by Moir, Tanya
Hester folds the washing, and listens to the storm break on the walls.
Nineteen
It is Sunday morning, and Robbie is hunting pigeons. He has set his trap, and is about to climb back down the tree. The miro berries are over, and the pigeons sober and harder to catch. So, Robbie is trying an experiment. He has baited his trap with breadcrumbs instead of water. Tommy doesn’t believe this will work, but Robbie has fed hungry pigeons on bread before, and doesn’t see why the birds of La Rochelle’s Road should be any different to those of Trafalgar Square. Still, he has determined to test this theory in private.
He is planning the first foothold of his descent when he hears crashing, and a bark. At first, he thinks it is Portia, escaped to follow him. But it is not a puppy’s bark. Robbie waits uncertainly. To his horror, the Hallorans’ dog appears, tail up, nose to the ground. Old Halloran follows five paces behind. He carries his shotgun beside his hip, and walks with the hunch of stealth, his eyes on the undergrowth ahead.
Robbie holds his breath. The sight of the man turns his stomach.
Sometimes, in the privacy of his bed, the image of their last meeting intrudes on Robbie’s most delicate moments, Mary Halloran’s face jumbled up with Will’s father’s French postcard collection, like a wrong card in a flicker show, and he is revolted and ashamed.
Halloran is getting closer. Now he is right below the miro tree. Robbie looks down on the top of the old man’s balding head and wills himself into stillness.
The dog passes, intent on pig scent. For a moment, it seems that Halloran will do likewise. But he pauses. And then he looks up. His eyes, wide-pupilled from the gloom, meet Robbie’s. There is the beginning of recognition, a spark of amusement. Then Halloran’s face explodes.
A shard of his skull grazes Robbie’s cheek. The sound of the shotgun bounces around the hills, and Halloran’s body takes a step forward. His hands twitch. Then his knees buckle and he falls. All around Robbie there is a fragmentary patter in the bush, a soft, dark rain.
Matthew Halloran keeps his finger on the trigger as he walks up to his father. Blood is spreading out from the shattered head. But still Matthew gives the body a cautious kick before he lowers his gun.
The dog trots back, curious. ‘Get away,’ says Matthew.
Without haste, he wraps his father’s head in a sack already dark with old blood and lifts the body across his shoulders. The burden does not seem to bother him. Matthew Halloran is a big man, six inches taller than his father; Robbie thinks Old Halloran would not be half the weight of a good boar.
They are less than fifty feet from the cliff edge, where its white rock face rises three hundred feet above the suck and pull of the hungry ocean. Matthew is very careful. He ropes himself to a strong tree before he attempts to throw the body over. Robbie imagines its long, cold fall. The tide, he knows, is in. Still, from such a height, it might hit bottom.
‘Shit’, he hears Matthew say.
Robbie watches him crawl right to the edge, and peer over. Matthew turns his head first one way, then the other. He scans the ground around him, and frowns. Then he backs away, rises, knocks the dust from his knees.
‘Fuck it,’ he says. He whistles the dog. ‘C’mon.’
Robbie sits still for a long time. A pigeon pauses, briefly, to investigate the unseasonal fruit amid the miro leaves. In the silence between bird calls, Robbie can hear the undershot boom of the surf below, rhythmic and relentless.
At dinner, Robbie is quiet. He eats his boiled salt pork and potatoes with little enthusiasm. Halloran is lodged in his chest somehow; he doesn’t know quite how to get it out. Robbie determines that when he is asked, he will tell them. But no one enquires how he came by the scratch on his cheek, or the blood on his clothes, or asks how many birds he has snared this morning. No one notices Robbie is not himself.
Portia rises from her place by the fire to settle on his feet. Robbie looks around the table. He sees that Hester’s skin has grown freckled. There are stiff yellow stains spreading out from her armpits, and a seam is split at her shoulder. His father’s face is fleshless and broken-veined; he barely pauses to chew between mouthfuls, and does not look up from his plate. His mother is flushed from the stove; she is cutting her slice of pork into ever-smaller pieces with hands that look like Grandma Williams’. A cold draught winds under the table legs, and Robbie shivers. They are none of them themselves.
