The Woolgrower's Companion

by Joy Rhoades

  Daisy held out the hand towel to him. He wiped his hands, then his mouth.

  ‘Please don’t wipe your mouth on the hand towel,’ Kate said.

  ‘She gets after you, Harry, eh?’ Meg said.

  ‘What do you do for a crust?’ Harry asked. Kate couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘I’m a VA. A Voluntary Aide. It means nursing aide. I help at the hospital, nurse the soldiers sent here to convalesce. To get better, I mean.’

  ‘Why’d they send em here to the middle of nowhere?’

  ‘I’ll ignore that,’ Meg said. ‘The Army’s gotta send the wounded fellas where there’s empty hospital beds. So they go all sorts of places. Like Kate’s husband, Jack. He came with his bung hand, to get it better. He was only here five minutes when Kate married the poor fella.’

  Kate rolled her eyes.

  ‘What about you? You going to school at Frenchman’s Creek?’

  Kate gave her a look. The boy was working in the paddocks with his uncle – Grimes had said no to school. And that nagged at Kate’s conscience.

  ‘Nuh. Not allowed,’ the boy said, peeved. ‘I wanna go, eh. M’uncle says I can’t, but.’

  ‘Hullo, all. Young Meg too, today, eh?’ Kate’s father was up the steps and into the kitchen like a man with a winning ticket in his pocket. ‘Now, young Harry, what’s that y’uncle says you can’t do?’

  ‘I can’t go t’school.’

  Her father gave Kate a look and went back out the door onto the verandah. Harry followed him, a biscuit in each hand, and the door banged after him. Kate frowned. Her father hated loud noises.

  ‘Ya wanna see the bowerbird, boss? I seen im near them big gates,’ Harry said.

  ‘Why don’t I beat the pants off you at draughts instead, eh?’ Kate’s father said.

  Harry went to the wall of the homestead, peering into a hollow. He pointed at the slot, about two inches across. ‘What’s this then?’

  Kate’s father laughed. ‘An auger hole.’

  ‘Don’t push on it,’ Kate warned from inside. ‘It’s stopped up, and you’ll pop out the plaster in here if you’re not careful.’

  Meg went out to see.

  ‘What’s it for then?’ Harry swivelled his head round to look down it.

  ‘The muzzle of a shotgun,’ her father said.

  ‘Yeah?’

  From inside, Kate called, ‘Dad …’ It was too late.

  Her father was off. ‘It’s an old homestead, ya see. Been here long before me. The early settlers had a lotta trouble with the Abos. In point o’ fact, I hear the blacks were winnin for a while round here. Them auger holes were to see em off, when they had to. Hole’s t’put a rifle through, from inside the house.’

  ‘For shootin?’ Harry said, eyes wide. ‘But the Abos buggered off by theirselves.’

  Her father laughed. ‘Nuh. They had some encouragement. Quite a bit, they say, from the first settlers.’

  Kate looked behind her into the laundry, hoping Daisy was not hearing this.

  ‘And some o’ those families are still about. The first settlers. The “good families”, as Janice used to call em.’ He snorted a laugh. ‘They look down on us, Harry, cos I was a soldier settler, here only since the First War.’

  Kate wanted her father quiet on this before Daisy appeared. She called to them. ‘Harry, can you tidy those draughts up now?’

  But her father went on. ‘I used to say to Janice, “I didn’t shoot Abos. That makes me beneath the blokes whose grandfathers did?”’ He shook his head in disgust. Kate thought it but said nothing: some parts of the district had been set aside for the Aborigines by the government, but their land was taken back at the end of the First War and turned over to soldier settlers like her father.

  ‘And we’re bigger’n all them other properties now anyhow.’

  Meg came back inside and left them to their game. She spoke softly to Kate. ‘Sorry about that school thingy. But it’s a bit tough, if he wants to go?’

  Kate waggled her head. Harry should go to school, but she’d avoided telling her father that Grimes had said no, worried it might set him off.

  Daisy reappeared, put on an apron and began peeling potatoes in the sink for dinner.

  ‘I better shuffle off,’ Meg said at the door. A man’s deep-throated laugh reached them.

  ‘Your POWs still at it? It’s knock-off time, isn’t it?’ Meg went out and Kate followed.

  ‘You should go,’ Kate said, shooing Meg towards the fence.

