Broken Threads

by Tessa Barclay

  ‘We love to hear about home,’ insisted Mrs Clively. ‘Every time a ship comes in there’s a rush for the newspapers and the mail, and we all pass them around among us, but oh, it’s such a long way off.’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ agreed Jenny, her heart suddenly tightening at the memory of the hills above her dear town, the frost on the grass, the cool breeze along the brown waters of the Gala.

  In the afternoon sleep overcame them all. They had been up since the middle of the night in expectation of their first glimpse of the landfall, and since then there had been the leave-takings, the disembarkation, the new surroundings ‒ and the heat.

  ‘Aw, this is nothing,’ the fruit grower, O’Dowd, had assured Jenny. ‘Why, the heat’s dying away now. You should have been here in December ‒ everything baked dry as a biscuit and the temperature up to a hundred.’

  Baird had made inquiries and been told much the same, but had also been told of practical measures to help live with the heat. Ice was available in plenty, thanks to Mr Mort’s ice factory, so that cool drinks could be had. Locally made orange flower water was cooling to the forehead and the back of the neck. Fewer petticoats were worn here than in Britain ‒ and no one thought the wearer flighty. Shady hats, although not as fashionable as bonnets, were the rule in daylight hours. Bedspreads were not used at night during the summer ‒ they merely decked the bed in the daytime for the sake of neatness.

  It was all very strange, especially to visitors from the cool Border country of Scotland. By and by, Jenny supposed, they would come to terms with it. And as the year wore on the temperature would go down in this topsy-turvy country.

  The result of the afternoon siesta was that they were wide awake after tea at six. They went out to look at the city, but very little was happening. Some citizens were going to evening service, some were reeling about around the taverns. The shops were closed, of course. Only at the wharves was there much activity.

  There, porters and stevedores were still unloading from the Larksong and from other lesser vessels. Jenny and Baird walked along with Heather between them, sometimes attracting stares ‒ for, after all, what were an elegant lady, a well-dressed elderly woman, and a little girl doing here in this man’s domain?

  Jenny paused. Perforce Baird and Heather did the same. ‘What is it?’ Baird asked in surprise.

  Jenny breathed in. ‘Smell,’ she said.

  Baird took a deep breath. ‘What?’

  ‘Wool. Can’t you smell the lanoline? These must be the woolstores.’ She led the way up a narrow lane. A set of wide doors faced on to the road at the top. ‘You see? The wool comes in here, off the waggons, and then it’s stored here until the auction. Then when it’s been bought, it can be shipped straight on board by gantries on the Quay.’

  ‘Mph,’ muttered Baird, who knew nothing of commerce.

  ‘No work today, of course, because it’s Sunday. I keep forgetting which day of the week it is. I must come here tomorrow after I’ve seen Mr Chalmers and take a look at what’s going on.’

  ‘Oh, aye, I’m sure it’s vastly entertaining,’ observed her maid, and urged her back towards the hotel. It was close on ten o’clock, time all good people should be indoors.

  Most of the hotel guests were on the verandah enjoying the cool of the night and the delicious breeze off Sydney Cove. At last Jenny was able to get some information about the vast country behind the seaport.

  ‘The Riverina, is it?’ said O’Dowd. ‘Sure it’s some of the best land in the world, but difficult to get at because parliament won’t do a damn thing ‒ beg your pardon, ma’am ‒ for the farmers. The area only returns four members, you see. Can’t get things moving on their behalf. That’s why I’ve never tried moving further out. It’s easier to get roads built around Sydney or Melbourne than out in the bush.’

  ‘Speaking for myself,’ interrupted Mr Clively, ‘I haven’t got the time to set up for parliament. I’ve got my farm to run. Us selectors ‒’

  ‘Excuse me, what is a selector?’

  The farmer grinned. ‘Anybody can tell you’re a new chum! Us selectors are one of the main topics of conversation here! A selector takes up a parcel of land with the encouragement of the government and with the aim of improving the grazing, the wool-growing and the wheat-growing. But the hard fact is that big landowners use some of us to get the land. They pay men to sell out to them ‒ some of the big holdings are ‒’

  ‘But they need to hold great expanses,’ interrupted the coastguard captain. ‘You can’t run sheep economically on some of the land unless you’ve got miles of it. Some areas it’s one sheep to the acre ‒’

  ‘Surely the grass can’t be as scanty as that!’

