The Shiralee

by D'Arcy Niland

  ‘You’re selfish to the core,’ she went on. ‘Any woman would do what I did if she was married to you. You’re not a husband at all, and you were never meant to be one, and that’s all there is to it.’

  He agreed with that, too, in his mind: marriage wasn’t for him any more than becoming a politician was; or running a music academy. He had made a mistake, and had tried to make the best of it; that was the sum of it.

  ‘When she was born – you weren’t even home for that. I went off alone. I had her, and I came home alone. To a lonely house. To nobody.’

  Yet couldn’t a man have helped it? What did this making the best of it mean? Why did it have to be a mistake?

  ‘You think a woman has a child and it’s nothing. It’s just tossed off like peeling the spuds or hanging out the washing. What do you know about how it feels to be getting around like a balloon? Sickness and pains and discomfort – not for a day but for months. Months on end. You think you’re tough. You couldn’t stand it ten minutes.’

  It was a mistake because a man had found the way of life he was happiest following, and he wanted no interference with that way of life: he was not prepared to sacrifice it for anything or anyone; nor even prepared to test his willpower to see if he could do without it; flog his willpower into abandoning it.

  ‘The terrible pain when it’s born – what do you know about that? When you scream with the torture, and nobody gives a damn whether you live or die, when your body feels like it’s being torn apart, and all for what?’ She lowered her voice, looking away from him, not seeming to care much whether he heard or not. ‘What did I get out of it? Nothing. Only more to put up with, more trouble, more responsibility, more work, another mouth to feed. And nobody to give me a word of appreciation.’

  Macauley raised his head. ‘And yet you want to take her back with you. What happened to Donny boy? Walk out on you, did he?’

  She glared at him. ‘You’d like to think so, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Don’t tell me he’s all keen on having the kid, too. Why, can’t he get one for himself?’

  ‘He’ll be a much better father to her than you ever were.’

  He strolled idly over to her and clutched her shoulders, squeezing the flesh. A sensual feeling stirred in him at the touch. He relaxed his grip. ‘You’ve had a hard time,’ he said. ‘I feel sorry for you. The way you must have worried about that kid, how it was eating, whether it was warm enough. You couldn’t expect me to take good care of it, could you?’

  His sudden softened attitude aroused a flicker of suspicion in her eyes, but she couldn’t fathom his motives. ‘How could you blame me?’ she said. ‘You never took any interest in her. You saw her about as much as you saw me.’

  ‘Naturally, you’d fret, too.’

  ‘Even when you were home for the few days she got on your nerves. She broke your sleep. You were always moaning about her getting under your feet. You never played with her. You were completely indifferent.’

  ‘True enough,’ Macauley admitted. ‘I hardly noticed her, you might say.’ He walked back to the chair casually, straddled it, folded his arms on the back, and rested his chin on them. His eyes were half shut like a cat’s in the sun.

  ‘I’ll give you this, Marge,’ he said. ‘You’re a good trier – but you don’t fool me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You don’t want that kid,’ Macauley said. ‘You only want to get your own back on me.’

  She was ruffled only for a moment. ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ she snorted derisively. But he knew he was right.

  ‘You wrote me a letter, remember? You spilled your guts in that letter, and I haven’t forgotten a word of it.’

  She flushed uncomfortably, unable to think of anything to say.

  ‘You meant everything you said. You hoped like hell that I was having a tough time. You had about as much concern for Buster as that wall.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ she blustered.

  ‘When Mrs Callahan gave you the lowdown you couldn’t believe it. You couldn’t imagine the kid looking a picture, better than she’s ever looked. You couldn’t imagine me getting by with her as good as any old mum, could you? It maddened you. You got steamed up all over again. You boiled. And you couldn’t rest until you came up here and took that kid away. By God, you must have it in for me.’

  She pleaded guilty in every line of her face, and was furious with herself for not being able to disguise it.

  ‘No, you don’t want the kid,’ he purred. ‘You just want to use her to twist the knife in me. It doesn’t matter a continental to you as long as I get hurt. And she’s the best weapon you’ve got. That’s it, isn’t it?’

