Keepers of the House

by JH Fletcher

  The door scythed shut. The maid turned away, dusting her hands, delighted with herself for carrying out her guard duties so successfully.

  ‘Who was it, Polly?’

  Gertrude Fairclough, fair hair damp with heat, had a complexion that already, at thirty, had fallen victim to the climate, turning from the peaches and cream that had been so admired in Melbourne to its present (and future, alas!) uninspiring yellow.

  ‘A beggar woman, mum. With a child.’

  ‘Did you give her anything?’

  The maid’s narrow shoulders were affronted by the idea that she should have given anything to anyone.

  ‘No, mum.’

  Mrs Fairclough, a regular softie, looked distressed at the idea of a woman on the road alone. In this heat.

  ‘Perhaps we should have let her have something —’

  Polly moved at once to quell the foolish impulse. ‘She never asked for nothing, mum.’

  Mrs Fairclough was perplexed by the idea of a beggar woman who did not beg.

  ‘What did she want then?’ Sharply, suspecting Polly of keeping things from her. As she was sure she often did. Marooned in this big house in the far north, in this life that had turned out so differently from the tropical idyll she had envisaged ten years earlier when Ambrose had besought her so romantically to marry him, Mrs Fairclough was well acquainted with loneliness.

  If only I had a friend, she confided in letters to her sister, whom she trusted. Only one.

  There was no one; it made her life difficult.

  Polly wriggled resentfully, sensing criticism. ‘To speak to you, mum.’

  ‘And you sent her away? Without asking me first?’

  ‘I di’n think you’d want to be bothered.’

  ‘Go after her,’ Mrs Fairclough instructed, delighted at the chance to assert herself. ‘Bring her back.’

  Which Polly, cross as two sticks, did. Left them just inside the closed front door. Let the old bitch get on with it, then.

  Mrs Fairclough, seeing Anneliese’s belly, wondered what she had let herself in for. And the boy … She eyed him nervously, uncertain of boys, having no children of her own.

  ‘Would you like a cool drink?’ she offered.

  The boy scowled.

  ‘He would. If it’s not too much trouble.’

  Mrs Fairclough was pleased. There was a bell on a side table. She rang it imperiously.

  When Polly came, she said, ‘A tray of cool drinks, Polly. If you please. For three.’ How pleasurable it was to play the mistress, if only briefly! ‘Please come through,’ she said to the strangers. ‘We can sit inside.’

  Which they did, waiting for drinks that took a long time coming. Until they did, Mrs Fairclough, obeying some obscure protocol, would not discuss the purpose of the visit. Instead made small talk, which she missed so much.

  ‘Do you come from these parts?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do I detect a hint of an accent?’ Roguishly, willing to make friends, if only for a minute, with this strange woman.

  ‘I am from South Africa,’ Anneliese said. Even at this point, she was unwilling to conceal her heritage. ‘I am a Boer.’

  With whom the Empire had so recently been at war.

  Mrs Fairclough seemed to think nothing of it. ‘How interesting! And what brings you to this part of the world, Mrs —?’

  ‘Riordan.’

  It was easier than van der Merwe. Might avoid the need for later explanations, too, perhaps.

  ‘My husband is Australian. After the war, I came here with him.’

  Mrs Fairclough knew nothing of this woman with her proud face and heavy accent, yet her heart was touched.

  ‘It must have been hard for you.’

  Anneliese sensed an opening, decided to see if she could prise a way into this rich woman’s heart. ‘My first husband was killed in the fighting. My two children —’

  Mrs Fairclough lifted horrified fingers to her lips. ‘Surely they were not killed, too?’

  ‘They died, yes.’

  ‘So precious,’ Mrs Fairclough mourned. ‘I wonder you could bear it.’

  ‘We bear what we must,’ Anneliese said.

  The drinks came. Mrs Fairclough, flustered, concerned for the dead children, served them herself.

  ‘Forgive me, my dear,’ she said to Anneliese, ‘you wanted to see me. How can I help you?’

  ‘I am looking for work.’

  ‘They do not employ women in the fields.’

  ‘Not in the fields. In the house.’

