by Nene Gare
‘Ugh!’ Trilby shivered, and the woman turned her head away.
TWO
Just before they reached the last station, the cheerful guard came to tell them to put all their things together so that nothing should be lost. He dug in his pocket and bent over them. ‘An here’s something for yous to spend on lollies,’ he whispered. ‘You been good kids.’
To each girl he handed a shilling.
Noonah took her coin shyly, with whispered thanks. Trilby looked from her shilling to the guard and back again. Then she flashed a look of such pure gratitude at him that the man’s expression of easy benevolence changed to one of surprise. ‘It’s only a bob, ya know,’ he chuckled at her. ‘Won’t buy yous much these days.’ And he hurried off on other duties.
Trilby followed his progress down the corridor, still smiling. ‘I don’t mind him,’ she said softly to Noonah. ‘He’s nice.’
‘Yes,’ agreed her sister. She was busy with parcels and cases. ‘Trilby, where’s the little bag with the soap in it?’
‘Sitting on it,’ Trilby said, after a search. ‘Here you are.’
‘I promised Bartie I’d ask about him and Stella coming back as soon as we get there,’ Noonah worried.
‘Let it go for a while,’ Trilby frowned. ‘Gee, we had to stay there, didn’t we?’
‘Praps I won’t mention it the first day. But soon!’ Noonah’s cares were beginning to settle around her shoulders again. What would it be like, living with her mother and father? Would they be nice to her? Would they want to get the others back? How could she convince them that Bartie must come back? That she had promised.
‘Can’t you listen?’ Trilby said impatiently. ‘I said let’s get up early tomorrow morning and go straight in to the town.’
‘I’ll see the hospital,’ Noonah said, her expression clearing again. ‘I want to see the hospital first of all. I’m going to train there, to be a nurse.’
‘And no more school,’ Trilby said, making a firm line of her lips.
‘You told Mrs Gordon you’d go back until you got your Junior,’ Noonah reminded her sister.
‘She’d have gone on and on if I hadn’t. I’m not going back but.’ Her brows drew together, narrowing her eyes. ‘I’m going to look at the shops first of all and get some new bathers and I’m going to swim and have some fun, and later on, if I feel like it, I’ll get a job somewhere. Serving in a milk-bar, I think. With a pink uniform like those others had at the Rainbow Milk-Bar. You think I’d be all right for a job like that, Noonah?’
‘Anyone could do that,’ Noonah said.
‘I don’t mean that,’ Trilby frowned.
‘What did you mean well?’
‘Ah, never mind! You go and train to be a nurse, and I’ll do things my own way.’ But Noonah was not listening. Her soft cheek was pressed against the glass as her eyes strained ahead. ‘Look at all the lights, Trilby. We must be nearly there.’
There were a good many lights. The station looked big and important. On another line a big black engine puffed past, trailing carriages after it in a neat orderly line. There was clamour outside the carriage and bustling busyness inside it as the other passengers cleared the luggage rack and gathered their cases and coats together in tidy piles. Guards called directions, friends shouted greetings, people’s faces flowed past the window like an animated mural, and a sharp stuffy smell seeped into the carriage.
‘How will we find them?’ Noonah panicked, slim dark hands clutching the edges of her seat. There was a last jerk, a gentle shaking, and their train was still. The girls stayed in their seats until everyone had left the carriage then walked out with their own cases. There was the business of stacking everything on the station platform, neatly, so that coats did not get dirty, and after that nothing but to stand and wait. Uneasily, darting questioning looks at each other.
‘Here they is,’ said a remembered voice, and the girls turned with brightening faces. Mrs Comeaway’s hair was greyer than they remembered it, overhanging the collar of her coat. She was fatter, too, so that the hand holding the folds of coat had much ado to prevent them from flying free. But her wide dark face was alight with pleasure and her voice excited as she called back over her shoulder to the man behind her. Mr Comeaway came up grinning. His wet hair had been sleeked back from his good-humoured face, his clean white shirt was open at the neck to show the curly grey hairs on his chest, his cuffs neatly buttoned at the wrist.
‘So big!’ Mrs Comeaway said wonderingly, admiringly. ‘You two big now, eh?’