  She felt humiliated by his perception, like a child being found out, and she tried to conceal it. But she couldn’t. She only succeeded in confirming it with an aspect of baffled rage; all the venom and hate she had for him was in her eyes and lips. She watched like a cheated victor as Macauley went to the bed and took Buster into his arms. ‘Where’s her clothes?’ he said.

  ‘I’ll tell you something now,’ the woman said desperately. ‘She’s not your child. You’re not her father.’

  ‘Where’s her clothes? Get them!’

  ‘You’ve got no right to her.’

  ‘Get her bloody clothes when I tell you!’

  The woman pulled open the wardrobe and snatched out Buster’s straw hat, shirt, and overalls, which, apparently she had intended leaving there. Sullen, chagrined, she thrust them into Macauley’s hand.

  ‘I guess she can keep the dress you had all readied up for her. This.’ He flicked at the frock Buster wore. ‘You don’t mind giving her that, do you? A present from her mother. I can’t say that you’re not that.’

  The woman’s feelings broke in a torrent of sobbing words caught up with rage and bitter loathing. ‘I’ll get her back. You just see. I haven’t finished yet. I haven’t even started. You’re not going to do this to me and get away with it.’

  At the door he put up a hand motioning to her for silence.

  ‘You know when your mouth is parched,’ he said. ‘You know what it feels like to bite into a warm wet pear? You used to be like that. Go to bed,’ he said. ‘And wait for me. I’ll be back later. When strangers can help themselves to what’s mine I don’t see why I can’t help myself to what’s mine for a change. Do you?’

  He went out. He felt no bitterness and no sense of victory. He wished it could have been different. But there seemed no help for it. The situation and its instigation seemed to be the work of an immutable cause beyond and even unrelated to him and her: it was on another plane and mere human power could not hope to control it.

  He walked down the street squeamish with all the violence of that unpleasantness. He put the child into bed. He didn’t go back to the hotel. He had never intended to. It was just the gesture of belittlement, a last cruel flout. He undressed, climbed in beside Buster and lay awake for a long time.

  From Coonamble Macauley went south to Gilgandra and worked for three days in a wood yard there. He pushed on east to Dunedoo, and put in a week poisoning rabbits for a wheat farmer. It was at Dunedoo that he bought Windbag. He was glancing idly through the Dunedoo Chronicle when he saw the notice giving a description of the impounded horse. It seemed to him to be a nudge of fate. He went round to the pound, and the horse, still unclaimed and apparently not even wanted by a few bidders at the sale, went to Macauley for a song.

  When he led it away, to the great excitement of Buster, he wasn’t sure whether he wanted his head tested. It was a bony animal with a long, sad face and dolorous eyes, and looked as if it might fall over any time without warning. It was quiet and gentle, with a disposition to laziness: and Macauley couldn’t make up his mind whether it was born that way or had been ill-treated into an obsequious stupidity.

  He didn’t expect to come by a sulky in the same town, but he did. With the engine of his future mode of transport in hand it was only natural to look for the body to put i
t in. He found the sulky among a sargasso of derelicts in the blacksmith’s yard. There were wagons, buggies, buckboards rusting and falling apart, their wheels sunk into the ground with long standing and the weeds growing about their fellies.

  The sulky had a wheel-wobble which, when it was going, made its tail waggle like a bustle on a chorus girl. One of its shafts was broken, snapped off in the middle, but Macauley, with the help of the blacksmith, who was glad to get rid of the antique, at a profit, too, repaired it with a smooth sapling bolted to the shortened limb. The blacksmith greased the axle and went clinically over the invalid testing for general soundness. He said he thought she’d do for a few years yet.

  The whole deal set Macauley back $15, and the harness cost him the most of that.

  He went out over the green hills and down the red roads. He had no set plan. He kept on going, working here and there, where the job was practicable as well as suitable. At Guyra he added a tent to his gear. He went over to the plateau of Dorrigo and camped out a mile by the Dangar Falls. But there was nothing to hold him there and he took the mountain road north to Grafton.

