by Kim Kelly
Mr Drummond doesn’t bother closing it either, and gets straight to it: ‘Was your father aware of this engagement?’ Contempt, undisguised.
‘Yes.’ I feign horror at the scandalous allegation behind the question. ‘I trust you shan’t do anything so rude, but you might care to read Father’s final instructions to us, or contact Stanley and Bragg regarding his will, if you have cause to query further.’
‘Ah, naturally.’ Mr Drummond presses his pale lips together, no doubt thinking upon the idiosyncrasies of his departed financier, and the implications my marriage presents for the future. I can fairly hear the wheels turning in his head.
To rub it in I say: ‘In future, anything you have to say to me can be said to Mr Ackerman as well, since we shall be married on the fifth of August anyway, as Father wished. I would appreciate it if, under the circumstances of my grieving, you might direct any business matters to Mr Ackerman for our consideration.’ I can feel Daniel’s ears burning at that, but he may as well get used to it.
‘And what is Mr Ackerman’s role in the company to be?’ Patronising prig.
I’m well riled now and I can hear Father guffawing with glee as I reply, seeming stunned: ‘He’s a miner, of course.’ And say no more. This flummoxing is too agreeable to the circumstances of my grieving. I add: ‘So, we shall see you at the church, then. Thank you again for your kind offer to escort me.’
He nods, under his black-bellied cloud, and strides out.
I’m still shaking after the rush of blood when I hear Daniel say: ‘Who the hell made you?’ And we laugh, or crack silly as Daniel would say, and I am light again: it’s all right, everything is all right, for now.
Yes it is. It’s an almost joyous day, despite the absence of a eulogy from Drummond — I’ve dropped the Mr now — despite Father Hurley’s ramble upon thanksgiving and charity and a man he barely knew, despite being surrounded on every side by parishioners who’ve kindly turned out to make up the numbers in the church, despite Daniel looking like a fish out of water amid all this Catholic mumbo-jumbo. For inside this place of prayers and cool, damp bricks, scores from the Wattle have turned out too, and it’s miners who carry my father to the cemetery. That they will not be paid today is a fact not lost on me; it bruises and embraces at once. And there is singing all the way, hymns I don’t know, and even one sung in Welsh I think, but which sound more apt than anything I could have imagined. Apparently Evan Lewis arranged all this with Daniel and Father Hurley yesterday; and now here at the burial, Drummond is nowhere to be seen, the Lithgow conspiracy has done him in today. I weep and weep and not only because my father is gone, but because I know he would have loved this show and this enveloping of me, safe in all this strangeness.
The sun blazes down through the cold air; there is talk of carrying on to the Workers’ — their club — and I cry some more for the cruelty that Father is not here to lay on the drinks. Then Daniel and I are alone by the grave, but for Father Hurley, who says as he makes to leave: ‘So I shall see you two again on the fifth.’ And I don’t think Father’s generous donation for the occasion of your wedding has put the gentle smile into his tired priestly eyes today. He will overlook my lapsed state and Daniel’s atheism and our poor timing for some other reason; perhaps a higher thought of his own. I could kiss him for everything he does not ask, for everything he will do for us that he doesn’t have to, and by canon law probably shouldn’t. ‘Around three, would that do well?’
‘Of course.’ I don’t care; right now would do well.
I look up at Daniel as we make our way back to the trap outside the church, and all I can think of is that I wish he hadn’t put his hat back on so I could see his hair. As Hayseed begins the journey home, I grab the brim and pull it off. Yes, this is my home, in Daniel’s you’re-a-lunatic look, and in the land that contains our fathers’ bodies and their spirits, drifting up from the smokestacks, swirling between the sleeping hills, the dreaming women.
I wonder vaguely if the war’s begun yet, papers are full of talk of it, but I can’t catch hold of that thought. The rest of the world is a universe away.
