Black Diamonds

by Kim Kelly

  That’s enough to frighten anyone out of it. I lie there and look at her like she’s a witch. Maybe she is.

  She says: ‘There’s a boy wandering out in the orchard on his own who needs a word with you.’

  Yes. Yes. Yes. Rattled out of it now.

  She says: ‘What’s wrong?’

  I say, getting up; awch fuck: ‘Just sorry for myself.’

  ‘There’s no room for that here any more. If you’ve got a problem, for heaven’s sake will you speak to me?’

  ‘Won’t happen again,’ I tell her. And it won’t, not while the witch is anywhere near me. Just as well she loves me. ‘But I’m fairly certain Harry’s broken my arm.’

  FRANCINE

  Oh dear indeed. He doesn’t have a choice now; he’ll have to see Doctor Nichols at least, since no-good elbow is defunct and he is in a good deal of pain over it, pretending he’s not. Harry is silently mortified even after Daniel said to him: ‘Mate, you’ve got no idea how much this is my fault. You didn’t mean it, and I know why you let fly. So you can put it right behind you. I, on the other hand, have to do what I should have done weeks ago. The only lesson here is not to put things off. If you’ve got something on your mind, discuss it, don’t bottle it. Always leads to trouble.’

  Bravo, Daniel. If only … but let’s not dwell there. Nor I in the churnings that kept me awake all night feeling your hurt, watching you pretend to be asleep, then asking you if you want breakfast in bed and getting an indecipherable grunt in reply. Nothing hocus pocus about that. It’s knowledge all right: knowledge that I can look past your anger, your foul mouth, and your surly face, I can even cope with the occasional beard if you ever do that again, but I won’t abide this worst of yours: this feeling of … absence. Perhaps a hole filled by grief and shame. And perhaps I have a will to match it, if the look on your face when I did speak my mind was anything to judge by. Is this the worst of you? Regardless, I shall exploit my power over it ruthlessly from here on. So, there you go, Father. Maybe there you go, Sarah, too.

  And now here we all go, piling into the car. I ask Harry to hold onto squirming Danny, to give the lad something to take his mind off our predicament, give him an awful lot to do on the short trip to the hospital. He needs this responsibility, not being carted off to Grandma’s feeling glummer than glum. Then I ask him to look after his brother and Danny while Big Danny gets Achilles’ Elbow fixed up. Well, at least a more comfortably incapacitated fracture, waiting for word from this fellow in Sydney to see if and when the structural problem that caused it might be corrected. Doctor Nichols manages not to rub it in. This has to be the last time, please, for the Curse of the Thing. But not for something else; something I’ve been longing for.

  I say to Daniel on the way home: ‘Do you know what this situation is missing?’

  ‘What.’ Trying not to be cranky for Harry’s sake; not quite succeeding.

  ‘A further complication.’

  ‘Hmn.’

  ‘You don’t sound like you want one, Daniel. What’s wrong with you?’

  He looks at me that way I love. ‘What now.’

  ‘I think we’re going to have another baby.’ So pronounced Mrs Moran while Daniel was receiving application of cement.

  Cracked him. Beautiful.

  FIVE

  JANUARY–NOVEMBER 1918

  FRANCINE

  Darlingest Little Danny will not accompany us to Sydney. No chance but Buckley’s there. He can stay with Grandma. But we will take Charlie and Harry as well as Miriam’s eldest, Kathryn, who’s almost twelve, since an extended tour of Babel is a good reason to delay the trauma of starting at a new school, and the children will provide good distraction for me from the purpose of our trip: The Operation. It’s a glorious big blue sky morning as we tootle around to Grandma’s, and I don’t want to leave the valley, except that, apart from getting Achilles’s Elbow brutalised by some man we’ve never met, I also have an act of sedition planned for the sojourn. Not completely gaga this time, given the change in our circumstances, and greater degree of rationality obtained after thought; it will be a small but significant act. I probably won’t succeed, but I’d kick myself forever if I didn’t have a go. Daniel wishes he could be a fly on the ceiling for my attempt; but I’m glad he won’t be: better that he takes my failure lying down and medicated. I’ll take it like a girl. Besides, I don’t really want him to see me make a fool of myself: he can hear all about it in amusing anecdote afterwards.