  ‘Yes, I should,’ Meg said, deadpan. She walked with Kate round the back of the house towards the voices.

  As they came round the tank stand, Kate stopped. Meg pulled up behind her, grabbing her arm in delight. Canali and Bottinella were shirtless, their bodies slick with sweat, as they dug. They were skinny but fit, sinewed like wood-chop champions. Kate’s eyes went to Canali. His skin was darker than his companion’s, much darker, with terrible scars, long crooked lines across his chest, incongruously pale on his skin.

  Canali saw the women and said something to his bearded mate. The younger man stopped digging and straightened up, his hands on the shovel in front of him. ‘Buona sera, Signora Dowd. Signorina.’ He smiled at Meg.

  ‘It’s him. The Greek god,’ Meg whispered.

  ‘Mr Botta … Bottinella,’ Kate said, flustered. ‘That’s enough for today.’ She retreated, pulling Meg with her.

  ‘Enough?’ she heard Canali say. ‘Enough for you, Signora?’

  Kate didn’t turn but she almost smiled. He rattled her, this POW. And he knew it.

  CHAPTER 5

  A sheepdog drives only on command of its master. So a pup which chases stock for its own amusement, and will not be broken of the urge, must be culled and a fresh start made.

  THE WOOLGROWER’S COMPANION, 1906

  Kate woke early the next morning, the verandah door windows bright with the light glow of sunrise. The sun would come on soon. She’d seen the creek break its banks once, when she was a little girl, and that’s how she thought of dawn. It lapped at the edges of the horizon, then broke, flooding the sky.

  She enjoyed the solitude of her room but she missed Jack, missed his company. This had been their room for the few months after they married, before he got his hand working and he was called up again. Jack was a great mimic; he could do an excellent Mr Grimes, moving his eyebrows as if they had a life of their own. She’d loved those mornings with him, lying in his arms in the squeaky bed, trying not to laugh too loud, with her father’s room next door.

  It was very early. She reached out to pick up the Women’s Weekly Meg had brought her. Kate never bought it any more as it reminded her too much of her mum. Her mother used to read it every week, cover to cover, at least once and sometimes twice, to be sure that the Stimsons did what all ‘good families’ across Australia were doing.

  Her mother had had ambitions for Kate. The Weekly was her compass. Kate was grateful, though; one of the reasons she was accepted by the district’s good families was because she was seen to have been brought up properly. Brung up proper, her father used to say, to annoy her mother. But they both knew, she and her father, that it was one’s station at birth, along with money and manners from then on, that made a person ‘worthy’ to these old families. So the Flemings and their ilk might embrace Kate, yet never Ralph Stimson or his wife. Her father wouldn’t say that to her mother, though. He was not cruel.

  Which made her think of him. She dropped the magazine on the floor. Things were too quiet this morning. She couldn’t hear him moving about. He and the men were leaving at first light to cut trees to feed the sheep, but her father might have overslept. He’d had a bad night, and she’d been up to him several times, when he woke, shouting, shouting about the trenches.

  She pulled on her clothes, pushed her unbrushed hair into a ponytail (too knotty even for the usual quick plait) and went to her father’s door. She tapped, welcomed by the faint smell of chops and toast from the kitchen at the end of the hall.

>   ‘Dad. You up? I think brekkie’s ready.’ When she heard movement inside, she went on to the kitchen.

  ‘Mornin, Missus,’ Daisy said, from the stove. Daisy was not much of a smiler, but maybe she missed her family. Elizabeth Fleming maintained all Aborigines were sullen, that it was in their blood. Elizabeth was a hard nut.

  ‘You got four this morning, Daisy?’ Kate asked, eyeing the eggs on the kitchen bench.

  ‘Maybe they clucky. And, Missus, nextta nothin in tha water hole, eh.’

  Kate sighed. Damn drought. The chook run was just up from the creek bed, near what was a fairly constant water hole in good seasons.

  Daisy cracked one of the eggs into the pan. Kate sat down, just as she saw Grimes’s blue shirt in the upper square of the gauze door.

  ‘Mornin, Mrs D. We’re ready when the boss is. Ed’s got them POWs in the truck.’

  ‘I’ll check on Dad. Come in, Mr Grimes. Daisy will get you a cup of tea.’ If she needed to curry favour with Grimes, she’d better start doing it.