Some weeks later, he shows Tommy. They crawl on their bellies to the cliff edge. Fifty feet below, a sunken mess of cloth and bone is caught on a narrow ledge; a sudden breeze off the sea brings the buzz and stink of it up into their faces. Portia sniffs appreciatively.
‘Phew,’ says Tommy. He hawks the foulness out of his throat and deposits it back over the cliff edge. ‘Well. It’s not like anybody’s going to be crying over him, e.’
Twenty
Letitia puts the finished nightgown on Hester’s bed. She runs her fingers over its neat folds, the white cotton pleats, the silky lumps of flowers. Chains of forget-me-nots, blue and green. The French knots, she sees, are not her best. No gaslight. But still, the gown is fresh, and pretty. The rough edge of her fingernail catches a satin-stitched stem, and she pulls back quickly, fearful of further damage.
She has not been in her daughter’s room for months. The attic is neat as a pin; there is nothing that needs doing. She bends to look out the window. On the table beneath it, her daughter’s proud face stares up at her from their portrait. Letitia picks up the photograph, and tilts it to the sunlight. It seems so long ago, now. It is hard to believe that less than a year has passed since it was taken. Today Hester is turning nineteen. Her own age, when she was married.
Letitia stares at the hills, and tries to imagine what kind of man will come out of the cursed scrub to court her daughter.
She cannot look at her mother’s face. So close, in the photograph, just over her shoulder. But then, as now, Letitia’s eyes were elsewhere. She was looking at Daniel. Not at what was behind her, or where she was going.
She puts down the portrait, and turns away from the hills. The low sun stretches in across the bed, and lingers on the new nightgown. Letitia looks at it one last time. The cotton is not as white as she had thought. There is a gap on the cuff where she ran out of silk, and a missed stitch on the collar. In the full light of day, it seems a poor sort of present.
Twenty-One
Outside the kitchen, Tommy pulls his boots back on. ‘You want to go pig hunting tomorrow?’
Robbie shakes his head. ‘I’ve got work.’
‘How about Sunday?’
‘Don’t know. Maybe.’
Tommy gives him a long stare. ‘He won’t still be there, you know. The gulls will’ve broken him all up by now.’
‘It’s not that.’
‘We could try up the hill instead.’
Robbie shrugs. ‘See what the weather’s like.’
He can see Tommy is unconvinced. But he does not wish to explain that it is the sound of the shotgun, and not Halloran’s dead body, which he wishes to avoid. Nor that he does not need to go hunting to be reminded of the latter, which confronts him just as easily in the parlour, or the shadows of the hallway, as it does in the bush.
‘He’s not going to climb up and get you, you know,’ Tommy had teased him, the first time they went back. ‘He can’t hurt anyone. Not now.’
This, Robbie knows, is true. But it makes him no less afraid.
Tommy wipes his nose on the back of his hand. ‘I’ll come and find you, then. If it’s a good day.’
There is a silence. Robbie tries to think of something other than blood.
‘I saw Hine the other day,’ he says. It is the wrong sort of silence for this, he knows. But it is the only other thing he can think of, and he has waited such a long time to say it.
Tommy’s mouth tightens. ‘Oh yeah.’
‘She lives with you, doesn’t she?’ The words hang heavy in the warming air.
‘No. She’s got he
r own place, down by the beach.’
‘By herself?’
Tommy sticks his hands in his pockets. ‘Yeah.’
‘Does she work for you?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘What does she do the rest of the time?’
‘Dunno.’ Tommy studies the horizon over Robbie’s shoulder. The sea is calm, and flat. ‘The thing about Aunty Hine is, she minds her business, and we mind ours, e.’ He picks up the empty potato basket and slings it across his shoulders. ‘See you Sunday, maybe.’
Robbie nods. ‘Yes. Maybe. If it’s not raining.’
Twenty-Two
Hester’s candle gutters and dies. She lies still and wide-eyed in the blackness. Rain drums against the attic walls, and far below, the surf beats its ceaseless rhythm. The wind howls. Cursing songs.