  Out of the question, of course; there was little enough to do as it was. Ambrose would never permit the extra expense. Yet she would have liked to help this woman, who was also a stranger in this place.

  ‘Where is your husband?’

  ‘He is looking for work, too. As a cutter.’

  ‘That should be no problem. My husband tells me he has a need for more labour.’

  ‘It is not easy,’ Anneliese said. ‘The plantations want no women around the place.’ She smiled, one woman sharing confidences with another. ‘Especially in my condition.’

  Mrs Fairclough tiptoed fastidiously around the idea of the coming baby.

  ‘When?’

  ‘The end of next month.’

  ‘But what will you do?’

  Anneliese had sensed the woman’s rejection but would not acknowledge it.

  ‘I had hoped to have it here. Or somewhere. Under a roof, at least.’

  Mrs Fairclough was swayed painfully. To send a woman away in this condition … Barbarous. Well-spoken, too, despite the accent.

  ‘Have you worked in a house before?’

  Anneliese knew better than to say her family owned a large farm in Africa, with servants of their own.

  ‘All my life.’

  Mrs Fairclough dithered. It was impossible. Yet the woman offered the prospect of companionship, for which she yearned so much. Impulsively she snatched her decision out of the hot and lonely air.

  ‘If your husband is taken on, you may stay.’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘We can discuss the nature of your duties later.’

  In the meantime, they did not even know each other’s names.

  Anneliese introduced herself and Dermot.

  The woman bent and solemnly shook the little boy’s hand. Who snatched it away ferociously.

  ‘And I,’ she said, straightening, ‘am Mrs Fairclough. Mrs Gertrude Fairclough.’

  One of the regular cutters had fallen sick, so they were in. From the first, Dominic had a harder time of it than Anneliese. He had worked hard in his time — some of those grape-growers would work you fair to death, given half a chance — but had known nothing to match this.

  Twelve hours on, twelve off, cutting cane stalks as hard as steel. Cruel work, especially when you weren’t used to it. By the time he was finished for the day, Dominic could barely stand; in the morning was so sore he had a real problem getting out of his bunk and for the first ten minutes staggered about as stiff-limbed as an old man.

  He got no sympathy from Bull Bullen, the gang boss.

  ‘Bit too lady-like for us, are you? Not up to doing a day’s work?’

  The Bull stayed on Dominic’s back all day, breathing fire down his neck if he slackened off for as much as a minute.

  ‘C’mon on, Lady Godiva. Raise a sweat, why doncha?’

  Dominic went to see Anneliese, eyes reproachful in his haggard face.

  ‘I’ll not be taking much more of this, girl …’

  Anneliese took no notice. They were lucky to have found a place at all. Mrs Fairclough was kind, if foolish, and Anneliese had no intention of going anywhere until after the baby was born. Not then, either, given any choice.

  In the meanwhile, her work in the house was negligible: sort the linen, help Polly who, however, would not let herself be helped. Polly resented the newcomer, sensing possible competition. She stood at the kitchen sink, clattering cutlery ferociously. Another back as sti
ff as steel. At first she tried to put on airs, to remind this beggar off the road of her place, but Anneliese ignored her. Then she tried to get her to lift weights — a spare bed, a chest full of china — that were beyond safety or her strength, but Anneliese was having none of that.

  ‘Thinks she’s so slim,’ she told Dominic. ‘So sly. Sly as a fox, give her half a chance.’

  Which she had no intention of giving. Anneliese, gashed by a hundred cuts from life’s dagger, was too much for Polly. Who sulked.

  Yet, after a few weeks, things improved. Dominic’s body began to get the hang of what was required. Now he was young again, cheeky with it, although Anneliese was too far gone for him to be able to work off his energies on her. For her part, Anneliese felt she was lugging the world’s weight around.

  Not much longer, she told herself, but the baby seemed in no hurry. Perhaps today, she hoped each morning, only to be disappointed. Day by day. Now it was her turn to have a problem getting out of bed. Then, in the middle of a hot and sultry night, the waiting was over.