  Grimes hesitated. Daisy set a metal mug of tea on the table for him.

  ‘Dad.’ Kate tapped on the door of her father’s room. ‘Grimes is here.’

  Nothing. She tapped again. ‘Grimes is here, Dad.’

  Silence.

  ‘To cut feed. Remember?’

  ‘I’m not coming,’ she heard through the door.

  ‘Are you sick, Dad?’

  When he didn’t answer, Kate didn’t know what to do. She stood for a moment longer then went back to the kitchen. Grimes was perched on the edge of one of the kitchen chairs. He jumped to his feet as she came in.

  ‘I think you should go ahead without him,’ Kate said. ‘He’s sick.’

  ‘He’s crook?’

  But her father appeared in the doorway, unshaved and unkempt, and started to yell, ‘Grimes! Get outta here!’ He wore only pyjama bottoms and his bathrobe, and the robe was not tied off; a pale torso with a matt of grey chest hair was visible between the gown’s lapels, its cord ends dragging on the floor after him.

  Daisy backed away, putting her hands in front of her.

  Grimes got up, his eyes and mouth wide. ‘Boss, Mrs D said —’

  ‘You dumb bastard,’ her father said, flicking his arm at his manager. ‘Get your arse out of here!’

  ‘Dad!’

  He barrelled past the table as Grimes got out the door and across the dead lawn, off towards Ed and the POWs in the truck.

  Daisy disappeared too, and Kate and her father were alone in the kitchen, the room silent apart from her father’s heavy breaths, laboured after his yelling. But then he turned on the wireless and sat down at the table. Her father slid Kate’s empty tea cup across in front of him and poured, as the voice of the announcer filled the air:

  ‘… Australian yarn to be made up into clothing and blankets for our Australian soldiers and their American comrades who are here to defend our …’

  ‘It was the Americans, y’know. In the First War. On the sideline till the end, then rode in like bloody heroes.’

  Kate swallowed, rocked by his volatility. ‘What was wrong, Dad?’

  ‘Wrong? Grimes in the homestead? Drinkin tea like he owned the place?’ He shifted his eyes to the wireless and yawned widely.

  ‘What about today? You going out with the men?’

  ‘He’s a lazy bugger, Grimes. Ed’s the worker.’ He stood up. ‘Think I’ll have forty winks.’

  ‘Are you all right, Dad?’

  But he’d gone, his dressing gown cords still trailing behind him like the reins of a loose horse.

  Kate sat down at the kitchen table and stared at the tea in front of her. Before today, her father had never misbehaved for anyone but Kate. He’d never been indecent. In front of Grimes, of all people. Grimes prided himself on knowing his place and he kept everyone in theirs, from the POWs to the Aboriginal stockmen. And he’d be off in a flash if he suspected there was something amiss with her father or if he thought he might not get paid.

  After the house had been still for some time, Daisy returned and went about her business, washing up the dishes.

  ‘Sorry,’ Kate said. ‘About that.’

  Daisy looked away, expressionless.

  Later that morning, Kate was sweeping the verandah when her father emerged again, dressed for work, the usual moleskin trousers, kangaroo-skin belt, his RM riding boots.

  ‘Morning,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘Didya forget to wake me up?’

  ‘No. You don’t remember, Dad?’

  ‘Remember what?’

  ‘You were up, Dad. In the kitchen. You said no. They had to go without you.’

  He shrugged and looked off towards the Box Ridge paddock.

  ‘You sure you’re all right, Dad?’

  ‘Right as rain. See ya later then.’

  ‘Your hat,’ she said, softly.

  Kate watched him walk off towards the meat house and the stables. A hot breeze rattled the bunya pines along the house fence and Kate tried not to think of that as an omen.

  The following day was quiet and weirdly normal. Kate got to the end of it with relief, and made some tea. She thought about her father as she watched the steam rise off her mug. He’d been his usual self all day and even appeared for a game of draughts when Harry (and, as always, Rusty) turned up at four. She’d not seen Grimes and was glad of it. She didn’t know what she was going to say to him if he asked about her father. What if Grimes twigged and then left?

  When she heard the truck in the gully, she went inside, not wanting to be caught sitting down with a mug in her idle hands. It was about time to put the meat in the oven, anyway.