  Plenty of inspiration for foolishness and sedition of all kinds today, I think, but not very many avenues left for the expression of such. Billy the Troll still reigns over us, despite the failure of his last conscription referendum, and his promised resignation: he’s been recalled by the Governor-General, Sir Someone or Other, because no one else was available to fill the vacancy. Not a soul in the entire parliament? If you believe that, you can believe there’s a man in the moon. Suspicious by nature, as I am, I do, however, think it would be fair to say that there’s rather a lot going on down the dark rat tunnels of power that we don’t know about. The Troll was asking our permission to send seven thousand conscripts per month: per month? At that rate he’d have no one to rule over in quick time; he’d have to start sending women and children. Our population is about four million, and he’s determined it be decimated: ten per cent unaccounted for. He’s already unaccounted for three hundred thousand odd, so he’s getting there. He is clearly deluded, but the only man capable of running the country? Very concerted efforts being taken to ensure our ignorance remains intact, too. No photographs, no words, no speeches allowed against the war effort, the government or Britannia. No complaints, no strikes, no fainting in the street allowed against poverty and exploitation. Stick your hand up and you’ll get it bashed down by a pack of returned men, who are allowed to do as they please to dissenters: anyone who’s served in the AIF could probably murder a trade unionist, a Catholic or even a pacifist over a penny and claim defence of the national interest. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but you can at the very least now be arrested by the Troll’s new Commonwealth Police Force, established in response to some wicked Queenslander who hurled a couple of terrifying eggs at our PM last month; apparently the local constabulary were too busy laughing to come to his aid, so the Troll has declared the entire state of Queensland a viperous nest of sympathy for the Hun, and the other worst one, Sinn Fein; and the entire country in need of supervision against any impulse more radical than breathing.

  Obscuring the real news: that the veterans still haven’t been delivered their promise of land grants, housing, jobs or meaningful compensation. If you lose both legs then you get four pounds a week, good job, but if you only lose one you get one pound eight and six. The average working-man’s wage is something like three pounds seven, now that inflation has pushed it to the dizzy heights. Do the equation for the fellow who didn’t stand close enough to the shell to get both blown off. Do that equation for Stan Henderson, who still can’t get a job to make up the shortfall, whose Lilly now works the dawn shift in the arms factory cleaning the machines. She laughs at the irony, good for her, but I think that’s what you call straightforward evil; and will be more so when their baby arrives sometime in April. I’m waiting for the Troll to proclaim that compensation has been found to be entirely unnecessary, since he’s made it to the top of the tree in spite of being stunted, ugly, obnoxious, demented and, apparently, deaf as a post.

  The veterans’ leagues hail him, though — they’re the Returned Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia now, and express their cooperative frustrations with hatred of everything that’s not British. Part of the reason I’ve quietly retired my association there: too tricky to sympathise with that conflict of interest, and in any case, Those Who Help Themselves are coming back in droves now to look after each other so us women are not really needed any more for much beyond cake-baking. The other part is my own sense of conflict: in deciding of late to refrain from tongue-holding where an
issue burns, I don’t want it to lash at anyone who really doesn’t need my opinion adding insult to their injury. Enough of a small but significant victory to have got Daniel out the door to add his ‘No’ vote to the referendum; he said, ‘I can’t write,’ and I said, ‘You only have to tick a box.’ I could feel the hurt burning all the way into town, but he did it, and afterwards when an old wag idling about under the awning of the Cosmopolitan said, ‘Oi, young fella, I’d say your motor was a beauty if I hadn’t caught sight of your driver,’ he laughed all the way back home.

  And now we’re going all the way back to the Big Smoke, and he’s been laughing at me all morning: ‘Everything’s all right, and no I don’t think I’ll need a jumper, Francine, not even just in case. ‘And now Danny’s dispatched and Kathryn ensconced; Mim tells hopeless little brother to ‘break a leg or let Harry have a try’ — she’s bouncing back — and Sarah chides for bad taste but she’s smiling as she waves with the four little girls and one little boy running round the bottom of her skirt out on the street. Wish I had a camera. Push all other thoughts aside. I’m overwhelmed with a wash of joy; throat closing over for every life that’s not like ours. Leprechaun pokes me in the ribs and says: Laugh! I do. And we hit the road, driver delightedly maternally deranged.