‘Outside we gotta taxi,’ Mr Comeaway told them. ‘For all this stuff ya got. You bring im along an that taximan take care of that lot.’ He waited politely for the girls to pick up their cases, then he led the way, nodding encouragingly. Mrs Comeaway escorted the girls from the other side, beaming and panting. ‘We gotta nice place right by Green’s. An a bed each for ya. New beds straight fum shops. How ya like that, eh? Eh, I didn’t even kiss yous yet.’ She stopped the procession to deliver two resounding kisses. ‘Gee, you girls got big.’ Her plump face creased in folds of firm and shining dark flesh as she laughed. Outside the station, the waiting taximan took their cases and slung them into the boot. The elder Comeaways climbed into the back seat and sat forward, smiling broadly. ‘Come on!’ they beckoned.
Trilby and Noonah climbed in too. The girls sat very straight whilst their father and mother looked them over from the tips of their toes to the tops of their heads, smiling all the while, nodding approvingly, nudging each other.
And the girls’ prevailing feeling was one of warm pleasure. It was nice to have a mother and father waiting for you at the end of a long trip. It was a good feeling to see them acting so pleased just because you were there, it was by far the most satisfying of the day’s experiences. They belonged again.
In between exchanging smiles with her parents, Noonah took fleeting looks at the scene beyond the taxi window. Perhaps they might pass the hospital.
‘Was it nice on the train?’ Mrs Comeaway inquired. ‘Did you get looked after good? Them mission people writ us a letter and they said we wasn’t to worry about ya because you was gunna be looked after.’
‘These two didn’t see a place this big before,’ Mr Comeaway chuckled. ‘Not a word outa them.’
‘Can we swim?’ Trilby asked.
‘You can swim,’ Mrs Comeaway told her. ‘They give ya that for nothing here.’ She laughed uproariously and her husband joined her.
‘Will we go past the hospital?’ Noonah inquired.
‘You the one’s gunna be a nurse, eh? You look out there now. That big place with all them trees. See?
Noonah peered through the window excitedly. There was nothing to be seen but a tallness of lights, but her heart leapt. There! Inside that tallness was the matron who already knew about Noonah Comeaway and how she was coming down from the mission to learn to be a nurse. She was expected there. Maybe even now the matron was saying to someone, ‘Wonder when that girl’s coming?’
‘Gee!’ she sighed ecstatically.
‘An here’s ole Heartbreak Hill,’ Mrs Comeaway said luxuriously. ‘An we don’t walk up him tonight. Ya gotta walk up this damn hill ta know what it’s like. Gunna get arkattack fum that hill one a these days. There, up we go an round the top. An over an down an up again.’ She sat waiting for the dips and turns, enjoying them as would a child. ‘An this is it.’
‘We get out here,’ Mr Comeaway explained kindly, letting himself out through his door. His wife eased herself out after him. The taxi driver opened the girls’ door and stood grinning at them. From the road they could see nothing but the dim whiteness and a rise. The man got their cases from the boot and deposited them at the side of the road. ‘That’ll be four shillings,’ he said impersonally.
There was a short wait.
‘Go on!’ Mrs Comeaway said firmly. ‘Give the man is money.’
‘Didn’t you have the money?’ Mr Comeaway asked in injured tones.
‘I did not,’ Mrs
Comeaway said even more firmly. ‘An why would I seein ya didn’t give me none.’
‘Ah well!’ Mr Comeaway shook his head at the taxi driver, sorrowing for him. ‘I better come down tomorrow and fix you up.’
‘Making it as near a pound as don’t make any difference,’ the man said. ‘Okay! See you tomorrow.’ He got back into the taxi and turned it expertly. The Comeaway family stood there in the dark, watching the tail-light disappear over the hill.
‘Well, up we go,’ Mrs Comeaway sighed. ‘Come on!’
Mr Comeaway had already started.
‘Come back here, you,’ Mrs Comeaway called sternly. ‘Just you grab them girls’ cases, first time they home.’
‘Gee, all right,’ Mr Comeaway said, coming back to the road on a small slide of sand. ‘Jus thought I’d get a light goin for yous, that’s all.’
‘Yes, you did,’ Mrs Comeaway withered him. ‘Now come on, you two, an follow me. Then ya won’t fall over nothin.’