  ‘I assure you, ma’am, some districts of the Riverina are close to being desert. But on the other hand ‒’

  ‘On the other hand, some of it is fine and dandy, and you could make a go of it if only the government would get off its behind on things like transport and mail delivery.’

  ‘You won’t get a damn thing done while this bunch of landowning twisters is in power ‒’

  ‘Now, now, gentlemen, there are ladies present.’

  ‘This government knows what it’s doing, Clively. If it gives in to the pastoralists all along the line, soon it’ll have the radicals demanding ‒’

  ‘An eight-hour day! Did you ever hear anything so crazy? How can you run a farm on an eight-hour day?’

  The men had forgotten Jenny and her questions. But she was content to sit in the darkness of the verandah listening to them, trying to gather some idea of the area into which Ronald seemed to have disappeared.

  She gathered it stretched for miles, cut through by slow rivers on the banks of which the Aborigines dwelt. The soil varied from reedy sand to rich loam, from dry plains to fertile pasture. Strange vegetation grew there ‒ eucalypt, acacia, mulga, saltbush and cypress pine. Homesteads were at great distances from each other. Life wasn’t easy, and the farmers always had an eye to the heavens for there was evidence of previous severe drought. Fortunately the rainfall of the last few years had been ample.

  When she went to bed at last she dreamed of vast meadows of wiry grass among which leapt and bounced the strangest of all God’s creations, the kangaroo. Far off among the trees a farmstead glimmered. And there, under that roof, was her lost husband.

  Next day she visited Mr Chalmers, inspected his office, and learned why he wasn’t the best of all possible wool agents. His heart was in the theatre. His walls were covered with theatre posters.

  ‘It is my passion, I admit, ma’am. I came to Sydney originally to be a teacher in a small school with a view to earning a partnership. But the number of families who wish their boys to learn Greek and Latin is not large, so the school closed down.’ He sighed, then brightened. ‘I then played with Mr Salack’s company at the Royal Victoria Theatre. Alas, Thespis found me an unpromising pupil and I was dismissed. So that is when I was lucky enough to be engaged by Mr Mort as a clerk in his woolstore and from there graduated to take charge of your office.’

  Privately Jenny decided she would try to find someone else, but a few years ago it had been hard to engage staff. Most of the male population of Sydney had flooded out of the city to take part in the gold rush. Although now many of them had returned it was still difficult to get workers who would stay. Any rumour of gold in the outback sent them rushing off in search of El Dorado. Mr Chalmers had not been a gold-seeker. His love of the theatre had kept him here, and therefore made him available when she needed a wool agent.

  But he was the kind of man who was easily distracted. When she questioned him about the hiring of a carriage to take them to the Daniell farm, he dithered and looked flustered. In the excitement of getting his office shipshape for her visit, he had forgotten to do it.

  ‘But it’s simple to arrange. You can go by train to Parramatta and thence by road to Koobalong. What are your plans? Do you intend to remain there long?’

  ‘That depends whether there is a ho
tel at Koobalong ‒’

  ‘Dear me, no, no such thing. A beerhouse, perhaps, where the shearers may stay overnight if they don’t want to camp. But quite unsuitable for a delicate female with a child.’

  ‘It will be impossible to go and come back in one day?’

  ‘Oh, utterly. The road is not good. But Mrs Daniell will put you up if you so wish ‒ I imagine she will be only too delighted to have female guests. Women are somewhat isolated on the farms, you know.’

  ‘But we can hardly …’

  Chalmers looked at her, puzzled. She could see he didn’t understand her hesitation in expecting to put up at the same farm where her errant husband might be staying. Here in New South Wales, travellers took hospitality for granted, and whoever else was at the resting-place, there was a kind of unspoken truce.

  For the next few days Jenny moved around Sydney, visiting the woolstores and the warehouses. Little activity was going on, for the wool had mostly been sold, shearing having been completed in the Australian spring. Some of the wool, however, had been slow to reach the port, and so Jenny was able to watch the auctions.