DANIEL
‘How’d you manage that?’ Robby says first thing on my first day back at work, when I’ve told him, yes, I’m getting married. To Miss Francine Connolly. He’s referring to the wonder of how we’d kept it on the shush; he’d heard a rumour, saw me with her that day at the paddock, but … And now he’s looking at me as if I’ve just told him I’ve robbed a bank. From his point of view I have, I suppose.
I don’t know what to say; his wife, Cass, had their second one a few weeks ago and it’s written all over him: not exactly a good advertisement for marriage or the state of the working poor.
But he says: ‘You lucky, lucky bastard.’
‘Don’t carry on,’ I tell him. ‘Haven’t you got work to do?’
‘Fuck off. Boss already, are you?’
‘You fuck off.’
What sort of a goose do I sound like? One that should fuck off and let Robby get on.
Mum’s a fair bit less than impressed with me when I come home. She’d have come in from the train, expecting me to be here, but probably thinking I’m with Francine. What she sees is me stripping off round the back as she puts her head out the door. She doesn’t ask, doesn’t say anything, and she’s not going to put on any hot water for me; she disappears into the house and there’s silence. If she’s not been inclined to show her disappointment with me in the past, she’s making up for that now. So I just fill the tub with cold water out here and do the job at lightning speed as a sleety wind comes up through the gully.
Inside, she’s starting tea, with her back to me, and I give her the rundown of what’s been going on while she’s been in Newcastle. She doesn’t respond, just a sad sigh when I tell her about Frank Connolly, nothing else, not even when I laugh: ‘You’ll have to talk to me, if you’re coming to the wedding.’
Eventually, she stops clattering about at the stove and goes into her room; comes out a minute later, holding one of Dad’s boxes. His records. Then she whacks them on the table and says: ‘You should bother to read at least these one day.’
I have read them, though, a few times in the last month when she’s gone out. I was looking for mention of old Herb McNally, to see what his problem was, but there’s nothing in there — obviously Dad considered it no one else’s business. But I know better than to say that I was looking at all. I don’t want to talk about Dad right now; and not with Mum. What would he say? What’s for tea, Sarah? Sa-hra, he said it.
She says, and she’s gripping the string around the top stack of pages: ‘You don’t owe anyone anything.’
I owe everyone for everything is how I feel. But, again, I don’t say it. I’m still hearing Sa-hra, like I’m watching him looking at her.
‘What are you trying to prove?’ she says.
That I can work things out my own way and get up Drummond’s nose for a bit while I’m at it. France is at least keen for that now. But I say: ‘It won’t be forever, just till the end of the quarter.’
‘So you can say you’re still true blue with some more weight to it? Why don’t you use your brain for a change and accept the challenge you’ve been given. This is not a game about who you think you should be, Daniel — you are who you are, so go and learn how to be a good boss.’
I’m never going to be a boss. But even that thought is dippy in my head: I will be come next Wednesday, sort of, and in three years’ time we will be definitely; what will we do then? It’s too far away and it’s easy to ignore for now.
‘Or you could go back to school and learn something else!’ Mum says, and she’s yelled at me. She’s never done that before, except when I was a kid and doing something dangerous.
What would I do at school, though? I’m too old anyway, except for technical college, and what would I do there? Learn how to type? Bookkeeping? So that’s all easy to ignore too, and I say instead: ‘France and I are going to do something else. She�
��s giving up her bourgeois rubbish and she’s going to grow apples. She doesn’t even know how to cook, can’t even fry an egg, but she’s going to learn to. We’re going to see what happens, all round,’ I say. ‘You’ve got to admit that’s going to be interesting …’
‘Sure.’ And Mum cracks, finally, smiling as she shakes her head at me. Probably because I’ve only admitted that France is keener for a challenge than I am.
Time to change the subject: ‘So how’s Pete then?’
Now she laughs, but sad with it: ‘Do you care?’
Not really, but I have to say: ‘Course I do.’
‘Your brother is very well,’ she says and I say, ‘Good,’ and that’s the end of that chat too.
Later, when she’s cleaning up after tea, she says: ‘I bet your leg is hurting.’
