by Nene Gare
It was late afternoon when the old car churned its way up Heartbreak Hill. It turned into the bush track along which Trilby remembered walking on the morning her mother had taken them to visit Charlie and Hannie. The track was firmer now after the winter rains, but the car made heavy going of it. Trilby was bounced and bumped, flung first against Phyllix and then against the driver. Without a word, Phyllix took her arm and tucked it firmly beneath his and Trilby was grateful. A mile down the track the driver pulled into a sort of clearing. Trilby slipped from her seat and stood at the side of the road, staring curiously at the half-dozen humpies which made up the Berrings’ camp. They were clustered on the outside edge of a half-circle of bare brown earth and behind them, shielding them from the wind, grew bushy stunted wattles.
The humpies were of wood and rusty iron reinforced with rotting grey canvas, and none of them looked large enough to contain any more than two small rooms. From each humpy projected the inevitable bough shelter which also served as a kitchen. Rickety tables fashioned from bush timber held frying-pans and saucepans and washing-bowls, and grouped around the shelters were receptacles to catch the rainwater which was directed into them by makeshift arrangements of guttering.
A thin acid smell pervaded the atmosphere around the camp-site, mixing with the sweeter smell of the surrounding bush. Following Phyllix, Trilby made her way to the first of the erections, picking her way carefully over the litter round the doorway.
The air inside the place was warm and full-bodied with a dozen separate smells. Burned cooking-fat, perspiration, the thick heavy smell of old clothes and, stronger now, the thin penetrating acid smell.
The gloom of the windowless room was offset by a hurricane-lamp swinging from a hook of wire which depended from a heavy piece of bush-timber beaming. Trilby recognised the woman inside. She was big, with a curling mop of black hair and in her bright black eyes was an alertness that turned to curiosity when she caught sight of Trilby.
‘Trilby Comeaway,’ Phyllix introduced them briefly. ‘This is May Berring, Trilby.’
‘I know er,’ May said. ‘Ain’t she the one that killed the baby?’ There was no trace of censure in her tone, merely pleased recognition.
‘She dropped it. I told you that,’ Phyllix said roughly, and the woman shot a surprised look in his direction.
‘All right! All right!’ she grinned. ‘Keep ya shirt on. I was only askin.’
‘I told Trilby she could stay the night here,’ Phyllix said. ‘That all right with you, May?’
‘Why, fa sure,’ May said with exaggerated politeness. She winked at Trilby. ‘Any pal a yours, I’m sure.’
‘I gotta go out again,’ Phyllix said with an unsmiling look at Trilby. ‘Be back later.’
‘Come in then,’ May told Trilby. ‘Might as well sit down now ya here. On the bed’ll do.’ She moved up along the bed on which she herself was sitting and the movement disclosed the sleeping figures of two children, a small boy and a girl. The boy lay on his back, his mouth slightly open. The little girl lay on her side, pressed close to him, one fat hand cuddling her round chin.
‘Will I wake them up?’ Trilby asked nervously. Now that it was dark she was conscious of a deepening gratitude to Phyllix. At least she would not have to spend the night in the bush or, worse still, with one of the fellows he had told her about. She looked over her shoulder for another reassuring glimpse of him, but he had gone.
‘He’ll be back,’ May said, amused. ‘Ain’t nobody gunna hurt ya here. Sit down, will ya?’
Trilby perched on the side of the bed. She took a quick look round the room. A cupboard made from wooden boxes stood uneasily alongside one bulging wall. Some food stood on its shelves—butter still in its wrapping paper, a knife interred in its yellow heart, jam in a tin, another tin labelled powdered milk, a saucepan with rich brown gravy set in cold rivulets down its side, a loaf of bread on a wooden platter and below, along the bottom shelf, an assortment of cups, saucers and cracked brown plates. A shoe box at the end of the shelf held cutlery.
At the sight of the food, Trilby’s mouth watered. She sped her gaze in another direction and caught the brilliant green of a set of canisters.
‘They’re pretty, aren’t they?’ she said, nodding.
‘Jack won em down the Amusement Park. He’s pretty good on them games. Yeah, they’re pretty all right. Real handy ta put things in too, specially if I want a hidin place.’ May laughed.
‘Are these your children?’ Trilby asked mechanically, looking down at the occupants of the bed.