Twenty-Three
‘Haven’t seen old Mick in a while,’ notes Roy, finishing his apple. ‘Keeping alright, is he, Matt?’
‘He’s gone.’
Robbie stops chewing his bread, and watches Matthew Halloran’s face. He finds he cannot swallow. But Matthew seems unconcerned.
Roy frowns. ‘Gone where?’
‘Dunno. You’d have to ask him.’
‘What, gone for good, you mean?’ asks Frank.
‘Maybe.’ Matthew shrugs. ‘Looks like it.’
‘And he didn’t say nothing to you?’
‘Nope.’
‘That’s odd,’ says Roy. He throws his apple core down the bank. ‘But then, so’s Mick, I’ll grant you.’
‘What about Mary?’ asks Frank, nonchalantly, and Robbie thinks he sees him blush. ‘She still there? How’s she doing?’
‘Good.’ Matthew looks down, with what might almost be a smile. ‘Better.’
‘It’s all a bit strange, don’t you think, old Halloran just disappearing?’ says Daniel to Frank, some time later, when the others are out of hearing. ‘Do you think there could have been foul play?’
‘Who knows?’ shrugs Frank. ‘You couldn’t blame a man — the nasty old bugger.’
‘Surely we should report it?’
‘Why?’ says Frank. ‘You miss him?
Twenty-Four
July 5th, 1867
Dear Lucy,
We have lost one of our neighbours;— Mr Halloran, the elder, has left these parts, and his son and daughter, altogether. No one is very sorry. There is talk he has gone to the Goldfields, and most are prepared to wish him success, if that will ensure he stays there.
We had the news of his departure from Mrs Delacroix (who else!) last Sunday. It seems she has forgiven us at last for spurning her good potatoes, for she called on us before we had quite finished dinner, helped herself to a chair, and began to lament the loss of her colourful chum. She shook her head quite sadly, and declared the District bereft of a character;— there were few left now, she told us, like Old Mick.
Father’s friend Frank, who was dining with us, thanked the Lord for this (although that was not quite how he put it). Frank helps out with the scrub sometimes, when he has a spare day, and is not a bad man, though his language is sometimes unseemly.
But Mrs Delacroix reasserted her former high praise of Mr Halloran’s character, insisting that Mick had been ‘alright’, and praying God might rest his soul.
Father declared himself puzzled;— had she not just said that the old man had moved to the Goldfields? Mrs Delacroix allowed that this might very well be so, and equally, might not be. There was, she told us, placidly sipping her tea, no real way of knowing. Frank offered up the opinion that someone had sent Mr Halloran back to Hades where he belonged (though again, this was not how he put it), and expressed a desire to shake the hand of the man who had done so.
Mrs Delacroix gave him a very dark look and demanded to know what call we had to spread such rumours. We would do well, she warned us, to take greater care what we said;— the next thing we knew, some ‘poor bloke’ would ‘be swinging’.
This lurid suggestion silenced us all. Even Robbie looked quite shaken! (I must say I am becoming concerned for Rob. He has become withdrawn since he started work with Father’s gang, and I think he is having nightmares. Sixteen is very young to be long in the company of men like Frank and Mr Delacroix, and I wonder at the effect they will have on his temper.)
Mrs Delacroix then returned to trying to sell us a hen, and we spoke no more of the matter. I confess I wish Mother would buy one from her, for an egg now and then would be such a treat! I am so heartily sick of pork and pigeon, I cannot tell you. But alas, there is no money for poultry;— or anything else, it seems. But there, I must not complain, for it is not as if we are starving. After all, we do have a goat. And I am sure that when we have sold our first crop of seed, I shall soon grow tired of beef, and chicken!
Your loving friend,
Hester
Twenty-Five
It begins on a Tuesday night. The first wave of rain rattles Hester’s dreams, in which rosy teacups slide as Lucy’s Russell Square parlour lists to starboard. The second shifts the house on its piles. The floor timbers groan as they settle back on their rocks. ‘You didn’t tell me it would be so rough,’ says Lucy, as they round the Horn.