Too right. I hated every minute of today, but I shrug.
She says: ‘Good. I hope it keeps you awake all night thinking.’
It doesn’t. I’m out like a light as soon as I hit the pillow, I’m that buggered. Every day, through to Saturday, and Sunday I sleep till midday, then ride up to see Francine. She’s got everything organised; the house is empty, no Polly or McNally, just France.
‘Is everything gone?’ I ask her.
‘Yes, absolutely gone,’ she says proud as punch. ‘Last load just left. And I slept on the floor last night.’ She points into the sitting room, where there’s a pillow and a blanket folded near the hearth with a couple of her Sydney Heralds and a Lithgow Mercury. ‘Doing penance for my sins, so that you’ll have me pure. Nothing here but me. Now you have to go away — I can’t bear to see you and I have far too much to do by way of setting up nest. Go on. Shoo. Go away till Wednesday.’
All right. A kiss and I’m off. Mum’s horrified when I tell her France is alone. She takes off round to the orchard with her when Francine passes in the trap. Another kiss, and now I’m alone. I’m getting married in three days’ time. Mum doesn’t come home, she stays with France, and I’m the happiest bloke that ever lived. I even hit the piano. Christ, I even sing.
I turn up early, so close-shaved my face is still stinging from the ride, and I stand there in the church, having a quiet word with Dad about everything except what I should be thinking about; he’s ragging: You’re making a bad habit of Roman Catholicism lately, boy. Leave it alone — you’re unattractive enough as it is. While I’m trying not to think about how much it cuts that he’s not here, and reminding myself he is here so long as I am, then startling myself again with the fact of me being here, and hearing Dad say: Settle down — anyone would think you were getting married today, Hurley, the priest, pops up from nowhere and just about tears the skin from me with his ‘Hello there, lad’. But Evan’s popped up from some other nowhere too, to say hello back. They have more in common in this place, and they talk about the weather, which is about to piss down.
And then I hear the trap; she comes in, with Mum behind her. I can’t tell you, except that I see the flowers wound through her hair, white against her hair and her face. It’s mercifully quick, and I can’t hear much for the rain. I’m too busy; busier as I’m trying to move the Holy Host’s piece of cardboard off the roof of my mouth with my first taste of wine, knowing Hurley’s given it to me against the rules, and wishing he’d given me dispensation from this as well. Still trying to swallow as he’s talking me through the I wills and the haves and to holds and I dos, and I give France the ring that I only bought yesterday, which is too big but pretty on her finger because it’s there, because she’s thrilled with it, and we’re all nearly laughing when I kiss her, except for Hurley, who’s only trying harder not to.
And then we sign the papers. Her middle name’s Veronica. It’s all over, we’re legal, and I’m wondering what I’ll do with my bike when Evan says, ‘Well, get going then,’ and Mum’s giving Francine her cardigan and waving us off.
It’s teeming bullets and it’s perfect; her little Hayseed is just about knackered when we get to Josie’s Place, our place — I don’t know whose heart is pumping fastest. I pick France up out of the trap and just the smell of her makes me think I’m going to drop her, but I wouldn’t. These hands aren’t going to let go for anything. She’s soaked through, the flowers have slipped every which way down her hair and she is mine. I push the front door open with my foot, thankful it’s off the latch so that I don’t have to put her down, and I don’t clock my head on the door frame, and I walk through our dark and dusty falling-down house which is stuffed full of fat heavy furniture and packing boxes, with food laid out on the table in the back room next to the kitchen. I don’t know where to set her down in all this, but here’ll do. And still I don’t let go. I kiss her, properly forever now, for the first time, and I don’t know what I was so wound up about; I’ve got no idea what I’m doing and it doesn’t matter. I’m still kissing her even as we’re taking off our clothes.
I’m not game to look at her, for obvious reasons: it’ll all be over in a second if I do. So I stop everything and just hold her for a long moment, till it’s too bloody freezing and I have to chase her to the bedroom. She dives under the covers and looks at me now, wide-eyed and so am I. The luckiest bloke in the world having the best day of his life.