  This was the road he had taken when he first left Sydney and made for the Rivers, and it put him in mind of many things. He had traversed it perhaps six times since then, and it was always the same: always filled him with pleasure for the beauty and the magnificence of its scenery. He had worked in the potato paddocks in the winter with a fire bucket to warm his freezing fingers and a sack like a monk’s cowl on his head and shoulders and back to keep off the sleety drizzle: the valleys were full of milky vapours; the forests howled like stormy seas. And you could come here in September, say, in the mystery of September, feeling good, and all about you a ripeness and purpose; the creep of the beetle, the bursting buds, too silent for human ear, and the touch and strength of daylight, and the long-lingering sun, and all of it like the sound and the radiance of God passing.

  Coming into Grafton he passed where old Tommy Goorianawa had sat on his throne in the anchorage of his years. The shanty was gone now, gone a decade ago, and a modern house, fenced, with children playing in the backyard, stood on the site.

  He passed the door-front where he and Lucky Regan had hugged each other in the pleasure of mateship, munching their fish and chips; and he saw the pub, still in the same spot, where he and Lucky had fought each other stiff and sore and then shaken hands for better or for worse.

  And with the past vividly in him he thought of Lily Harper. And he didn’t know why but he thought he would like to see her. In all the times he had been here since that night seventeen years ago, he had had no wish to contact her, though he knew where she was and who she was now. He might have felt a curiosity about her, had a whimsical chuckle at the possibility of running into her in the street, but he had never had the desire to approach her.

  He went on to Ulmarra, and the wish became stronger. He examined it for its audacity, decided he was a fool and then scrapped the decision. But he would check first, and besides, he didn’t think he could pluck up whatever had to be plucked up to face her directly and personally. He’d pave the way first, find out how she felt. What made him think that she might want to see him?

  While Buster minded Windbag and Windbag minded Buster, Macauley went into the post office and looked in a telephone book. He went to the phone booth. When the voice answered he stammered and hesitated, and then managed to say coherently who he was and add any necessary details to establish his identity in her memory.

  He heard a gasp. There was a silence. When the voice came back it was excited and incredulous. Where was he? He must come round to see them. And right away. Good Lord, and fancy, and how was the world treating him, and quick, I’ll make some scones, and keep a lookout for you.

  Macauley went round, but each of them was shy when they met. Each of them looked the other up and down, and commented, and laughed. Macauley found Lily still beautiful, still vivacious, and none of the matron about her though she had three children, all going to school, and a schoolmaster husband. She had a settled, contented look about her. All that flightiness was gone, and the cultured guyver. She found him so subdued she couldn’t believe he was once the wild character she knew.

  There was room there for him to stay, she said, but Macauley declined. It wasn’t that he couldn’t trust himself – and he wasn’t too sure about that, either – but he didn’t think it would be in good taste, and he didn’t want to start any trouble. But he was mistaken about Lily’s husband, Harry Macready. He was a gentle, genial fellow with a honey cowlick and golden eyes. He was full of good sense and bad jokes. He knew what was the matter with the country, but he didn’t bore you with it.

  Macauley, camped down by the river, paid them a couple of nightly visits, and they prevailed on him to spend the last Sunday with them. In the evening, while the children were entertaining Buster with their books in another room, Lily and Harry and Macauley sat about the lounge fire. Macauley was aware that Lily and Harry had something they wanted to say to him, and he had a shrewd idea what it was. He saw Lily look at Harry and urge him with her eyes. Harry cleared his throat, and started filling his pipe.

  ‘Mac,’ he said on a ponderous sight, ‘we’ve been thinking … Maybe you find it a bit hard the way things are. I mean, with the sort of life you lead …’ He said quickly. ‘Don’t think I’m reflecting on that, I’m not, but don’t you find it …’ He left the sentence unfinished.

  ‘With Buster, you mean?’ Macauley helped.