‘Yeah,’ the woman said a bit impatiently, as if children were a poor choice of topic. ‘You gunna stay with that Phyllix now?’
Trilby felt a fine perspiration break out on her upper lip and beneath her arms. ‘I—I don’t know,’ she said weakly.
‘Why’n’t ya have a bit a fun first?’ May advised. ‘Once ya get running round with only one bloke ya fixed before ya know it. Seem ta think ya married to em or something. Take me. I been with Jack three years now. Dunno what started me off but I’m getting a bit tired of just stayin round here. I might go back home for a while, with me father. Me and me sisters used ta have fun up there.’
‘Where does your father live?’
‘Half-way up the road,’ May said ambiguously. ‘Hundred—hundred and fifty mile up. We got a big camp there. I got two sisters and we used ta have fellers stayin, helpin with the fencin. Us girls useta dig the holes, an the men come along behind puttin in the posts an stringin em together. We was the best team a fencers they ever had, some a the bosses said.’ There was pride in May’s voice. ‘Could always get plenty a contracts. My ole man, everyone knows im up there, e useta do musterin too, us helpin. Gawd, we ad some fun. I miss them times. Satdy nights the fellers useta go inta the town and pick up a few bottles an we’d go on all night long sometimes. Nobody there ta kick up a fuss. Different ere.’ The tone was moody now. ‘Kickin up fusses all the bloody time. An now they wanta push us further back yet.’ The black eyes sparkled. ‘Jack says we moved all we gunna move. We stay put now. They can all just damn well move themselves, them white bastards. I’m gettin a bit sick of it but. Too many rows up ere, with the monarch comin out every time we make a bit a noise an stickin someone inside. I tell ya what. I might even take Jack with me. Dad can always do with fellers ta help an Jack’s strong all right. Damn near killed me once when e ad a bit in. Took the axe off a me like no one’s business an chucked it over in the bush there. Nobody ever found that axe yet. I spose I was lucky e didn’t use it on me.’
Trilby’s eyes were wide and fascinated. She hid her fear and distaste behind a tremulous smile. ‘It’s cold, isn’t it? Do you think the kids are warm enough?’
‘Them two?’ May said off-handedly. ‘They’re all right. If ya like ya can help me shift em inta the nex room. No use wakin em up fa tucker now. They can make it up in the mornin. An the men’ll be here soon. Once these kids is awake they just make a nuisance a themselves.’ She rose from the bed and bent across Trilby to look at the children. Trilby got a whiff of rose-scented hair oil.
‘Young devils,’ May said fondly, stripping a thready grey rug from the children’s bodies. ‘Get ya in trouble soon as look at ya. That man they send out fum the school, e’s got is knife inta me because they don’t turn up ta school some days. I send em off. Glad ta get rid of em. Gawd knows where they get to after that. Off down the beach I spose. Ere, you take Elvie an I’ll take young Albert.’
Trilby picked the little girl up as gently as she could, trying not to wake her, but the long curling eyelashes lifted and Trilby looked down into sleepy brown eyes.
‘Come on you,’ May said good-naturedly to the little boy. She swung him up in her strong arms and led the way into the next room. ‘Jus dump em on top of everything an I’ll throw this blanket over em,’ May ordered, and Trilby did as she was told.
Two single black iron beds pushed close together and further cemented by a dirty black and white ticking-covered double
mattress took up a good deal of the space. The children settled into each other’s warmth almost without stirring, and May flung over them the tattered rug.
‘Hope they don’t wet me mattress again,’ their mother said. ‘Buggers fa wetting the bed these two are. Jack’s always sayin e’ll get em sent away if they don’t learn to behave emselves. That’s because they ain’t his but. E gets a bit jealous sometimes, an takes it out on the kids.’ She laughed. ‘E don’t really mean it but. An I’d like ta see im try, anyway.’
The small room was chilly. Trilby cast a last look at the children on the bed and felt relieved that they still wore their clothes. She followed May back into the other room and as she did so another woman entered.
The new arrival straightened herself with a hand to her back and surveyed Trilby in silence, completely ignoring May.
‘You’re one a them Comeaways, ain’t ya?’ she said at last.
‘The one that’s baby died,’ May said significantly before Trilby could answer.
