Mud and Gold

by Shayne Parkinson

  ‘You’re dizzy, aren’t you?’ said Amy. ‘Lie still for a minute.’ She laid his head in her lap and stroked his cheek. ‘You’re going to have an awful headache later. Serves you right, too,’ she added, annoyance finding its way to the surface as her fear faded. ‘All right, you can sit up now if you want. Let’s have a look at you. I don’t think you’ve done yourself much damage, though it’s not for want of trying.’

  She checked Malcolm over, feeling her way gently along his body. He had taken most of his weight on one hip; he winced a little as she touched it, but it was clearly nothing serious. The most painful-looking souvenir of his escapade was a long scratch along the back of one hand and halfway up to his elbow where his arm had scraped over a piece of wood lying in the paddock, leaving a bleeding graze that had stained his shirt sleeve.

  ‘You’ve made a good job of that,’ Amy said. ‘You’ve ripped your sleeve, too, and this is the only shirt that still fits you properly.’ She dabbed at the blood with her handkerchief. ‘I’ll give this scratch a wash when we go inside, it’ll be sore for a bit. You’re going to get a huge bruise on that leg, too. That’ll go with the ones your pa’s going to put on your bottom. He’s going to be very angry with you, Mal.’

  ‘Are you going to tell on me?’ Malcolm asked, giving her a resentful look.

  Amy studied his face. Malcolm was trying hard to look defiant, as though he did not care what his father might do to him, but she could see fear in his eyes. They both knew only too well what Charlie’s anger meant.

  After a year of going to school, the only thing Malcolm seemed to have learned was how to defy another woman besides his mother. At least school meant the hours Malcolm and Charlie spent together, and therefore their opportunities for falling out with each other, were limited.

  But now that the long summer holiday had begun, that small relief had disappeared. Again Malcolm was spending most of the day with Charlie, and again there was trouble most days. Malcolm did not cry as much as he once had when his father punished him; perhaps Charlie saw that as a sign his son was growing up, but Amy suspected it only meant Malcolm was getting better at hiding what he felt.

  She sighed. ‘No, I won’t tell him, Mal. But he might figure it out for himself—look what you’ve done to poor Smokey.’ The horse was grazing on the far side of the paddock, keeping his distance from them, and he was walking with a distinct limp. ‘He needed a rest, that’s why your pa didn’t take him out today—you told me that yourself, you silly boy.’

  ‘I didn’t ride him far. I just wanted a little go at it. I wanted Pa to take me out on the horse with him,’ he finished, his lower lip quivering. The shock of his fall, coupled with the fear of retribution that Amy had put into his head, made him look dangerously close to tears.

  ‘Well, maybe your pa won’t notice. He probably won’t even look at Smokey when he comes home, he’ll be thinking about other things.’ Except that he would have to turn his bay out into the horse paddock with Smokey; Malcolm would need to be very lucky for his father to miss seeing Smokey’s lameness. But there was no sense frightening the child, and perhaps he would indeed be lucky. ‘Let’s go back to the house and I’ll clean you up.’

  By the time she had washed Malcolm’s grazed arm and helped him into a clean shirt, the morning had almost gone. It was high time she started making lunch. Amy glanced at the kitchen clock and thought for a moment. Despite his refusal to commit himself, she knew Charlie would not be home until well into the afternoon; it would have been close to eleven o’clock by the time he got to town, and he always stayed several hours when he treated himself to such outings.

  ‘How do you feel now, Mal?’ she asked, smoothing down his tousled hair and carefully picking a dead leaf out of it.

  ‘I’m all right. This shirt’s too hot,’ he complained.

  ‘I can’t help that, it’s the only clean one you’ve got left until the washing’s dry. But you’re right, it’s really hot today, much too hot for a proper cooked lunch like your pa always wants. How would you boys like a picnic instead? We could take it down to the creek and sit under the trees. You two could have a swim if you like.’

  ‘Yes!’ both boys chorused.

  ‘That’s what we’ll do, then. A swim might help your sore head, too, Mal. Come and help me pack a basket.’