Trilby and Noonah groped for each other’s hands. Their sides were heaving with their efforts to giggle soundlessly. Their mother plunged up the sandy hill and they followed her closely. The blackness was lit by a dim yellow glow to the right. ‘That ain’t it,’ Mrs Comeaway panted, ploughing on past the smudge. ‘That’s where the ole lady lives. We’re a bit further back. You kids is gunna like the ole lady. Real nice woman. Lets us use everything she got, dub an all.’
Another patch of yellow sprang out of the darkness ahead. It shone through between sheets of galvanized iron and spilled over a doorway. ‘Don’t you get too far over that side,’ Mrs Comeaway warned, ‘or you’ll be goin arse over tip down the hill.’ She giggled. ‘On top a Billy Grey’s roof, maybe. Is camp just down there.’
In the lighted doorway, the girls stood blinking and smiling and looking around them. This was home. They walked into it thankfully.
The room they were in measured about twelve by twelve. A hurricane-lamp stood on top of a heavy home-carpentered table, and a black-handled frying-pan, some crockery, a milk-tin full of dripping and a couple of empty brown bottles crowded it for room. Against each outside wall was a small iron bed topped with a mattress and several folded army blankets. The floor of the room was of earth stamped hard. A black iron stove bulked large across one end, its top cluttered with dim objects. Wooden uprights supported an assortment of clothes crowned with hats and bags, and across another aperture at the back of the room hung a man’s thick brown coat, presumably acting as a curtain. Trilby’s gaze was caught and held by a single brown chop in the frying-pan. It was frozen in a pool of brown fat, but her mouth watered for it.
‘Fixin that catch on the door certainly kep them dogs out,’ Mr Comeaway said, picking the chop out of its fat and tearing off a piece. ‘Didn’t even finish me dinner,’ he told the girls, ‘the ole lady was so anxious ta get down that station.’ He waved a casual hand. ‘Hadda leave everything an rush.’
‘These here are the beds,’ Mrs Comeaway said proudly, bouncing happily. ‘Good new beds these. I put a coupla rugs each for yous. Look in that tin on the table, you kids. Might be some biscuits left.’
Mr Comeaway took the lid from the tin himself. He searched through the crackling debris of half a dozen old biscuit wrappings and finally found a few crumby biscuits. He proffered them graciously.
‘You kids look wore out,’ Mrs Comeaway said sympathetically. ‘An likewise us. So I tell you what we gunna do. We all gunna get some sleep, an in the morning you can tell us bout everything. What ya think, eh?’
‘Ya hungry?’ Mr Comeaway asked, a bit anxiously. ‘I shoulda arst before I et me chop.’
‘I give em a good big feed tomorrow,’ Mrs Comeaway said, clearing her conscience and her mind in one swoop.
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Mr Comeaway nodded. He gave the girls a big smile. ‘I better get out now, an let ya get ta bed.’ He hesitated, slightly embarrassed. ‘G’night!’ He mooched into the next room, ducking his head beneath the army overcoat.
‘An you leave all that stuff till tomorrow, too,’ Mrs Comeaway said, waving her hand at the cases. Her pleased eyes sought the beds again. ‘You gunna be real comforble in them beds. Now!’ She moved over to her daughters and hugged each in turn. ‘Inta bed with ya.’ She moved off after her husband and disappeared behind the coat, returning, however, almost immediately. In a loud whisper she told them, ‘If ya wanta use the dub it’s round the side. Take the lamp so ya won’t trip over nothing.’ The coat swung back into place and the girls were alone in their bedroom.
Noonah perched herself on one of the beds. Trilby’s eyes still brimmed with laughter, but neither girl spoke, aware of the two in the other room. Their ears pricked to the strange thuds and groaning sighs as their parents prepared for bed. Trilby caught Noonah’s eye and gestured over her shoulder with a thumb. Noonah nodded. They took the lantern by its wire handle and crept outside. It was a while before they found the toilet crouching drunkenly beneath a tree.
‘You think it’s going to be all right?’ Trilby said softly, on the way back.
Noonah nodded vigorously. ‘I like them. Don’t you?’
