Short and Sweet

by Anna Jacobs

  Part Three

  Northcliffe, Western Australia, 1925

  Life continued to have its ups and down for the Spencer family. They were still living in a temporary shack, all four sharing a room only ten foot square, but when their boxes arrived from England, they had a few comforts at least. The West Australian government might have given land to ex-servicemen and their families from all over the British Isles and settled them in groups to help one another, but they hadn’t provided anything for daily living except the barest necessities.

  Even Bill perked up a bit as they unpacked and of course the two children, Jenny and Peter, were bouncing with excitement about rediscovering much-loved toys and books. Unfortunately, they had to pack most things away again till they got their proper house, for lack of space.

  The next day was fine, so Maggie heated water on the wood-burning stove, which stood under a lean-to outside the shack. She set the tub on the rough wooden bench Bill had built and rubbed the underclothes against the washboard till they were clean.

  Hard work, all this, and would be until they’d cleared the land and got their dairy farm going. But she was young and healthy, and she loved the outdoor life. She could see a wonderful future for them when the dairy farm was up and running.

  She looked across at her children, tossing a ball to one another. To see them so brown and healthy made it all worthwhile. If only her husband would realize that.

  But as the months passed Bill remained moody, one day playing with the children as he had in the old days, the next day suffering one of the black moods he’d brought back from the war.

  Apart from the children, it was the few moments she spent in the forest every fine day that helped Maggie cope. She’d walk a little way along the rough track listening to the birds singing and calling. Or she’d watch the beautiful patterns of light and shadow beneath the tall trees and marvel at the delicate native flowers that were so much smaller than garden flowers.

  The beauty fed her soul, gave her strength.

  One sunny Sunday afternoon, Maggie suggested the whole family go for a walk.

  ‘It’s supposed to be a day of rest,’ Bill said, scowling. ‘I’m not doing anything.’

  ‘But it’s beautiful in the forest. We used to go for walks at home on Sunday afternoons. Why not here? We could go to the next settlement, call in on Jean and her family.’

  ‘There’s nothing beautiful about those damned trees. The government might be paying me to clear them, but it’s back-breaking work.’

  Bill was to get four pounds ten shillings per cleared acre, but had to fell every tree under eighteen inches in diameter, clearing the roots and all the scrub to leave the land in a ploughable condition. He got an additional eight shillings for ringbarking every tree over that size.

  Peter had gone to play with a friend, so Maggie took Jenny walking. She taught her daughter an old folk song, which they sang together as they strolled along the track.

  When a stranger came into sight, she stopped singing and hesitated. He was tall and looked very strong. Who was he?

  Then two little boys came running after him and she felt better. Silly to be worried. Who else could he be out here but another groupie?

  Smiling, he touched his hat to her. ‘Lovely day, isn’t it? I’m Daniel Marr.’

  She introduced herself and Jenny. ‘Yes, it is lovely. We’re enjoying walking among the trees.’

  ‘I enjoy that too. Say hello, John and Henry.’ He smiled at Maggie. ‘I bring these rascals out every fine Sunday afternoon. It gives my wife a rest. She’s expecting a baby in two months.’

  ‘That’s nice.’ Maggie watched him walk on. She wished she was expecting another child, but no chance of that with Bill still not wanting to touch her. She’d always hoped for a large family, like hers had been. She blinked away a tear at the thought of her brothers and sisters back in England. She and her mother wrote regularly but it wasn’t the same, and letters took weeks to go to and fro by ship, so by the time you got an answer, you forgot what questions you’d asked.

  After that, she and Daniel Marr met quite often on fine Sundays, stopping to chat for a few minutes while the children played or ran races up and down the track. His wife never came with him and Bill never came with her. It was Daniel who told her the name of a pretty pink flower that smelled so sweet, even the leaves having a faint perfume: crowea.

  Daniel wasn’t there one Sunday and she heard later that Mrs Marr had lost the baby. He didn’t come till two weeks later and told her his wife was still weak.