  She had forgotten what it was like; or perhaps it was something you always had to learn anew, however many times you experienced it. The mounting pressure as the Thing took over, you its prisoner, helpless and shaking, within your own body. The Thing; because that was what it was. No personality yet; no feeling of love or tenderness. The mind even denied it individual life. Because the Thing, too, was helpless, the prey of a natural will greater than itself, greater than you, impelling it downwards, inch by agonising inch, forcing and raping the body that contained it, wrenching and opening a passage where surely there was too little space for it to go. Inch by inch. Hour by hour. An infinity of pain, eyes staring at blood-red darkness, tortured limbs spread, every muscle engaged in the expulsion of the Thing that tormented her.

  Surely it hadn’t been as bad as this before?

  Mrs Fairclough helped. Needed for once in her life, Gertrude was surprisingly competent, hands sure, voice a consolation even as Anneliese was savaged by the fiery teeth of pain.

  ‘Do something!’ Sweat in her voice to mirror the sweat pouring from her body. ‘Anything!’

  Nothing anyone could do. Then, in the fiery furnace, something creaked within her, creaked again, broke loose. It moved and Anneliese knew, even before Gertrude’s excited exclamation, that it was coming at last.

  Tenderness, then, a drowning lassitude as the pain slipped away, its teeth blunted.

  ‘Is it all right?’

  The little creature, live now, real now, a person now, lay against her breast but, for the moment, she was too exhausted to turn her head to look down at it.

  Gertrude’s voice echoed in a deep well of weariness. ‘He’s fine. He’s gorgeous.’

  A boy, then, and entire. For the moment, nothing else mattered.

  Sleep engulfed her.

  ‘Look at the hair he’s got on him! Black as night!’ Dominic’s face beamed though he cradled the baby nervously. ‘Jack. That’s what we’ll be calling him. After the old man.’

  ‘No!’ Had spat out the word before she could control it.

  He eyed her. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘It’s just … I’d thought a more Irish name?’

  ‘I wouldn’t wish Dominic on me worst enemy.’

  ‘Give me some others.’

  ‘Hell, I dunno. Donal, Patrick, Sean —’

  ‘That’s a good name. We shall call him Sean.’

  He stared doubtfully at the baby to see if the name fitted. ‘If that’s what you want.’

  He returned Sean to his mother, pleased to be rid of him. ‘I gotta get back to work. That Bullen’ll kill me, else.’ And, went, glad to be gone from this room of babies and birth and women.

  Anneliese looked up at Gertrude Fairclough, who was as proud as though she had given birth herself. ‘Thank you for everything you have done for us.’

  Gratitude brought back all Mrs Fairclough’s jitters, eyes and hands jumping like cats. ‘Nothing. It was nothing.’

  ‘Do you know where Dermot is?’

  The Englishwoman leapt as though ordered. ‘You want me to fetch him?’

  ‘To introduce him to his brother.’ She smiled at the light flooding through the window. At life. ‘What day is it?’

  ‘Saturday. February tenth.’

  ‘Saturday, February tenth,’ Anneliese repeated.

  There was a wonder in it, in everything. The white-painted room, the blue sky rimmed with cloud that she could see through the window, the fine down on Mrs Fairclough’s upper lip. Even the heat. Life, wonderful and complete.

  ‘A good day for a new child.’

  And she hugged baby Sean to her heart. Fulfilment flooded her. New beginnings, when nothing would go wrong ever again.

  Strange that Dominic should have wanted to call the baby Jack.

  Dominic had known from the first that there was bound to be trouble. He was an outsider, had taken the place of a bloke who’d been a member of the gang for four seasons. All right, that wasn’t his fault, but it stood to reason they were hardly likely to welcome him with open arms. The fact that he’d never handled a blade before didn’t help.

  The last thing he wanted was a barney, so he did the best he could. Tried to joke along, his usual trick. It had worked with the horses and the grapes, he’d managed to get the occasional smile even out of the solemn-eyed Boers, stolid as cattle, but somehow, this time round, he never got it right.

  He knew it yet seemed unable to do anything about it, the impulse that kept his mouth flapping day and night too much for his sense or even his instinct for survival. Everyone, Dominic included, knew it was only a matter of time before he fell foul of Bull Bullen, the boss ganger.

