with pouches of gold or money in their hands. They were all clamouring to be served first, just in case the water ran out.
It would be a busy day for us because most of the men who had made the trip into town to collect their water would stay on, drinking in the bar, playing billiards and sometimes renting rooms for the night. On days like this I flew through the extra work, thinking about Jack and looking forward to sharing all the things I had been saving up to tell him.
November 1892
When the meals had all been served, the dishes washed and the dough prepared for tomorrow’s bread, I stepped out onto the verandah. Jack was there, leaning against the post.
‘Well, my lady, where shall we go tonight?’ he said. ‘Theatre? Cabaret? Restaurant?’
I tilted my head to one side and pretended to weigh up these suggestions. Then I said, ‘I’m a little tired tonight, sir. Let’s go for a stroll.’
‘As you wish,’ he said, making an exaggerated bow and holding out his hand to me as if I was Cinderella going to the ball with the handsome prince. Not that Jack was handsome – well not in the tall and dark way that you read about in books of fairytales. He had an open, friendly face with lively blue eyes and thick brown hair that always seemed to need brushing off his forehead. He was fun to be with. He made me laugh, but he could be serious, too. I knew that I could talk to him about anything. Sometimes we had heated arguments, but we were still friends afterwards. Lots of men in Coolgardie wanted to be my friend, and I was happy to be theirs. I danced with them at the pub when the Irishmen came to town to play their squeezeboxes and tin whistles, or the Americans with their banjos. We had a grand time singing and laughing together. But I knew those men only saw me on the outside. When Jack looked at me with his eyes half closed I felt he could see who I really was – on the inside.
While Jack was in town we went for long walks and talked nonstop. I told him about the red bloomers, which he thought was hilarious. I asked about my family and friends back in the Cross. He told me the new baby was giving Mary and Tom a hard time, but his sisters adored him and spoiled him rotten.
Emily had sent me a catalogue. She knew there were no dress shops in Coolgardie, and it took more than a month for anything to come from Perth, but she told Jack that I should at least look at the latest fashions. Susan wanted to know when I was coming back for a visit. And there was a water supply dispute going on in the town. Jack had seen Mother and Tom at the Town Council meeting where Warden Finnerty was speaking about the problem of camels and horses fouling the waterholes between Southern Cross and Coolgardie. There were still several hundred prospectors using the track each week, he told the meeting, and more lives would be lost if the water wasn’t kept clean.
I asked Jack about the dances in the Cross, too. We compared them with the ones here in Coolgardie, which were rarely organised in advance but tended to happen sponta
neously.
‘I saw Padraig in town earlier today,’ I said to Jack. ‘He might have the music going by now.’
‘Should we go and see?’ Jack asked.
‘Of course,’ I told him. ‘Why not?’
‘I thought you might like to be alone with me,’ he teased and moved closer. I bumped him away with my shoulder – but gently.
Jack stayed for two more nights to rest his horses. When my work was done each day we would walk out of town for several miles, often in the direction of the chair-shaped rocky outcrop.
It was well after ten o’clock on the second night and the easterly wind was blowing. The air had cooled but the rock was still warm. I sat down and Jack sat beside me. He ran his hand idly over the bulge of the rock and said, ‘I wonder if we are sitting on a gold mine.’
I stood up and examined the rock. On my morning walks I had often seen the tiny flecks of feldspar glinting on its surface as the sun came up. I knew that feldspar was only fool’s gold. It shone like gold, but was absolutely worthless, so I hadn’t taken much notice.
‘Do you really think there could be gold in this rock?’ I asked.
‘No,’ Jack said. ‘Just wishful thinking.’
‘I thought you weren’t interested in gold.’
‘I didn’t say that,’ Jack protested. ‘It’s just frustrating, knowing it’s there, but not being able to find it.’
‘But that’s no reason to give up,’ I said. ‘Real prospectors never give up.’
‘Neither do the chancers, the con men, the criminals escaping from the law. They cluster around goldfields like bloodsucking leeches.’
‘Maybe they’re looking for a new start, a place where nobody knows them?’ I said.
Goldfields Girl Page 7