  She made a pile of sandwiches, using some of the cold meat from the previous day’s roast dinner, and put them into a basket along with a few scones left over from morning tea, some cakes and several peaches, with a bottle of her home-made lemonade to wash it all down.

  ‘Have a swim first, that’ll make sure you’re good and hungry,’ she told the boys when they reached the bank of the creek. She helped David with his buttons while Malcolm undressed himself. The naked boys jumped into the waist-deep water with whoops of delight.

  Amy smiled as she watched them, happy at the sight of her sons enjoying themselves. She took off her boots, and turned her back to the boys while she undid her garters and pulled off her stockings, then she sat on a rock that jutted into the creek to dangle her feet in the water, gasping at the delicious coolness. ‘Don’t you dare splash me,’ she said, seeing the mischievous look on David’s face. She squealed with laughter as the two boys flung handfuls of water at her. It was far too hot to worry about a few splashes.

  ‘Come and have a swim, Mama,’ said David.

  ‘No, I’ll just dip my feet in. That’s enough for me.’ She was already exposing more of her flesh to daylight than she had in years, with her skirts pulled up to her knees.

  Malcolm threw himself under the water and came up snorting. ‘Can you swim, Ma?’ he asked.

  ‘I used to be able to. I suppose I still can.’ She thought back to other warm days when she and Lizzie had slipped away to a sheltered part of the creek where they could strip off and splash about to their hearts’ content, as carefree as these two children. Lizzie had always taken the precaution of threatening Bill and Alf with dire retribution from their father if the boys disturbed them while they were swimming, so the girls could cavort without fear of being observed. It seemed so long ago, those days when she had not worn ankle-length dresses, nor been laced into corsets that barely allowed her to bend in the middle, let alone run about climbing trees and leaping over fallen logs the way she and Lizzie had done. And yet, when she came to work it out, the memories were little more than ten years old.

  ‘Come here a minute, Davie, and hold on to my hands, then you can practise kicking,’ Amy said. ‘That’s right. Kick a bit slower, though, you don’t want to splash all the water out of the creek.’

  Malcolm watched with interest, then let Amy persuade him into taking his own turn at holding her hands and kicking vigorously. ‘You’ve got strong legs, Mal, you’re kicking really well. I can’t teach you properly, though, not when I can’t get in the water with you. It’s about time you two learned to swim, I don’t want you drowning yourselves.’

  ‘Will Pa show us how?’ Malcolm asked.

  ‘I don’t know, your pa’s always busy working or he’s tired. I’m not even sure if he can swim himself, anyway. Maybe I’ll see if he’ll let me take you over to Grandpa’s a bit more over the summer, then we might try and talk Uncle John or Uncle Harry into teaching you. Uncle Harry hasn’t got any boys of his own, he might like borrowing you two for a bit.’

  After their lesson in kicking, the boys leapt about in the creek until they began to shiver from the cold water. They scrambled over the rocks to the creek bank and collapsed onto the grass, panting from their exertion.

  ‘The sun’s so hot it’ll dry you quite fast, then you can get your clothes on and we’ll have some lunch,’ Amy said. She lifted her wet legs out of the creek and went over to lie on her side between the boys, watching the sunlight glistening on the little rivulets of water that ran down their bodies.

  The two boys looked so different that she sometimes found it hard to believe they had both come out of her, but the pair of them had inherited Charl
ie’s long legs and strong build. ‘You two are growing so fast,’ Amy said. ‘You’ll be taller than me in a few years. Maybe you’ll even be taller than your father one day.’

  She kept a close eye on the boys as the sun dried them, anxious that Malcolm’s fair skin should not burn. As soon as they were no longer visibly wet, she coaxed them into rolling onto their fronts so that their backs would dry.

  ‘This grass is prickly,’ Malcolm complained when he was lying face down.

  ‘I know, but you won’t be there for long, just till you’re dry.’

  The fine, downy hair on Malcolm’s arms looked almost blond in the sunlight as she checked his graze. ‘That swim’s given your arm a good rinse, it looks quite clean now.’ She brushed the dried grass and small sticks off Malcolm’s back, stroking the smooth skin down his spine.

  ‘That tickles, Ma,’ Malcolm said, wriggling away from her touch.