  Lily leaped in. ‘Yes. That’s what we mean. We’d like to help you, if we could, Mac. Buster, too …’

  ‘It won’t be long before she’s going to school,’ Harry chipped in. ‘Be no trouble for us to make provision. We’ve got it all at our fingertips. She’d have a good home, and playmates. Well, you saw how she played with those kids of ours today.’

  ‘We’d treat her just like one of our own,’ Lily said encouragingly. ‘I’m sure she’d stay.’

  ‘She might,’ Macauley said, preoccupied with his thoughts. A few months ago he wanted to get rid of the child; wanted to give her away. ‘It’s real good of you, and I couldn’t think of a better place for her to be in or better people to be with. I know she’d get on fine. But I don’t know — ’

  ‘I do.’ He looked up and Lily was smiling perceptively at him. ‘You don’t want to leave her.’

  ‘Well,’ Macauley said, a little flustered, ‘why should I?’ He found them both smiling at him, understandingly. He stood up, and stood with his back to the fire. ‘No. I’ve got plans for that kid.’

  ‘You can’t keep her with you all the time, Mac,’ Lily told him.

  ‘I’ve realised that,’ he said. ‘And I don’t intend to.’

  ‘You’ve got to think of her future,’ Harry said.

  ‘I’ve thought of it,’ Macauley said. ‘I’m going back to Walgett. I’m sweet for work there with a building contractor; any amount of it. I’ve got friends there. I’ve got it all worked out. I’ll put in two years there – I think I can stick it that long; I’ll have to, anyway. I’ll get some dough together, and when Buster’s seven I’ll put her in a boarding school.’

  ‘That’s a good idea, Mac,’ Harry said. ‘But will you carry it out?’

  ‘Nothing’ll stop me,’ Macauley looked doggedly at him. ‘Nothing. She’ll understand things better then. She won’t mind going into boarding school.’

  ‘You might settle down in Walgett,’ Lily pointed out, ‘and let her go to school there.’

  Macauley shrugged. ‘I might at that,’ he said.

  When the supper was over, and Buster was asleep on his shoulder, Macauley took his leave. Harry and Lily followed him out to the gate. They shook hands. When Macauley took her soft hand he said, ‘I’m glad you’re happy, Lil.’ She pressed his hand warmly with both of hers, and gave a little smile, and he felt himself blushing in the darkness – blushing in shame for a deed seventeen years old.

  Macauley moved off early next morning, north to th
e Tweed. Strangely enough, he awoke with the presentiment, and it was with him recurrently all day. It became so acute towards evening that he looked all about him, wondering what was waiting or watching for him. If it only made itself more apparent physically he might be able to rationalise, foresee, and forestall. But it was nothing physical. It was the same vague sense of something impending that a man had in a pub when he felt the presence of someone behind him ready to pick him and put in the bounce for a loan; the same awareness of danger a man had leaving a pub in a strange town on a dark night with a roll in his pocket.

  At twilight he pulled off the road between Rappville and Casino. And strangely enough again, the feeling left him suddenly when it had most right to be with him.

  ‘Time to put the nosebag on,’ he said. ‘You go and gather some sticks while I unharness the nag.’

  He heard the car, but even then he didn’t look up until it screeched. And then he looked up in a shock of fright. He heard the one piercing scream. He stood like a rabbit paralysed on a hill. The car thirty yards away, a bulk of darkness in the darkling scrub, seemed to be slowing. He started to run, his legs unfreezing. Then he heard the engine roar and the car shot away accelerating rapidly, disappearing in a whine of sound and a fade of red tail-lights.

  Macauley found Buster limply by the roadside. He felt her heart, her pulse. He didn’t move her. Her eyes were still open in terror. The snapped-off scream was still on the gaping lips. He stood up. He was shaking. His stomach was a plate of iron. His entrails coiled. He turned to run, swiftly to put the horse in the sulky, swiftly to rush her to a doctor. But he stopped in his stride. That was no use. He couldn’t move her. He mustn’t move her. They moved old Bill Gogarty when the tractor struck him and they killed him because they moved him: they completed the work of the tractor.