by Joy Rhoades
She held her breath. And then he moved with her.
‘Pot Creek bog,’ Luca said again, in step right behind them. Kate was never more glad of his voice.
At the gate, her father dropped Kate’s wrist and went into the house. Ed left them and walked his uneven gait back to the truck. Kate rubbed her wrist, red and burning. ‘Thank you,’ she said to Luca, her voice still strangled. Luca looked at the welts and shrugged, sad.
In the kitchen, Kate held the back of the chair and took a breath. She jumped when her father reappeared, dressed for a day’s work. He didn’t look at her, just picked up his hat from the kitchen bench and went out.
Luca waited, his hands resting on the fence. They walked together to the truck and Luca closed the passenger door behind Kate’s father, then pulled himself up into the tray. He waved at her.
It will be all right.
As the truck drove away, Kate sat down in one of the kitchen chairs, her heart alive in her chest. Her breath turned to hiccups, loud in the empty house. She felt her hands shaking in her lap and put them on the table to steady them. He didn’t hit me.
She could make no sense of anything. Tea. She thought she should make tea. At the sink her hands spilled a cup of precious water. She put the spigot inside the kettle, a faint rattling of metal against metal, then got the thing onto the stove.
Back at the table, with the teapot and a cup in front of her, her eyes fell on the pattern in the pine surface. She followed the lines with a wet finger, a streak along the grain.
Peng meowed to be let in. Kate was confused until she looked at the clock. Just an hour since her father had walked past her on the verandah in his swimmers. She went to the sleep-out, and sat again under the blanket, her sewing in her lap. She stared at the useless jodhpurs in her hands, her eyes wet with persistent tears.
Kate was making lunch when she heard the truck. She went to the window to see her father climb out, then moved away so he did not see her watching. He didn’t look at her when he came into the kitchen, just put his hat on the counter. His grey hair was matted with sweat into a ring around his head.
‘Did you get the ewe out of the bog?’ Kate asked. Her voice shook.
‘Yep,’ her father said slowly. ‘Lost the lamb, though.’ He went to have a wash before lunch. From the sink, Kate saw Luca waiting by the gate, looking towards the house. Comforted, she half-raised a hand and he waited a bit, then was gone. She was a mess. Her father had thrown her thoughts about. Her father, her worries about the bank. Daisy. All of it.
At lunch, her father ate his cold mutton and mashed potatoes in silence, shaking heavy salt over his food. Kate made herself eat some too. At the end of the meal, he carried his own plate to the sink before he took himself off to the office.
She didn’t leave the house. At four, she was washing spinach leaves when Luca came to the gate. He spoke to Gunner, squatting to pat him, then glanced at Kate, in the kitchen. Well? he asked.
She stilled her hands on the leaves and nodded at him. It was OK, sort of. He went to work in the garden, staying until well after dark. She knew he was still there because she could hear him talking to Gunner in Italian. At half six that evening, her father had not emerged from the office, so Kate tapped on the door.
‘Time to eat, Dad.’
There was no response, so she tried again.
‘Dad? Your meal’s ready.’
‘Orright,’ she heard this time, and she went back to the kitchen to bang a few dishes onto the table, to make it clear she was serving. She heard the squeak of the bathroom tap and the splash of water in the basin.
When he sat down, he looked tired. The morning had knocked the stuffing out of him. Out of them both.
‘Eat up, Dad. If we don’t eat, I’ll have to sell your ration coupons to Tony Biggs.’ The local publican – and Jack’s friend – had a name for dealing in ration cards on the quiet.
He frowned. Kate made no more small talk. She found her spinach tasteless. She’d keep it for the chooks anyway, to make their yolks a deeper yellow. At the end of the meal, her father took his own plate to the kitchen, this time against her protest. He surprised her again when he came and sat back down, resting his hands on the table in front of him.
‘You feeling better?’ she asked.
He frowned. Then he shook his head slowly, confounded. ‘This morning. T’raise a hand t’you.’
‘You didn’t mean it, Dad.’