  Maggie felt guilty sometimes about how much she looked forward to their meetings. She mentioned the first one to Bill and occasionally said she’d met the man with the two boys again, but didn’t tell him that they met most Sundays and stopped to chat.

  They’d done nothing wrong and somehow she’d grown to consider Daniel a friend. Bill wouldn’t understand that a man could be a woman’s friend. Neither would most of her neighbours. But it was so good to have someone to talk to.

  At the end of April, the milking cows were sent to their group. The Spencers waited eagerly to see what theirs were like. Bill had built a shelter for milking, crooked like all his constructions, but sturdy enough to keep the rain off. On the other side of it he’d built a dairy out of corrugated iron, where the cream could be separated and the buckets scoured. That would be Maggie’s province.

  Mid-afternoon they heard someone approaching down the track. Peter ran out to see if it was the cows and yelled that it was, dancing about in excitement. Maggie sent Jenny to tell her father.

  The cows looked tired and dusty, milling around when driven through the rough wire and timber gate. They were a mixed bunch; brown, black and white in colour, and all had full udders.

  ‘Which ones do you want, missus?’ one of the men asked. ‘This one’s a good little milker. And that black and brown one has a nice nature.’

  ‘All right. You choose the others for me.’ She watched him shoo six cows into the rough enclosure they’d made from the young trees Bill had felled.

  Her husband continued chatting to the men, making no attempt to help with the cows.

  Maggie kept control of her temper. ‘Come on, Jenny. Let’s get the poor creatures a drink.’

  She sent Peter to lug water up from the creek. He was such a good worker, that boy, a real treasure. They were all looking forward to having a proper rainwater tank when they got their house.

  The two men left soon after and Bill walked across to join her. ‘They look a miserable bunch of cows.’

  ‘That’s because they’re dusty and tired. They’ll soon settle down.’

  ‘Can I call the little one Alice?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘You can call them what you want as long as you learn to milk them properly,’ Bill said.

  ‘Talking of milking, they’ll be uncomfortable. Come on, children. We all have to learn how to milk them.’ Maggie went to get the special buckets.

  Strangely enough, it was Bill who wasn’t good with the cows. His heart just wasn’t in it, though he did the work without complaining. She could milk far more quickly and soon Peter could too. Both children loved working with the animals.

  Oh, Bill, she thought sometimes. Will you ever be happy again?

  A week after the cows arrived Bill went out one evening ‘to see a man’ and came back drunk. She was furious with him, not only for getting into that disgusting condition, but for spending good money on booze, but he was unrepentant.

  ‘A man has to have a bit of relaxation, or what’s life about? I earn the money. I’ll say how it’s spent.’

  She couldn’t think where he’d got hold of the booze, but Elsie said a man in the next group brought it in from Pemberton, selling it at a small profit.

  ‘Well, I wish he wouldn’t,’ Maggie said.

  ‘You can’t stop men drinking,’ Elsie said. ‘My husband went out too last night.’

  ‘Did he come home drunk?’

  ‘No, he just had a couple
of beers.’

  ‘Bill was very drunk.’

  ‘Oh. Does he often do that?’

  ‘Sometimes. Since the war.’

  Elsie patted her shoulder. ‘He’ll settle down when we get proper houses to live in.’

  Maggie was beginning to wonder about that. Bill worked hard, even tried to be cheerful and loving some days, but he was nothing like the man she’d married.

  For better for worse, she’d vowed as a happy young wife. And they had been happy for a time. Then the war had ruined everything.

  At least in England she’d had her family to comfort her. Here she didn’t even tell Elsie how bad it was sometimes.

  Northcliffe, Western Australia, Summer, 1925

  The first year passed quickly. There was so much to do, Maggie fell into bed exhausted each night. She worried about the children missing their schooling so insisted Peter and Jenny read regularly, swapping books with other families. She even bought a few more books second-hand, something which infuriated Bill, who wasn’t a reader.