Hester is getting colder and colder. It is not until the water hits her face that she wakes fully, and realises that the roof above her is leaking. She knows she should get up, and do something about it. But she is so tired. She rolls over, out of the way of the drips, and goes back to sleep.
‘Hester!’ Letitia is holding a candle. ‘Get up!’
Hester pulls her quilt closer. She is feeling very cold indeed now. ‘It’s not morning,’ she argues. ‘It’s not even light yet.’
‘You silly thing, your bed is sopping.’ Letitia sighs. ‘Bring it all downstairs. We’ll have to hang it in the kitchen.’
Hester sits up. It’s true, her quilt and nightdress are sodden. Even the end of her plait is wet. Another gust of rain strikes the attic wall, and the cold wind slices through the boards to stir the curtains. Beyond them is a half-hearted dawn, watery and terse. Hester’s teeth begin to chatter.
After three nights in the oven, Hester’s quilt is nearly dry. On Sunday it is still raining.
‘I’m going out to fix the roof,’ Daniel says.
‘In this?’ Letitia looks up from her mending, and inclines her head towards the kitchen window, which rattles obligingly in its frame. ‘You’ll be blown off.’ It is a possibility towards which she seems resigned.
Hester looks out at the storm-pale sea until another wave of rain obliterates it. The drops hit the glass as hard as hailstones and the draught through the sash is cold as sea ice. She imagines this wind swirling up, full of the crash and gnaw and howl of icebergs, through all the dark miles from the Southern Ocean.
Daniel does not heed Letitia’s warning. The gangs cannot work in weather like this, and he is now four days out of pocket. Hester can see he prefers to confront the storm than contemplate its hourly cost. He makes Robbie hold the attic ladder in the lee of the house while he gains the roof. In the kitchen, Hester and Letitia can hear his boots bang and slide on the wet iron.
‘Come down!’ yells Robbie.
There is a louder bang, and a tumbling slide. ‘Shit!’ Daniel’s voice, though muffled, is entirely comprehensible, and Hester flinches. She has never heard such words from her father.
Daniel re-enters the kitchen, dripping. His back is covered in wet clay, and his palms are bleeding where he has clutched at the sharp edges of the roof iron.
‘Here.’ He takes off his muddy jacket and puts it down beside Letitia. ‘This needs washing.’
Letitia studies the stain the jacket is making on the tablecloth. ‘We’ve nearly run out of potatoes.’
‘I’ll have no wages until next week.’
‘I need twelvepence.’
‘We must learn to economise.’
‘Then we shall eat less.’ Letitia goes back to her mending.
Her father’s hands, Hester notices
, are leaving more stains on the tablecloth. She brings him a cloth.
‘Don’t fuss, Hester,’ he snaps.
The window rattles again.
In the attic, it is too cold and wet to write. Hester’s hand will not work, and the ink bleeds into the damp paper. She gets up, empties the chamber pot of water and places it back beneath the leak. She will finish her letter in the kitchen.
There, on the freshly swept floor, Daniel is prising apart the spidery boards of an old crate.
‘What are you doing?’ he asks her, as she sets her pen and paper on the table.
‘Writing to Lucy.’
The side of the crate comes away with a crack. Daniel does not look up. ‘No more letters,’ he says.
Hester stares at him. Letitia puts down her mending. ‘What?’
‘They’re a waste of good money.’
‘But I promised Lucy —’
‘I daresay Lucy will survive the disappointment.’
Daniel positions the first of his salvaged boards over the kitchen window and drives a nail into the rain-soaked frame.
Pen stilled, Hester watches as the ocean narrows, and disappears.
Twenty-Six
August 3rd, 1867
Dearest Lucy,
We have had nothing but rain and wind for five days now. The storm strikes the cottage with such force that one might think the ocean itself had risen to overwhelm us;— our wooden walls offer no greater feeling of security than do those of a ship as she is tossed on deadly seas. Indeed, the view from the kitchen window is such that I am almost tempted to tie myself to the helm! I begin to see why more of our windows do not look this way, for on days like this, the prospect is fearsome, and draughty to boot.