  Motor backfires as we turn up off Dell, kids squeal, and Daniel doesn’t even flinch; instead he turns around to them and says: ‘Settle down, you lot.’ Then: ‘Keep your eyes on the road, Francine.’

  DANIEL

  Unexpected benefit of this Great War and my stupid part in it: France makes love to me, for the first time. I’ve always made love to her, always made it when and how. But now, in this room with no sideboard, it’s her, here on this massive mahogany bed, in the Metropole, this flash squatters’ palace bang in the middle of the city, making love to me. Who is this woman? With our life somewhere there inside her. I can’t tell you. I can’t describe her; I have to paint her. Please.

  I don’t know what goes on in other people’s private lives; don’t care; but I don’t know that too many blokes get this. I think you’d hear about it. Or maybe not.

  I actually tear up as I’m …

  The luckiest bloke in this world, our world. Best wife. Best life.

  Which will hopefully continue well beyond today. I am, if that’s possible, more rattled than I have ever been. No, I’m petrified. Last time, with Doctor Myer, I was still in enough of a fog that I wasn’t really thinking beyond what I wanted. But now, as we head out to Waverley, I’m a bit too clear about what I have, and a bit too aware that in too short a while I will receive a huge serve of pain, if I wake up. I tell France to drop me outside, partly because any minute I’m going to chuck, and partly because I’m thinking of pissing off. Stratho’s big girlie favourite that I am.

  But I’ve forgotten she’s a witch; she says: ‘Daniel, I’m not going to put you out on the footpath and drive off.’ And she leaves the kids in the car and sees me right up to the front door. It’s just a big weatherboard, just a nice house, a bit like home, I tell myself, except for the brass plaque saying St Christopher’s Private Hospital, and I’m thinking I hope he doesn’t hold my lack of religion against me. And then she makes sure Doctor Adinov finds me for this eight o’clock appointment before she hands me over and shoots through with a quick kiss, whispering: ‘It’ll be all right, darlingest.’ Wish she sounded a bit more certain.

  This Adinov sounds Russian, definitely when he says, ‘So, how do you do, Mr Ackerman,’ and I can only nod and probably guess who he’s barracking for in the revolution: doesn’t look too proletarian to me, with his fat gold ring and silvery silk tie, and I hope he doesn’t hold my Bolshevik sympathies against me. We’re not likely to have that conversation, I suppose.

  We don’t. It’s all very straightforward according to this straightforward bloke, who’s got a face set so hard from concentrating it looks painful. Good. But I’m not listening to his talk about what he’s going to do to me; I’m busy thinking about septicaemia and amputation and having had probably way too much luck. And I’m thinking, mostly, what if you wreck my hand? I would like to leave, now. Leave it the way it is; it’s not that bad. That’s a joke: he shears the cement off and the whole thing looks on the brink of death already, after only four weeks. It’s nothing in his hands, which seem like they’re hardly touching me as he lifts it and turns it this way and that.

  Adinov can see me wandering off as he starts talking about the range of movement, the fortunate condition of some tendon or other. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Ackerman, I’ve had too much experience. Russian surgeons are the best because we all have too much experience. Lots of war for practice, and icy streets for lots of broken bones.’ He’s not joking. I’d like to ask him about it, and how he ended up here, how it is he knows Myer, but now’s not the time for a settling chat. He’s a very busy man. Wants to hack through the end of my humerus, then make it happy with some external transfixion, and he’s going to. And I’ll be paying him a small fortune for the privilege.