‘I know.’ The newcomer nodded a bit impatiently.
‘I been down ta your place plenty a times, playin cards. But ya always shot through an shut yaself up in ya bedroom. What’s the matter with ya? Don’t like ta play cards?’
‘No,’ Trilby said flatly.
‘Or ya think yaself too good to sociate with us fellers,’ the woman asked, though there was no annoyance in her tone, only amusement.
‘I don’t like all the arguing,’ Trilby said stiffly.
‘Ah, ya don’t wanta worry bout a bit of argument,’ the woman laughed. ‘Sides, we behaved ourselves real nice down your place.’ She turned to May. ‘She oughta been up ere last night, eh?’
May laughed. The newcomer took a seat on a chair, swivelling it to face Trilby.
‘What’d ya say if ya man got hold a ya arm an twists an twists till it breaks?’ she asked, wickedness flickering in her eyes.
Trilby only stared.
‘I’m Rene Riley,’ the woman said. ‘Ya heard a me, ain’t ya?’
Trilby nodded. Of course she had heard of Rene Riley. In the last months the tale of Rene Riley had unreeled itself like a serial story. Not only Mrs Comeaway, but all the people who lived in the big camp and the others who tucked themselves away under wattles and rotting tarpaulins round the outskirts of the town, knew and discussed with varying degrees of admiration and envy, but always with absorbed interest, the doings of Rene Riley.
Rene was a Perth woman, and the story went that she had left a good house down there to follow her man up to Wilga, where he had a contract to fence. But Fred Riley’s estimate had been low and the family had ended up in debt to the fellows he had employed to help him. Fred had taken the easy way out, doing a bit of supplying, but he had been caught and his son Robbie had tried to break into a small store to get some money to pay his father’s fine and he had been caught too. A real old mix-up it had been, and through it all Rene Riley had moved with majestic force—speaking her mind to police and department alike—defying a threat of being charged herself, for contempt of court, by some means or other wresting her son from the clutches of the law and, finally, settling them all in a camp which sat on a small rise overlooking the town. And before the Riley family had been in the camp a month the town council had approved her request to have water piped up to her from the town supply.
Trilby had heard about the camp, its cleanliness, spaciousness, the garden that was bounded by dark bottles, the trees she had planted herself—there was more than curiosity in Trilby’s grey eyes as she looked at the woman. A hint of admiration was there too.
It was rumoured, too, that this woman read all the books she could get her hands on, newspapers too, though, from the look of her, with her shapeless spreading body in its faded frock and heavy pocketed coat, her feet thrust into run-over slippers and her hair a frizzle of tiny grey curls, the reading had done nothing more than encourage a certain glint in her watchful eyes.
She made no secret of hating this town, but her husband had landed himself a respectable job as caretaker for an oil company and he refused to leave. Neither of the Rileys drank, preferring to gamble instead. It was generally agreed that what Fred lost on the horses, Rene picked up on the cards. It was certain that she was lucky at cards. Many a time she had played a man’s hand for a stake in his winnings, if she happened to be broke.
Many more tales circulated. Kindness was never mentioned in the same breath as her name, but it was a fact that if a child shivered, Rene would find a warm garment for it and if a family had no food, they could always find a feed at the Rileys’ camp. Rene was a good talker and whatever gathering she chose to join was never dull. She exchanged gossip with everyone and knew more of what was going on around the town than anyone except perhaps Horace. And what went in her ears came out her mouth, for the entertainment of anyone who cared to listen. She suppressed no incident that might accelerate the enjoyment of her audience, everything and everyone she talked about was stripped down to its bare bones, yet no one had ever heard her condemn anyone. She seemed to get her own enjoyment merely from contemplation and it was perhaps because of this fact that she rarely received just appreciation for favours bestowed. Though they were entertained, most people were a little afraid of Rene and her tongue, never knowing when they themselves might be found fitting subjects.
‘What about a cuppa?’ she said now, persuasively, to May, settling herself on the other end of the bed.
‘Make it yaself,’ May said. ‘Ya know where the tea is.’
‘Everything looks better after a cuppa,’ Rene said calmly, getting up to poke at the sticks beneath the big black kettle. ‘You got that big cup yet May, or ya broke it?’