  She was delighted when she heard that a one-teacher school was going to be built only two miles down the road for this group and the next.

  A highlight of the year was moving out of the tin shack. Their new home had four rooms with verandas front and back. It felt empty at first, they had so little furniture, but she was making more herself.

  The big, square kerosene cans came in pairs in wooden crates which could be used for all sorts of purposes. She had one empty crate in the kitchen as a storage cupboard for her household equipment, and as they became available she put others into the bedrooms to store their clothes. She sanded down the wood herself and made little curtains to hide the contents. They looked very nice, considering.

  Jenny helped her with the sewing, trying so hard, she ignored the uneven stitches.

  Peter turned eleven, already longing to leave school, though he’d have to wait till he was fourteen, like everyone else. He was born to be a farmer, she sometimes thought.

  He and his sister would still have to help milk the cows before they went to school, because she couldn’t manage without their help. It was the same for all the groupie children.

  Maggie tried to give her two a chance to play each day, but Bill got grumpy if he saw them ‘wasting time’. He got even more grumpy when she still refused to give him her money. She was able to earn a little extra sewing for other women, or doing washing and mending for men who came into the area to help clear more trees for new groups of settlers, or to make roads.

  One day Bill came home for his midday meal looking smug and triumphant. ‘I got your money from Mrs Tennerson.’ He patted his pocket.

  ‘What do you mean, you got my money?’

  ‘I said she could give it to me to pass on to you, and she did.’

  Her voice was cool as she held out her hand. ‘Pass it on, then.’

  ‘I need some extra this week.’

  Maggie glared at him. ‘No, you don’t. You’re stealing it.’

  And they were off into another row. No hiding it from the children these days. No hiding why he needed the extra money, either: to buy drink.

  She hated the smell of his breath the nights he went drinking, and he never washed himself properly when drunk. What was the use, he said if she complained. He’d only get filthy the next day.

  When things went wrong, none of it was ever his fault.

  When things went well, she occasionally caught a glimpse of the old Bill – but less often these days.

  Maggie didn’t tell her family in England how badly things were going. There was nothing they could do to help her so why worry them? At least Bill still worked hard, whether he was hung-over or not, but it was with the grim endurance of a man who loathed what he was doing.

  What had he expected? Even she had worked out before they came here that cows needed milking twice a day, every day of the year.

  And you couldn’t even be a few minutes late with the milking because the man who picked up the cream waited for no one, and it was the cream that earned the money.

  Like some of the other groupies, they tried raising pigs on the skim milk that was left, but Bill couldn’t face killing them. The first time his hand shook and he turned pale, flinging the knife away. ‘I can’t do it. It was bad enough killing in the war, in self-defence. But these animals haven’t hurt me.’

  She put her arms round him. ‘We can ask Mick to do it. He won’t mind.’

  But that upset Bill too, because word got out and the other men teased him.

  The children loved the new batch of piglets, and played with them, letting one escape by mistake, shouting with laughter as they chased it round the house. Even Bill watched in amusement, his arm going round Maggie’s shoulders, like in the old days.

  Two days later, however, all the piglets escaped and couldn’t be found. She guessed Bill had let them out deliberately or else sold them to get money for drink.

  After that he made arrangements to give the skim milk to a man in the next group, in return for some bacon when a pig was killed. They left the milk in old kerosene tins near the gate to be picked up once a day and clean tins were left for the next lot.

  The man turned out to be Daniel Marr. He smiled at her, but didn’t have time to stop and chat.

  She was proud of making every penny do the work of four and ensuring nothing went to waste. Even the sacks the flour and other groceries came in were used for towels and rough work clothes for the children.

  There was only one thing that went to waste in their family, and she bitterly resented it: the money Bill spent on booze. He wouldn’t tell her how much savings they had left, which worried her greatly.

  One day Daniel didn’t come to pick up the milk. Bill grumbled. ‘It’s not worth bothering, just for a bit of bacon. We should pour it away.’