‘Six of one and half dozen of the other. I did it.’ He was bewildered.
Kate blinked back tears. ‘Dr King. He’s a returned serviceman himself. Why not go and see him?’
He shook his head. ‘Not for me, Katie.’ Doctors were for the dead.
He stood slowly, without energy, and came to her. Awkwardly, he put his arms around her for an instant, then shuffled off to the office.
It was a hug. Kate was too astonished to do anything but close her open mouth.
CHAPTER 27
It may be safely said that a poor season (chiefly by drought) will give rise to a break in the wool.
THE WOOLGROWER’S COMPANION, 1906
‘You all right, Dad?’ Kate stopped folding the washing in the kitchen as he shuffled out the door onto the verandah. This was the first time her father had been outside in a full seven days, since it happened – the swimming business. And she’d not left the house much either.
Her father dropped into one of the wicker chairs. In the garden, Luca straightened up from between the rows and gave a half-wave to them.
From the kitchen, she called, ‘You want a cup of tea, Dad?’
‘What’s that?’
‘Tea?’
‘Orright.’
He’d been no trouble that past week. Not himself, though. For the first time in her life, Kate saw him cautious, moving slowly, like a man recovering from a fall off a horse.
Harry appeared a few minutes later to rattle the biscuit tin. It gave her pleasure when he appeared, reminding her of all the times he’d absented himself. He took two bikkies and went onto the verandah.
‘You should do your homework,’ Kate said from the sink.
‘You wanna game, boss?’ Harry set up the pieces, scratching at the spikes of dirty blond hair.
Her father was looking at the horizon, his fingers interlaced in his lap. Kate put a mug of tea next to him and then brought the washing out to fold it on the verandah.
Harry opened. ‘Your go, boss.’
Kate held up her remaining pair of jodhpurs. A split ran from the back of the waist to the crotch. ‘Will you be all right by yourself, Dad? If I went into town with Grimes tomorrow for the weekly run? I have to buy joddies.’
Kate hugged the joddies against her chest, still warm from the line, and watched her father. He was thinking, rubbing his fingers along his forehead. Maybe he was all right now.
There was nothing for it. She’d get a lift to town with Grimes the next morning. They’d only be gone a couple of hours, and a quick dispatch of their chores while there. She’d avoid the bank, though. She had nothing for Addison and she knew he’d not ask Grimes about Amiens’s affairs.
The next morning, in town, Grimes dropped her at Nettiford’s while he went to cash the wages cheque. As Kate pushed on Nettiford’s heavy door, she tried to put aside her usual worry that Addison would refuse to cash the cheque.
‘What can I do you for?’ Mrs Nettiford asked.
‘I just need new joddies. Two pairs in fact.’ One off, one on and one in the wash – only the third they couldn’t afford.
‘You got enough ration cards? They’re expensive with all that thread in the material.’
‘We’ve enough.’ Kate hadn’t bought any clothes for months, not since Addison had told her about the debts. She kept her eyes on the shelf as Mrs Nettiford sorted through the sizes, glad they had any stock at all. She grabbed one of those new seersucker tablecloths – no ironing – Elizabeth Fleming had mentioned.
‘How’re things out your way?’
‘Dry,’ Kate said.
‘Well, now that the Japs have surrendered, we just need the drought to break.’ Mrs Nettiford was keen to pass the time of day since the account was up to date.
Kate put the joddies and the tablecloth on the counter.
‘You can put these on the account, ya know. If ya need to,’ Mrs Nettiford said.
Kate paused, the purse in her hand. ‘No. I’ll give you cash now.’ Who knew if the poor woman would get paid if Amiens was sold up.
Mrs Nettiford accepted Kate’s money happily, the bell of the cash register drawer cheerful in the shop. She wrapped the joddies and the tablecloth in brown paper and string, handing the parcel over with a smile.