May laughed. ‘Ya lucky, Rene. I threw it at me ole man last night an only the handle came off. There tis, under the bed still.’
Interest was flickering in Trilby. There was something likeable about this woman Rene. If May had not been there in the room with them, she might have asked Rene about Perth and the things a girl like herself could do down there.
Rene had no such scruples about audiences.
‘You on ya way somewhere?’ she questioned later, pouring tea into three cups. Tea without milk or sugar, so that Trilby looked round, embarrassed, for at least a little sugar.
‘Where’s ya sugar?’ Rene asked May. ‘Don’t take it meself. Makes things simpler,’ she told Trilby. ‘Now, where was we? You going off some place all by yaself?’
‘Phyllix brought er,’ May said, sipping. ‘E’ll be back soon.’
‘Seems ta me,’ Rene said, watching Trilby with intent dark eyes, ‘ya wasn’t keen ta have im round, a bit back.’
‘I just met him on the road,’ Trilby defended.
‘What road?’
‘I’m going to Perth.’ Trilby lifted her chin.
‘Nnnh!’ Rene relished. ‘Perth, eh?’ She took a swallow of boiling hot tea. ‘An what ya gunna do down there?’
Trilby opened her mouth, then hesitated. How could she tell this woman in two or three sentences what she intended to do? And, for that matter, why should she tell anyone anything? She withdrew, as if from a trap, and took up her cup.
‘Ya got plans?’ Rene said softly.
Trilby nodded.
‘An I can tell ya what they are without ya even sayin a word,’ Rene told her. ‘Tell just by lookin at ya.’ She shook her head. ‘Don’t you go, sweetie-pie. Won’t do ya no good.’
Trilby frowned, but would not give significance to what this woman said by answering her.
Rene looked deeply into her cup. ‘Ya look a sensible girl, that’d probably take some notice of a bit of advice I can give ya. I wonder now…,’ she threw at Trilby a glance that was both mischievous and chiding. ‘Ya gunna listen to me?’
Trilby nodded ungraciously.
‘Use em,’ Rene said promptly. ‘That’s it. Use em an don’t let em use you. That’s the only way you’ll come out on top. But you try an break loose from these fellers an all you
’ll get’s a kick in the face.’ She looked squarely at Trilby. ‘Not only from those white bastards. You’ll get it there all right. But when ya come crawlin back, these fellers’ll be waiting ta pick up the ball. See?’ She held Trilby’s gaze for a second, then dropped her own and shook her head. ‘No, ya don’t see. I mighta known. Too young! Too young!’
‘I was just tellin er to have a bit a fun while she got the chance,’ May broke in. ‘You know. Before ya got a string a kids round ya all gettin sick or gettin in trouble somewhere, spoilin ya fun. An people comin sticky-beakin round wantin ta know how ya feed em an if they got beds an snatchin em off ya ta send up some mission if ya don’t look out.’
‘Kids gotta be looked after,’ Rene said practically. ‘Polly’s kids got took because Polly an er ole man both got picked up the same night an the ole woman they left them kids with couldn’t hardly look after erself let alone a couple babies.’
‘Wouldn’t mind bettin you had something ta do with that,’ May said darkly.
‘Wouldn’t ya now,’ Rene said equably.
‘Ya always down that office,’ brooded May. ‘See ya comin outa there plenty a times. An ya been too bossy with me sometimes, too.’
Rene flashed a smile at Trilby, completely ignoring this further comment from May. ‘What I mean by usin em, them white folks, I got two a my kids already in that place the partment’s got in Perth. They go ta school from there. Get all their books, nice uniforms, hot bath every day if they like, nice little rooms ta sleep in.’ She chuckled and looked sidelong at Trilby. ‘Look after my kids all right, don’t you make no mistake bout that. Them kids can be what they like when they bigger. Go a long way further’n I ever went, with all me brains, that’s a bit more than some silly buggers got,’ she finished with a grin at May.
Trilby looked at Rene with a good deal more attention.
‘My sister…,’ she began hesitantly. Rene’s head was slightly tilted. There was kindliness in the depths of the dark eyes. Trilby felt the words being drawn out of her. ‘Mrs Riley, wouldn’t there be some place in Perth where I could get a decent job? So I could live better than people do up here? I want to.’