I’m shivering with holding back now as I climb in with her, and I just have to kiss her and kiss her to rein myself in. She is so soft, everywhere, pale and smooth as willow. She whispers, ‘Oh my goodness,’ and arches her back when I touch her breasts, and I kiss her there too. I can’t wait any longer, and somehow I find her, but I’m too scared to push, that I’ll hurt her. But she pushes up to me, and she cries out then. I stop. Jesus, I have hurt her. She cups her hands around my face, blinks up at me and smiles. And then it really is all over, for now at least.
I roll around next to her and she winds herself around me. Don’t know what I was so wound up about; there should be a law making this compulsory.
FRANCINE
No bridesmaids, no carriage, not even a special wedding dress, and my mother-in-law gave me away; but I have this. There is no word for this. I’m not even going to try. This is not something for thoughts but for our skin, as much of my skin as physically possible touching his. I am a limpet on a rock, and I’ll have to be prised off. Daniel doesn’t mind; in fact he’s fallen into a doze. I should get up, though, and stable poor Hayseed, give him a feed of the grains from the sack that McNally made up for him before he left, then bring in something for us to eat for dinner. Daniel has to be up at five in the morning; well, he doesn’t have to, but he’s going to; and Mrs Ackerman, or Sarah now, has given me a very short course in the daily routine, and some of her recipes, and her paper patterns for Daniel’s underwear. Oh? But she’s an angel of rescue; she told me she’d been in a similar position once herself, not knowing what to do and how; again I wanted to ask her about herself, but she makes it so plain when she’s said all she wants to say, I daren’t ask. Too grateful to push my luck anyway. When I crumpled into the mirror this morning, she held my shoulders and said, ‘Now, now, stop that. I’m sure your father would want you to be your prettiest today,’ and there was something firm and tender and all-knowing about the way she said it that stoppered up the flow; something in the way she said, ‘Not that Daniel would notice of course,’ that made me giggle; more so, and with a jolt, when she added: ‘Blind as a boot, he is. And such a kind, sweet girl you are to take him off my hands.’
She hasn’t said anything more direct than that, but I don’t think she approves of him going back to work. Why on earth would she? Neither do I, but perhaps there is something in Daniel’s rationale, at least where I’m concerned: to really understand something, you should experience at least a bit of it, otherwise you’re just barking into the wind. I’m sure Father would endorse this knowing what it means exercise, and it’s only for a little while. Still, I don’t want him to go, and it’s not just because I am a limpet. My stomach turns over every time I think of him going into that hole in the hill. But perhaps Father
would say that’s worth my knowing too. And besides, when I think of Drummond’s contempt, I want him to have to deal with Daniel at the mine, I want him to see what it means too; even if he is as dense as Father said, then at least I’ll feel we made some attempt at making a point, making sense of Father’s last wishes and all that. Daniel’s told me the other miners think it’s hilarious too. And besides, this is what Daniel has decided to do; I can’t stop him, short of having him sacked. And besides, besides, lightning doesn’t strike twice, does it; not in so short a time. But it has, hasn’t it: we’ve lost our fathers within three months of each other. I limpet-cling a little tighter; surely, lightning doesn’t strike thrice, then? He doesn’t wake. Tell myself there’s more chance of him being attacked and eaten by a mob of savage wallabies out here in the backblocks.
And so, fully rationalised, I slip quietly out of the bed, don my nightdress and garden boots to risk the wallabies myself as I tend to my faithful but by now impatient pony — very quickly. It’s so cold! Then I run back inside and set up a tray of the wonderful food that Sarah has made, and wake him: my husband, with my hand on his chest, my lips on his cheek. He only eats a little and we’re back to it again. Oh my goodness.
‘How do you know when it’s time to get up?’ I ask him, bleary in the dark as he’s creaking around on the draughty floorboards hunting for his work clothes, which Sarah hung over the chair by the wardrobe yesterday morning.