  Her presence caused an enormous stir. A woman among the buyers? She didn’t bid, but at first by merely being there she put everyone off their stroke. But when she went up to the top of Mort’s woolstore to examine the wool under the fine soft light from his glassed-in roof, they began to accept her. She knew what she was doing, that was clear. Her fingers feeling the wool, her head bent to look at the twist ‒ they could tell she was no silly female wasting her time.

  By the end of that day she discovered they had worked out who she was. ‘She’s the wife of that feller Armstrong, the one that’s gone bush,’ the men muttered to each other over their big tankards of beer.

  ‘What, the one that went shack-up with the Bowerby gal?’

  ‘Yeh, that one. This is his missus.’

  ‘Gee-up,’ they grunted in surprise. ‘She’s a looker. Why’d he go after somebody else?’

  ‘Cos the somebody else was here and the missus was in Pommy, you mutt.’

  She became such a focus of interest that she was glad when Friday came so that she could leave without appearing to be running away.

  Mr Chalmers escorted the party of Jenny, Heather and Baird on the little wooden-box train to Parramatta. Outside a carriage was waiting, a strange contraption something like a four-wheeled brake with built-up sides and windows along the upper part. Inside there was a padded bench to seat four, and the rest of the space was presumably for luggage or freight. The driver was a gaunt man called Gunder who proved to be extremely taciturn.

  He loaded their suitcases aboard, helped them up, and waited for Chalmers to mount.

  ‘I’m not travelling, just the ladies.’

  ‘Um. Paid in advance.’

  ‘Half now, half when you bring them back.’

  ‘Nah. Paid in advance.’

  ‘I told you in my message ‒’

  ‘Paid in advance.’

  ‘Pay him,’ Jenny broke in, thinking they would be here forever listening to the same refrain.

  ‘But if I do he’ll more than likely turn round the minute you set foot in Koobalong ‒’

  ‘If he does he’ll be a fool, because I’ll pay a good bonus if I’m well served.’

  Mr Chalmers pursed his lips and shook his head, but Gunder looked at her with admiration.

  ‘Yair,’ he said. ‘Too right. Paid in advance, bonus when you get back.’

  ‘It’s a bargain,’ said Jenny, offering him her gloved hand.

  He stared at it, rubbed his own on his trouser seat, and shook.

  Mr Chalmers handed up the picnic basket. Depending on circumstances they might reach Koobalong by afternoon but the midday meal at least would have to be taken en route. A wooden box full of sawdust and ice held liquid refreshment ‒ a bottle of Australian sparkling wine, lemonade, and cold tea. Gunder had his own provision of beer in a box under the driving seat outside.

  ‘Au revoir,’ said Chalmers, raising his hat, ‘and bon voyage.’

  ‘Thank you. I expect to be back in a few days ‒ by next Tuesday, probably.’

  ‘If you send word to me from Parramatta I will come to escort you home.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Mrs Armstrong ‒’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Are you sure you ought to go like this? Would it not be better to take a legal adviser with you?’

  She shook her head with vehemence. ‘We’re not at that point yet, Mr Chalmers, and I hope we never shall be.’

  ‘In that case, good luck.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  The journey was bone-shaking. The springs of the brake were poor, and the road was even poorer. They had soon left the houses and the few factories of Parramatta. Tended fields fell behind. Soon it was difficult not to believe they were simply in the wilderness.

  Now and again a house would appear not far from the road. Often a man on horseback would ride up to watch them go by. Sometimes he waved, sometimes not. On two occasions a file of black men stood silent as they rumbled past.

  The heat was intense. During her stay in Sydney many of the inhabitants had told her the temperature was like that of Naples in Italy. Jenny had never been to Naples but she was sure it was not as baking hot as this terrain. Heat shimmered over the ground, making what looked like lagoons of water on the plain. Heather found it magical. She knelt with her face pressed against the glass.

  The two horses were good beasts and if the road had been better they might have made as much as seven miles an hour. But in the end the journey to Koobalong took them from eight in the morning until six in the evening.