The parcel sat on Kate’s lap in the truck and the time dragged as the miles went by on the way back to Amiens. Finally Grimes turned the truck off the main road. Yellowed-out pasture stretched away on either side of the track, with dirty sheep dotted across it, moving slowly, listless with hunger, their fleeces so heavy with dust there was little to pick them out from the ground on which they stood. As the truck passed a small group of sheep by the road, a sour smell filled Kate’s nostrils, and she shuddered. It was the smell of drought, of decay and hunger, and it made her fearful.
As the truck came up out of the gully, Kate ran through the list of chores in her head: there was ironing to be done, some darning – her own socks now, not her father’s – and sheets that had been out on the line for a day at least. And if her father was on the mend, she could get back out into the paddocks to help with the lambing.
Her list dropped out of her head as they approached the homestead. There was no sign of Gunner or Puck. No dogs, for country people miles from the nearest help, was a bad sign. Grimes pulled the truck up in the lee of the shed, out of sight of the house. No need to walk into a problem, better to come in quietly. ‘I’ll stop here, eh. See where those dogs have got to.’
He got out of the driver’s door and retrieved the shotgun from under the seat. He cocked it open, slipped a cartridge into each barrel and snapped it shut. ‘Stay in the truck,’ he said.
He walked towards the back of the house with the shotgun resting on his hip, John Wayne style. Kate reminded herself to mention it to her father. It might make him laugh.
CHAPTER 28
It is best remembered that a starving sheep, doubtless like a man, will reach a point where no amount of pasture or feed can revive him and he fades away.
THE WOOLGROWER’S COMPANION, 1906
Grimes whistled to bring the dogs. A soft whine – Gunner – came back, not from the homestead but from the meat house, twenty feet away. Grimes changed direction and whistled again.
This time there was a short bark, then a low growl. That was Puck. What were they doing in the meat house? The door was ajar, although as he approached it, Grimes blocked much of Kate’s view.
He brought the shotgun up to his chest and nosed the meat house door open with his foot.
‘Jesus bloody Christ.’ His voice brought Kate out of the vehicle. He emerged from the meat house as she got close. His shotgun was on the ground by the door.
‘Don’t go in here, Missus.’ He stopped her forcibly, grabbing her arms, his face pale, his voice low.
‘Don’t,’ he said again. ‘Ya go to the house now. Ya hear?’
‘No.’ Her own hands shaking, she lifted his from her arms, and went past him into the meat house.
She sucked in air, involuntarily. Her father lay slumped on his back where he had fallen, his head jammed up against the wall, a bloody mess on the cement floor and wall behind him, his revolver by his side. Gunner and Puck sat, forlorn, one either side of him.
Gunner came to Kate and sniffed her hand. She patted him out of habit, without looking. Above her father’s body, blood and grey tissue were splattered across the wall at head height. He must have been standing when he pulled the trigger. Her father’s face was intact, but his skin was grey and his eyes and mouth open. His moleskin trousers were clean too, his plaited leather belt and his beloved boots wrenchingly familiar. At his shoulders, blood seeped up from the floor, climbing the fibres of his shirt.
‘Help me move him. Away from the wall,’ Kate instructed. She didn’t recognise her voice. She picked up one boot, the leather soft with polish, and waited for Grimes to take the other. But he stood, for once at a loss.
‘Help. Help me,’ she said again.
Together they pulled him by his boots towards the centre of the shed floor, his head leaving a bright red trail behind it, his arms out wide like a crucifix. Kate picked up his right arm, and gasped. His skin was warm to the touch. He could not have been dead long. She did not cry. Not yet. When she moved both arms to rest them by his body, the hands fell open awkwardly. She tried to put his hands right, but they wouldn’t stay. Her heart pounded in her chest and she was breathing heavily, panicking at his hands and feet awry.
‘I’ll do this,’ Grimes said. ‘Go to the house.’
Kate shook her head. ‘Want to,’ she managed.
She looked at Grimes across her father’s body and tried to slow her breathing to speak. ‘Get a —’ she stopped to breathe and tried again ‘— a … a sheet off the line.’
Grimes left, and she stood, not knowing where to look, not sure what to do. Gunner licked her hand again and lay back down beside Puck. She lowered herself onto the floor and sat cross-legged next to her father’s chest. She held his hand in her own, accustomed now to its odd warmth.