  In the kitchen, Kate got the leg of mutton out of the kero fridge and dropped it into a baking dish. She was putting a good sprinkle of salt over the top when the truck came to a stop by the house. Damn, she’d have to speak to Grimes. And she must stop swearing, even to herself.

  Grimes got out of the driver’s seat and, with two loaves of bread in his arms, came towards the house fence, leaving the POWs and Johnno and Spinks in the tray of the truck. Ed was nowhere to be seen; he must have decided Grimes could handle the POWs. Kate left her apron on and went out to meet him. She was conscious of the Italians watching her.

  At the fence, Kate took the bread from Grimes. ‘Thanks. No newspaper?’

  ‘Jamieson’s got a problem with his press.’

  Kate had turned to go back to the house when Grimes said, ‘The boss orright, is he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He frowned, scratching an eyebrow. ‘I needa word with im about Rusty.’

  ‘I’ll see if he’s about,’ she said and went back up the steps and into the kitchen.

  She knocked on the office door, and pushed it open a little. ‘Dad?’

  The room was quite dark, the curtains drawn. She opened the door all the way and was taken aback. Her father was sleeping on the floor on his swag. Curled up like a child, he had his elbows tucked in close to his waist, hands coiled under his chin, and his feet were hidden under the stained canvas ground sheet.

  ‘Dad, Grimes wants to speak to you.’ Kate heard him breathing normally, not the regular rhythm of real sleep. By his feet was a worn book, The Woolgrower’s Companion. Its leather cover, once bright blue, was spotted with age and use.

  ‘Dad?’ She heard herself sounding nervous. Nothing. She pulled the door closed behind her and stood in the quiet stillness of the hall. She wasn’t ready to tell Grimes to put Rusty down. Her father would, if he knew. She just couldn’t do it. Yet.

  Grimes had one hand on the top of the fence, the other on his hip, waiting. He was watching the POWs in the back of the truck.

  ‘Dad’s on the phone,’ Kate said, at the fence. ‘But he gave me a message for you.’

  ‘A message.’ Grimes weighed that up.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, swallowing. ‘He said to keep at it. To keep training Rusty. Stop him chasing sheep.’ Kate’s voice sounded artificial, like a ten-year-old
pretending to be the teacher.

  ‘Did he now?’

  The POWs and the stockmen in the back of the truck were listening, and she was conscious of Canali watching her closely. She felt he knew she was lying. Ridiculous.

  Grimes turned to go then stopped. ‘One more thing. We’ve got a ram, Basil, in the house paddock. Keep an eye out. Ed reckons he might have a go at you. Only a young’un, but he’s feelin his oats.’ He put his hat on, and Kate went back to the house.

  From the kitchen, she heard the truck start up and pull away. The brakes screeched, and a curse of complaints went up from the men in the tray. Grimes was standing on the driver’s door running board, looking down the hill to the crossing.

  ‘Gorn!’ he shouted.

  Kate followed his eyes. Rusty was chasing wethers about a hundred yards away, towards the gully and into the dry creek bed.

  ‘Gorn!’

  This time the pup stopped still, panting, tongue out, and looked back at Grimes.

  ‘Come ere!’ Grimes yelled.

  But Rusty must have known he was in for a hiding as he sloped off into the gully and disappeared.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Merino thrives in hostilities of climate in which other cud-chewers are known to perish.

  THE WOOLGROWER’S COMPANION, 1906

  Grimes brought them to a stop in the dirt in front of the Frenchman’s Creek school, the corrugated iron roof shimmering in the heat of the afternoon sun. Kate was to speak to the teacher about Harry. Grimes had eventually agreed, to her great relief, although it’d taken a while. Her father finally just told him to do it.

  ‘Did you want to come in with me, Mr Grimes? To talk about your nephew?’

  He folded his arms across his chest. ‘Y’don’t need schoolin to know how t’hold a shovel.’

  Kate was starting to feel quite sorry for Harry Grimes.

  The building was not a thing of beauty. Still, it did the job, providing shelter to the twelve children, aged between five and eleven, who attended under the stern eye of the formidable Mrs Pommer. School was over for the day, and it was a large, be-hatted Mrs P who stood in the corner of the horse paddock next to the school, a pony and four children about her. The children who lived on farms outside Frenchman’s Creek rode to school. When they got there, they had to unsaddle their pony and let it loose in the horse paddock for the day, before catching it to ride home again.