  Koobalong proved to be a township of four wooden buildings: a beershop, a provision store which acted as mail office, a dwelling house with pigs, chickens and geese in a large compound, and an office with living quarters above on which a board announced, ‘Wool Forwarding Agency, Jno. Myers, Druggist and Dentist, B D Cohen, Religious Service Held First Sunday Each Month, Pastor Barnley.’

  ‘She’s right,’ announced Gunder, apparently meaning, ‘We’re here.’

  Thankfully they all got out, to ease their bruised limbs and breathe the fresh air. Doors had already opened at the sound of their wheels. Although there were only four buildings, at least twenty people seemed to be present in a moment.

  ‘Goodday!’

  ‘Come out from Syd?’

  ‘Why, it’s Gunder ‒ ha’re you, cobber?’

  There was a babble of voices. Hot tea appeared as if by magic. Offers of hospitality were being made before ever they asked for names or any other information.

  ‘We’re looking for Daniell’s farm,’ Jenny told them.

  ‘Ah, another four miles, lady ‒ but stay where you are, I’ll give you and the kid a bed ‒’

  ‘Thank you, but we should like to get to Daniell’s by this evening.’

  ‘Yair,’ agreed Gunder.

  ‘You their relative from Adelaide?’

  ‘No, I’m from Scotland. My name’s Armstrong.’

  Glances were exchanged. A woman in a sunbonnet said, ‘Miss Armstrong?’

  ‘Mrs Armstrong.’

  ‘Any relation to …?’

  ‘His wife.’

  There was a silence that seemed almost startled.

  ‘He’s married, then,’ someone remarked.

  ‘Looks like.’

  ‘Yair.’

  ‘Is Daniell’s farm difficult to find?’ Jenny inquired, after sipping tea for a moment to let the news sink in.

  ‘Nah, two miles on, then there’s the Beejera Creek, and there’s a track goes off to the east, among the rocks, and there’s a spinney of woollybutt trees you take on your left. Farm’s across the medder. Can’t miss it.’

  Privately Jenny thought she could, but she had faith in Gunder. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘They know you’re coming?’

  ‘No, it’s a surprise.’

  ‘Yair,’ said a sardoni
c voice.

  Baird collected the thick mugs in which the tea had been offered and handed them back. Their owner said, ‘Well, ta-ra, then. Best of luck.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Baird, with some misgivings.

  The remainder of the journey took them another two hours. It was growing dark when they saw the glint of lamplight across a large paddock. Once again, they had still some distance to go when the door of the farmhouse was flung open and a man and a woman almost fell out, holding aloft a lantern.

  ‘Hiyah? Who’s there? Is that you, Tom?’

  Gunder gave a cry like a wolf. ‘Yah-yah-yah,’ he called.

  ‘Is that Gunder?’

  In a moment they had rolled up to the gate of the farm. In the gloaming it was difficult to tell but it seemed as if there was a garden. Jenny could smell lavender and other flowers. A woman opened the door at the back of the brake. They all stepped down again.

  ‘Goodday,’ the settler’s wife said. ‘Visitors!’

  ‘Who is it, Mabel?’

  ‘She’s right, Bob, we’ve got company. Come in, come in ‒ where you come from? Gee, a little ’un ‒ Bob, here’s a little girl. My, and she’s sleepy. Need your bed, duckie? Come on in then, we’ll soon see you right. Gerrout of my way, Bob, can’t you see the folk want to come in?’

  Talking hard all the way, Mabel Daniell led her unexpected visitors into her house.

  It was a large plain room they entered, but pleasant because of its bright colours. The inner walls had been washed with bright blue distemper, the floor had rugs made from rough dyed wool. A hanging lamp shed good light over a couple of shabby easy chairs. A harmonium took up a corner, with a vase of wild flowers on it.

  ‘Gunder, you want to see to the horses? The stable’s round the left side. I’ll get some grub going. You’ll kip down there afterwards, I suppose? The blankets are in the box inside the stable door.’

  Gunder grunted and disappeared.

  ‘You know him?’ Jenny said in surprise. ‘He had to ask for directions ‒’

  ‘He ain’t been here before but we’ve seen him around. Now, missus, what can I get you?’ asked Bob Daniell. ‘Whisky? Port? Tea?’