When Grimes got back with the sheet, they draped it over her father’s body, his boots extending from the end. Blood from the floor seeped upwards into the stark white.
‘Ring the Tuites,’ she said, and Grimes left again. The Tuites. She felt removed, as if she were asleep or dreaming. She could see things – her father’s body, the dogs forlorn and silent next to him – but she could not understand them. She remembered feeling this same shock after her mother passed away. She took up her father’s hand again. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said to him. Death swirled round her; both her parents were lost.
‘Signora.’ Luca stood in the doorway and his hands went to his mouth when he saw her father’s body. He stepped forward and pulled the sheet, covering the boots and tucking in the corners. Then he held out his hands to help Kate up.
‘Now you go, Signora,’ he said. She rose clumsily, smoothing her skirt by habit when she stood. Blood had seeped into her corduroy skirt, and the damp material hung about her, blotted like butcher’s paper. ‘Signora,’ he said and touched her arm. ‘Sorry,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Sorry for your papá.’ He wrapped his arms about her, and held her. She leaned into him, wanting his comfort. His smell filled her nostrils, dust and sweat and oil. A good smell. She buried her face into his neck and the tears came.
‘Go,’ Luca said again. She moved slowly, her limbs heavy.
‘Tuite’s —’ Grimes stopped when he saw them, and Luca released her, holding her up as she staggered, her legs unsteady.
‘Tuite’s on his way,’ Grimes said, looking not at Kate but at Luca.
Kate nodded, her cheeks now wet with tears. For the first time, she noticed blood on Grimes’s blue shirt. Holding the doorframe for support, she went out into blurry sunlight.
She got herself back to the house by holding onto the fence. She went to her father’s room, then to the office, half-searching for a note. But everything was as it should be, as if he’d gone across to the poddy lambs and he’d be back in a minute.
In the kitchen, she looked about in a haze. There was drying up on the sink drainer. She took up one of the plates and pulled open the kitchen cabinet to put it away. Instead, she knocked the plate against the counter, smashing it, pieces falling to the floor. A broken piece in her hand, Kate stood, staring at the others about her. She squatted, gathering pieces into her bloody lap, but when she got up, they fell across the floor, shattering anew.
This must be shock; she knew that. She dropped into a kitchen chair.
Brandy. Brandy was for shock. She got herself up again and went to the dining room, with one hand on the wall to steady her, and took the brandy bottle out of the sideboard.
She spilled the tea-coloured fluid into a glass, took a breath and drank it down, the taste harsh like disinfectant in her mouth. It burned her throat and she spluttered, coughing some of it into and out of her nose.
Gasping for breath, she willed herself to keep it down long enough to take the picture of her father’s body and the bright red wall out of her head. She closed her eyes as her tears came.
Kate knew why he’d done it. He was afraid of harming her. With a deep moan, she lowered her head onto the table and began to wail like the Aboriginal women when they lost one of their own. Through her agony, she knew people would come soon: the Tuites, the police, the neighbours, the CWA ladies, all the silent workers, helpers. She didn’t want them, not yet. She sat up and dragged a tea towel off the hook by the stove. Her elbows on the table, she crumpled it into a wad and pressed her face into it to muffle her lament.
When they came, she was asleep, her head on the table. She lifted her painful head and cleared her throat to get the bad taste out of her mouth. Her voice was gone. ‘Coming,’ she tried again, the words soft and dry in her mouth. The chair screeched back hard along the floor as she stood.
Wetting her face in the kitchen sink, she put the brandy bottle in the kitchen cupboard, inhaled and went out the door onto the verandah.
Two policemen stood on the lawn – Wingnut and a young one she didn’t know.
‘Can we come up, Mrs Dowd?’ Wingnut asked, coming anyway. He was followed by the other one. The younger man didn’t look at her, his eyes on her bloodied skirt.
‘Sorry about ya father,’ Wingnut said. He meant it. ‘This here’s Constable Hartwell. We’ll do this quick as we can for yez. Orright?’