  There was no one in the business could cut cane like Bull when he’d got a head of steam up, but he was a mean bastard when he wanted to be. He was another one full of mouth but in his case he’d got the muscles to back it up. He could out-talk you without raising a sweat and punch his weight better than any man in Queensland. Didn’t matter if you were cutting cane or drinking in the pub, he told you what to do and you did it, or he belted you and you did it. All one to the Bull.

  He was what you’d call a natural leader, meaning he felt the need to lord it over the rest of humanity. Any new bloke was a natural target. Most cottoned on pretty fast but Dominic had been places and seen things that the others didn’t know about, and it made him slow to learn. Wouldn’t have mattered if he’d kept it to himself, but he went on and on about it. Enough to drive a bloke dilly. Got right up the Bull’s nose. If there was anything he hated, it was a new bloke too big for his britches.

  Saturday night most of the blokes had a few grogs at the pub down the road, fuel them up for the next week. End of the shift, they were washing up when Bull spoke to Dominic.

  ‘Comin’ in? Wet the baby’s head?’

  They’d all heard about the kid, of course, but that wasn’t why Bull had asked. Lesson time coming; Dominic could hear it in his voice. Shit, no, he thought, but it was no use. There was nothing he could do about it, at all.

  ‘Why not? I’ll have a jar with you, gladly.’

  Knew at once that he’d said the wrong thing. Another bloke would’ve said, Thank you, Bull. I’ll have a jar with you, gladly: like he was doing them a favour. Asking for it.

  Down the pub they had a beer or two, then some of the blokes switched to rum. Bull was swilling it down like water. If Dominic had needed any confirmation, that was it. He’d seen Bullen in the pub before, knew that when the Bull got full he was a bad bastard and no error.

  Everyone else knew what was coming, too. He wouldn’t have minded betting they were already taking money on the result. Not one of them would expect him to last more than a minute. He didn’t expect it himself but wasn’t going to run away from it. Nowhere to run, in any case.

  After an hour, the Bull strolled across to Dominic, taking his time. Dominic was leaning on the bar with a pot of rum in his hand.

&
nbsp; Bull gave him a grin, teeth like gravestones. ‘This Africa caper …’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Lies.’

  Dominic tipped his drink down, watching Bull over the rim.

  ‘Is that so, now?’

  ‘Course it is. You’re as full of shit as a Christmas turkey.’

  So it had come. Bull, big round head and yellow eyes, muscles in his back pumped up and ready, was daring him to take a swing. Seemed a pity to disappoint him. Dominic had the empty pot tight in his fist. He swung it sideways so fast it was a blur. A thud like an axe biting wood and the next thing Bull was staggering back, blood streaming down the side of his face, with Dominic all over him, gouging, punching, kneeing.

  He knew he had to end it fast if he were to have any chance at all. For a moment it looked as though the Bull might go down, which would have given Dominic an opening to get to work with his boots, but somehow he didn’t and Dominic had missed his chance. From then on, it was like a butcher hacking up a steer while it was still alive.

  Bull worked slow. One step, flat-footed, and hit. One step and hit. Each time the fist went in to the wrist and you could’ve heard the sound out in the paddock.

  One step, hit.

  Blood all over.

  One of Dominic’s eyes was gone, bruised and swollen up and dripping blood. Bull pulled back, set his feet and swung. His fist took Dominic on the side of the head and he bent under it, a shiver running through him like a tree when the axe hits it.

  He didn’t go down and, when Bull came in close to polish him off, he let him have one right on the nose. There was a creak you could hear above the men yelling and suddenly there was blood all over Bull’s chest.

  Made no odds; hitting Bull was like hitting a wall.

  The muscles behind his shoulder stood out big as a rock and he belted Dominic again. There was an explosion of light and pain and now the other eye was gone. Couldn’t see a dicky. Dominic knew he’d had it yet even now wouldn’t give up. He threw a roundhouse punch into the darkness. Felt the Bull’s teeth under his knuckles but, again, it was like he’d hit a wall.

  Now Bull was hitting him at will. Both eyes, nose, mouth, digging those great fists under his ribs again and again, like he was picking his spot.