  ‘It’s fun tickling you.’ She took advantage of his face-down position to plant a kiss on his damp hair while he could not see what she was doing, then she turned to brush David’s back clean.

  His hair had dried enough to form tiny curls where it lay against his neck. A small pool of water had formed at the tip of the longest lock. Amy kissed it away. David must be due for another haircut if his hair was long enough for visible curls. That meant seeing her little boy looking like a frightened rabbit as his father waved the big scissors around his head, with David doing his best to hold back the tears that he would be punished for if they were seen. To Malcolm haircuts meant boredom and having to sit unnaturally still; for David they had taken on nightmare proportions since his first experience of his father’s wrath. She did her best to promise him treats to follow each haircut, but it was hard for the four-year-old to cling to the hope of something nice to eat as he perched terrified on a chair watching the scissors and knowing that a stick was close at hand if he misbehaved.

  David slithered across the grass to nestle close. He laid his head on Amy’s chest and pressed his warm little body against hers. ‘I like it when Papa’s not here,’ he said, smiling up at her.

  ‘You shouldn’t say that, Davie,’ Amy admonished. ‘We wouldn’t have anything to eat if Papa didn’t work hard on the farm growing things and milking the cows.’

  But she could not put any real rebuke into her voice; not when it was such pleasure to lie in the sun with her boys, Charlie’s sobering presence too remote to cast any shadow on them. Malcolm had dropped his usual belligerence towards her, too warm and languid to feel the need to be defiant. For a moment she considered trying to draw him close for a cuddle so that she would have a child in each arm, but when she ran her fingers across Malcolm’s shoulders she felt him stiffen. She contented herself with patting his arm.

  ‘My two boys,’ Amy murmured. ‘I’m lucky to have you, aren’t I? It’s nice being together, just the three of us.’

  ‘I wanted to go with Pa,’ Malcolm said quietly.

  ‘I know, Mal. Don’t get upset about it, lovey, you can go with Pa another time.’

  ‘I wanted to go with him,’ Malcolm persisted. ‘He wouldn’t take me. He left me behind like I’m a baby.’

  ‘He just likes to go off by himself sometimes. He’ll take you when you’re old enough.’ Only when the words were out did she realise their full import: when her son was old enough, his father would take him whoring. She fought back a rush of anger at the thought.

  ‘You always say that. When will I be old enough?’

  ‘You won’t be old enough to go to the hotel for years and years, Mal, and a good thing, too. But your pa takes you out other places with him—he often takes you to the factory.’

  ‘Yes,’ Malcolm allowed. ‘But then we just go on the cart. It’s not like riding a horse. Pa took me into town on the horse once, we went real fast on the beach. He doesn’t take me any more.’

  ‘He never takes me,’ David put in.

  ‘You’re too little,’ Malcolm said, proud of his two years’ superiority.

  ‘Would you like to go with Papa, Davie?’ Amy asked.

  David thought for barely a second. ‘No. I like it with you best, Mama.’

  ‘It’s good going with Pa, even just to the factory,’ Malcolm argued. ‘You get to see lots of horses, and Pa talks to the men and things. It’s all men down there. Pa says women talk a lot of rubbish.’

  It’s all women where your father’s gone. I don’t suppose he bothers talking to them, though.

  ‘But Papa gets grumpy. Then he hits us,’ David countered.

  ‘Yes.’ Malcolm lapsed into silence as he pondered the problem.

  ‘He doesn’t hit you all the time, Mal, and he hardly ever hits you, Davie,’ Amy said, anxious that the boys should not paint their father in a worse light than he deserved. ‘Only when you’re naughty. Or sometimes just because he’s really grumpy,’ she added in deference to the truth.

  ‘Why does he get grumpy, Mama?’ David asked.

  ‘Papa works hard, Davie. When people get tired they get grumpy.’ Going to whores tires him out, too. ‘You just have to try not to annoy him when he’s tired.’

  She disentangled herself from David and sat up, stretching her arms. ‘We’d better see about eating this lunch. You boys have had enough sun for one day, you’re going a little bit pink, Mal.’ Malcolm would have trouble enough if his father found out about his riding escapade without painful sunburn.