  But Maggie knew something must have happened to keep Daniel away.

  Sure enough, her friend Elsie came that afternoon with the news that Daniel’s wife had died the previous night – just clutched her chest and dropped dead.

  ‘Oh, no! How’s he going to manage? Those poor little boys, motherless!’

  ‘The kids have gone to a neighbour’s house for the time being.’ Elsie looked at her sideways. ‘I didn’t think you knew the Marrs.’

  Maggie could feel her cheeks heating up and turned quickly to check the kettle. ‘I’ve met Mr Marr and the boys a few times on my Sunday walks with Jenny. I didn’t realize his wife was that ill.’

  ‘She’s not been well since the baby, so their neighbours have been helping out. Daniel’s been doing some of the heavy housework, though how he finds the time, I don’t know. Unless he can get a relative to come and help him, he’ll have to leave. A man can’t run a farm without a wife, or look after young children, and if he sends them to live with relatives, he’ll still have to pay money to support them.’

  Maggie couldn’t imagine him sending his sons away. Daniel loved his boys, tossed them in the air, teased them. ‘When’s the funeral?’

  ‘They’re taking her body over to Pemberton on Thursday. It’s more than time we got our own cemetery. I don’t know why it’s taking them so long to arrange it when permission’s already been given for one here.’

  Maggie would have gone to the service if it had been local, out of respect, but there was no way she could get into Pemberton, fifteen miles away. ‘I’d better tell Bill. Maybe he’ll drive the skim milk across for a few days till Daniel sorts things out. Those pigs still need to be fed, after all.’

  But Bill refused point blank to add another job to his busy days, saying he’d pour away the damned milk rather than do that.

  ‘Mr Marr’s just lost his wife! Other neighbours are helping.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry for him but I’ve enough on my own plate in this godforsaken hole.’

  She took her worries to Elsie, who spoke to her husband. That evening two men turned up at the Spencers’ house to make arrangements to pick up the milk for Dani
el. They were very stiff with Bill, and Maggie knew they thought less of him for failing to do his bit.

  So did she.

  When they’d gone he turned on her. ‘What have you been saying to people?’

  ‘I only mentioned the milk to Elsie.’

  He raised one fist and she darted behind the nearest chair, suddenly afraid of the burning anger in his eyes. ‘I’ll leave if you touch me, Bill Spencer! I swear it.’

  ‘And go where? If you tattle to your friends again about my business, I’ll give you a lesson in how a wife should behave.’ He brandished a clenched fist.

  Then he was gone and she knew he would come home drunk.

  Only this time he didn’t come home till morning. He’d slept under a tree, he said. It was more peaceful than sharing a bed with her.

  He’d probably been too drunk to find his way home. Serve him right if he felt as bad as he looked!

  But the incident upset her deeply. She’d never been afraid of him before. And the children must have heard the quarrel.

  Part Four

  Northcliffe, Western Australia, 1926

  As the days passed, Elsie kept Maggie informed about how Daniel Marr was getting on after his wife’s death. ‘That man’s a battler if ever I met one. Says he’s not giving up his farm while he can stand upright. He’s paying neighbours to do his baking and washing for him. Me and Mick drove over in the cart to see them and take them a cake. It fair brought tears to my eyes to see those motherless lads doing the housework.’

  ‘I hope Daniel succeeds.’

  ‘I can’t see how. A farmer needs a woman to work alongside him.’

  There was no sign of her friend on the Sunday walks now and she missed him.

  Maggie went to collect the payment for two dresses she’d altered. She did all sorts of little jobs like that to earn her own money. Her husband didn’t like it. Bill didn’t like farming, either. Oh, he’d settled down after a fashion here, cleared the land and put some to grass for their cows. But he did nothing but complain about his new life.

  She loved Australia, though. Having grown up in a mill town in Lancashire, she’d not expected that when they emigrated.