Trilby spluttered suddenly. ‘Why do you think they made that hole square?’
Noonah choked. ‘Shut up!’ she begged. ‘They’ll hear.’
‘And I’m so hungry,’ Trilby wailed softly. ‘That lovely chop!’
‘I was just going to ask if I could have it,’ Noonah giggled.
‘We’ll have a drink instead,’ Trilby said, waving the lantern round. ‘Where’s the tap?’ But there was nothing that looked like a tap. Inside again, she poked round on the stove for the kettle, but there was no kettle there.
Noonah thought longingly of washing her face, which felt dry and dirty, then she shrugged her shoulders. Tomorrow would do. She fished in her case for pyjamas and undressed as quietly as possible. Trilby did the same, removing one of the hats and hanging her clothes over the things that already hung from a nail. The arranging of the beds came next. Trilby’s extravagant miming when she looked in vain for a pillow nearly set Noonah off again. The girls climbed at last between the grey woollen blankets, using their arms as head-rests. Noonah reached for the hurricane-lamp and blew out the flame.
‘Good night, Trilby,’ she whispered.
‘Night,’ Trilby whispered back. ‘We’ll get up early tomorrow morning and have a look round, shall we?’
THREE
Trilby was the first to wake, her face barred with sunlight that slipped through the inadequate walls of the humpy. She smiled almost as soon as she opened her eyes. This was the real beginning of freedom. She looked across the room at the still sleeping Noonah and smiled again, remembering the night before. There was no sound from the inner room. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat considering. Then she reached for her clothes and stripped off her pyjamas. A few minutes later she crept out through the doorway, breathing quickly through parted lips, her silver-grey eyes shining.
Ten feet away tall sunflowers grew together in a great golden mass. Already bees were climbing clumsily over the pollen-dusted black centres. Behind the sunflowers the ground dropped away steeply. Trilby walked to the edge and looked down on a wattle-studded valley, tenderly, brightly green. The smoke from a couple of camp-fires rose thinly on the quiet air. Trilby counted a dozen roof-tops sheltering beneath the green: galvanized iron painted white, the grey of weathered tarpaulin and the rust-streaked glimmer of scrap-iron.
She turned to examine her own domain. The humpy was as she had imagined it to be, a ramshackle arrangement of tarpaulins and scrap-iron nailed to bush timber. A bough shelter projected from one end and beneath it stood another rough table and two cane chairs very much the worse for having been sat on. Suspended by a string from a nearby wattle swung a wire safe, its door hanging open, its shelves bare. The ground beneath her feet was pure beach sand, but along one side of the humpy grew several tomato plants. Trilby lifted the drab green leaves, but the tiny red tomatoes were hole
d and uneatable. She picked one and threw it high over the valley, watching the red speck until it disappeared into the wattles.
Back from the humpy was a weathered house, its roof sagging and broken, its timbers silver grey and splintery. At its side a blackened copper stood on some red bricks, and a wooden stand held wash-tubs. A few elderly stocks grew in a line along the wall, and dusty-leaved honeysuckle clung to the rail of the front veranda. But a big old gum flung sheltering boughs over the entire structure and the effect was one of peaceful homeliness. Along the line of the fence, where now not more than a dozen palings stood, peppermint trees trailed dim green leaves and clusters of rose-pink berries. The house was set on the flat top of a hill which stood like an inverted pudding-bowl, dominating the rise to the left and the wide stretch of plain that lay behind it. Scattered over the flatness were tiny box-like houses set in fenced paddocks of gold and green. The sun turned their roofs to squares of colour from a child’s paint-box. Towards the township a grey fortress-like tank squatted solidly into the gentle slope of a hill which half obscured it, and far beyond that Trilby saw the line of the sea, slashed with foam, its slaty-blue merging into the softness of the summer sky.
She stood relaxed and still, looking into the distance, content with a new feeling of peace and happiness. And as she stood, the miscellany of tiny bush sounds smoothed themselves into a vibrant silence.
Three silvery notes broke the spell. Trilby watched smiling as a grey dot of a bird pretended to lose its balance on a bough over her head.
A group of children straggled forth from the grey weatherboard house. And Noonah’s voice sounded behind her. ‘Why didn’t you wake me up?’