  It was well into the afternoon by the time they had finished lunch and then sat in the shade digesting it.

  ‘It’s nice here, but I’d better get back and see if any of that washing’s dry,’ Amy said. ‘I need to butter some scones for afternoon tea, too—your father will be home any time now, he wouldn’t be very pleased to see me lazing around here instead of working.’

  From a slight rise on their way back to the house Amy saw a horse and rider coming up the valley in the distance.

  ‘That’s probably your pa. You’d better try and stay out of his way this afternoon, Mal, in case he goes looking at Smokey—oh, you’ll have to help him with milking later, won’t you? Well, stay away from the house till then, anyway. I’ll come and call you when it’s time. Don’t say anything about your sore arm and maybe he won’t notice.’

  Malcolm did not need any persuasion to make himself scarce. He and David were well out of sight before Charlie was much closer.

  Amy hurried down to the horse paddock to meet Charlie as he rode up a few minutes later. He dismounted, and glanced at her approach in surprise.

  ‘What are you after?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing. I just came to say hello.’

  Charlie grunted in response. He led the horse into the paddock and took off the saddle and bridle, leaving the bay free to crop the grass. Charlie looked across the paddock to where Smokey stood near the opposite fence, but before he could take a closer look at the horse Amy spoke.

  ‘I’ve got scones buttered, and the kettle’s on. You must be ready for a snack.’

  ‘Aye, I’ve a fair appetite,’ said Charlie. Thus distracted, he walked up to the house, stopping only to put the tack away in one of the sheds.

  ‘Where’s the boy?’ Charlie asked when he had joined Amy in the kitchen.

  ‘They’re both playing over the back.’ It vexed Amy that Charlie tended to forget he had a second son, but she knew it worked to David’s advantage to be largely ignored by his father. ‘I’ll call them when you’ve had your afternoon tea.’

  Two cups of tea and a plate of scones later, Charlie looked pleased with himself. Amy studied his face, wondering if she could succeed in shielding Malcolm. She had not realised how avidly she was watching until Charlie narrowed his eyes at her and said, ‘What are you staring at?’

  Amy lowered her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stare.’ Now instead of his face she could see Charlie’s boots, a layer of dried mud thick around the edge of the soles. It was hard to remember what Charlie’s feet looked like without boots, now that she no lon
ger shared his bed. That seemed to be the only place he never wore them. I wonder if he takes them off at the whorehouse. I suppose he must before he gets into bed there. He’s got that whorehouse smell again. ‘Do you want another cup of tea?’

  ‘No, I can’t sit around here all day. It’ll be time to get those cows in shortly.’ He pushed his chair back, but remained sitting. ‘The boy can help me with that.’

  ‘I’ll call him, then.’

  The boys appeared soon afterwards, both of them standing in the kitchen doorway and eyeing their father nervously. Charlie stood up and went outside, Amy and the children following. As Charlie turned in the direction of the cow shed, Malcolm a few steps behind him, Amy relaxed a little. She was sure that once Charlie started the long job of bringing in the cows and milking them he would forget all about Smokey, and by the morning the horse would probably have got over the worst of his lameness.

  Charlie stopped abruptly. ‘I’d better have a look at Smokey first, see if he’s over that bit of stiffness. You wait there, boy, don’t go wandering off.’

  ‘I’m sure Smokey’s all right, Charlie,’ Amy said, a little too quickly. ‘He can wait till tomorrow, you don’t want to waste time now rushing around after him.’

  Charlie ignored her and headed for the horse paddock. Amy’s mind raced as she tried to think of ways to distract him. But he would either disregard her or get angry if she obstructed him, and neither of those would do Malcolm any good.

  Malcolm’s eyes ranged around with a hunted expression, but he did not stir from the spot where his father had told him to stay. Amy moved to stand close beside him. She let her arm rest on his shoulders in a helpless attempt at comfort, but he did not seem to notice.

  They were not left waiting for long. Charlie strode back up to them, his face livid.

  ‘He’s lame! My horse has gone lame! What the hell’s happened to him?’

  None of them made any answer, and Charlie ranted on.