  France is fairly dancing round the tub and I flick her with the flannel, just to get the bell sound. There it is. Opium is fantastic when you’re not having nightmares, or maybe it’s just a better class of brew here. What is this stuff? I can understand how you could get addicted to it, how anyone could. I can look at the external transfixion and say that’s a new shade of wrong, every time I open my eyes and look right. Fuck. But at the same time, I can say that’s what an arm looks like, my one, and despite logic, not that logic is the greatest strength in me at the minute, I can say that’s as it should be. The Russian was here a few moments ago and he smiled like he knows what I mean, well I think he did; it’s a bit hard to tell on that face; he looks like a middleweight boxer … with girl’s hands. I can still hear him saying, ‘Yes, that’s the heroin’, and I’m thinking: where is she? And France is back again now, except I think she’s actually here this time, since she’s fully clothed. She rushes into view, I can smell her; she says: ‘Hello darlingest not supposed to be here been very seditious see you tomorrow.’ Kiss on my forehead. And she’s gone again. Don’t go. I want a proper kiss. Doesn’t matter. Pass out again. For me and my doll. Great big beautiful doll. Let me put my arms about you, I could never live without you…

  FRANCINE

  I hadn’t intended to do this today. Got plenty of time: Doctor Nichols said we could be here for weeks. I was only going to loiter about with the children, give myself some time to imagine my assault upon the curator before executing it. Rehearse my lines some more. Plan was I’d do a good show of desperate war wife with talented, valorous, headcase husband who’s on the verge of losing arm altogether. So these paintings would be rather rare then, and they might be. Don’t think about that. I was going to appeal to the curator’s sense of cultural interest, present them as a gift, something to keep in the vault, as curiosities: after all, do you know he’s really just a miner? Lithgow coal. Left school at fourteen for pit. Spontaneous genius forged on the fields of France. Of course they wouldn’t be hung: apart from War Precautions, one only needs a glance through the Art Gallery of New South Wales to know why: where would you put the obscenities amongst the gentle impressionism, the pastoral landscapes and stately portraits and emphasis on British best bland? Even Streeton’s Fire’s On! manages to make the act of blasting through the face of a sandstone wall an idyllic, transcendent image, wild blue sky and shimmery, languorous gums overriding the fact: tunnel at Lapstone needed for faster train over the mountains. I never thought about it at school, of course — Sister Margaret, who instructed us in The Creative Arts, was as inspiring as a metronome — but I can see it so much more clearly now without even looking at it: a false impression: Streeton’s painting is as tall as a man, but the men in the picture and their labour appear incidental shapes against the grandeur of rock and bush. Why did he call it Fire’s On! I wonder; should have called it More Rock And Bush: Since You Like It So Much. Wonder what sort of war pictures he’d make en plein air. Pleasan
t ones, I suppose. So, my small act of sedition is to try to find a place for Daniel’s unpleasant monsters, a place to lie with their own truth, beneath the acceptable lies: like unexploded bombs perhaps. But knowing I’ll be laughed away, shown the door. Silly woman. Silly or not: you get nothing if you don’t ask your silly questions.

  And here I am with Kathryn, Harry and Charlie, mounting the sandstone steps of the gallery, about to give them a taste of our culture on their first full day in the Big Smoke. I can feel their boredom already, when we pass two well-preened Dame Wowsers on the way into the vestibule; one’s saying to the other: ‘And can you believe there’s a race meeting at Randwick today? Don’t they know it’s banned?’ I dawdle to hear the reply: ‘It’s not banned, dear. Only frowned upon. But it should be banned — and they should all be sent to France. But they’re all Irish: what can you do?’

  Hmn. Fine example of the calibre of woman who voted yes to the conscription referendums, if they voted: perhaps they’re against female suffrage too. But I’m not going to bother thinking about that: I’m having a flash of inspiration as I take the children into the first hall. They are not all lazy bog Irish no-hopers at the races, are they? And some of them are my father’s old associates. I know the name of at least one who might be there right now too: Captain Duncan’s father. He’ll be a Mr Duncan, won’t he. And he’ll be a gentleman.

  I’m standing in front of Longstaff’s portrait of Henry Lawson and I swear the old soak winks at me: Go on, Francine, the snakes at the track won’t kill you. But Mr Lawson, I have no idea what I’m doing, I tell him. He replies: Who ever does? He’s got a good point there. No courage, no reward. Oh Leprechaun, what are you laughing at?

  I say to the children: ‘This was a very silly idea. Too dull by half here. Let’s go to the racecourse instead.’