by Joy Rhoades
She nodded.
Wingnut flipped open a tiny notebook and took a pencil stub from its spiral. Kate reached out to a verandah upright to steady herself.
‘Ya wanna take a load off?’ He frowned at her over his notebook.
She lowered herself into one of the verandah chairs. Somewhere in the garden, a rainbow lorikeet shrieked. Daisy’s lorikeets.
‘Tuites are there now. With Old Grimesy,’ Wingnut said.
She swallowed hard and willed herself not to cry. ‘I drank some brandy,’ she said.
‘How much?’ Wingnut asked.
‘A glass.’
‘Righty-ho.’ He grinned and then thought better of it. ‘Another half tonight going to bed, I reckon. Do ya good. Now, I gotta ask ya some things, orright, Mrs Dowd?’ He licked his pencil lead, his eyes on his notebook. ‘When did you last see your father alive?’
‘This —’ Kate tried, and this time some words came out. ‘Today, early. About eight.’ She stared at her hands in her lap, thinking of leaving him this morning. What had she said to him? She couldn’t remember.
‘Before yez went to town?’
‘Yes.’
‘And yez found im just after eleven?’
She nodded, brushing a fly away from her mouth.
‘Any note?’
‘What?’
‘No … er, no note, or anything from him in the house?’
‘No.’
‘Insurance, Mrs Dowd?’ Wingnut asked.
‘What?’
‘Did ya father have insurance?’
‘You mean for the sheds? No. Doesn’t – didn’t – believe in it.’
‘What about for himself? Life insurance?’
‘No,’ she snorted, as he would have done.
‘Orright.’ Wingnut snapped the notebook shut and looked meaningfully at his offsider. ‘Accident probly. Cleaning his revolver. Whatcha reckon, Constable?’
Hartwell went pink, unaccustomed to the attention. It was Wingnut who should be blushing. Her father had been handling guns since he was a teenager. The idea of an accident was ludicrous. Kate knew what Wingnut was doing, leaving a door open, saving her father’s reputation. She should be grateful but she didn’t seem to care.
‘We both know what happened, Constable. Do what you have to.’
‘Condolences again, Mrs Dowd.’ He held out his hand to Kate, and she stood, taking it in her own. Then the policeman’s eyes went to their hands, hers covered in dry blood.
‘I’ll tell Dr King,’ Wingnut said. ‘Don’t believe we’ll need an inquest.’
She was grateful for that.
Ted Tuite, the undertaker, came across the lawn. ‘Mrs Dowd,’ he said, nodding a greeting. He spoke gently, as if she were ill. ‘Sorry about your father. Can I send my wife out? She’ll get the clothes for ya dad. Orright?’
‘I can manage.’
He looked doubtful. ‘Well, it’s easier, that’s all. For someone else to get em.’
‘No. I’ll be all right. I’ll ask Grimes to bring them to you.’
But still he looked concerned. ‘Funeral’ll be Friday arvo, if that’s orright. The reverend reckons e can do a two o’clock service.’
She felt dizzy, and sat down. ‘At two? Yes. Good.’ She got herself up and off to the kitchen door, where she turned and half-waved. Ted Tuite was watching her closely, so she went on into the kitchen.
Inside, she dropped into a chair and breathed deeply. She threw down the dregs of the brandy from the dirty glass. That made her feel better and worse. She had to fight not to cough.
Constable Hartwell’s voice carried in from outside. ‘Ruddy amazing. All that flesh, and his dogs didn’t have a go at it.’
She let it pass. They would leave soon.
‘Poor old bugger. It’s the money, ya know. He owes alotta money.’
There was no more talk. She heard a car door slam, engines firing. After a bit, she went onto the front verandah and watched them go, the police car travelling slowly, followed by the undertaker’s with her father’s body. She was glad her father would be buried on the place. He’d be home again soon.
CHAPTER 29
In the event that a lamb will not be delivered, it is the duty of the woolgrower to act promptly, to minimise the ewe’s distress, and put her quickly from this world.
THE WOOLGROWER’S COMPANION, 1906
The gauze door banged at half-past three that afternoon, and Harry came into the kitchen. Kate had been waiting for him, and there he was, his shirt untucked, one sock up, and his school case partway on his back.
She sat at the kitchen table, her hands around a mug of cold tea. ‘Harry,’ she said, greeting him.
‘Can I’ve some milk?’
She didn’t move. She hoped Grimes had not told him about her father. Better that she did it.
‘Please,’ he added.
She got up, took his case and hung it by its strap behind the back door. ‘Run along and wash your hands, first.’ Her voice sounded unfamiliar, like overhearing a person in another room.
Harry washed his hands in the kitchen sink and then wiped them and his mouth on the tea towel. He dropped himself onto one of the kitchen chairs as she put a glass of milk in front of him and held out the open bikkie tin. ‘Just one.’
His hand hovered while he identified the largest. Then she sat opposite him, putting the lid on the tin in front of her. He looked disappointed.
‘You can have a second. But finish the one you have first.’
He banged his foot against the table leg. Thump, thump, thump.
‘Don’t bang.’ She was surprised when he stopped. It didn’t make it any easier to tell him, his being so good.
‘Harry —’
‘Ya pop’s carked it,’ he said matter-of-factly.
Kate nodded.
‘Too bad.’
‘Too bad,’ she agreed. She swallowed hard.
‘Who’s gunna tell Dais?’ he asked.
It hadn’t occurred to Kate.
‘But Rusty’ll be orright now,’ Harry said.
‘Rusty?’
‘Yeah. Your old man’ll look after im.’
‘He will. He’ll look after him.’ Kate heard herself exhale in the quiet kitchen and found herself pushing her nails into her palms to stop herself from crying.
Early the next morning, Kate stirred at first light, tired but relieved to give up the fakery of near-sleeplessness. She felt across the cold floor with her toes for her slippers, pulled on her dressing gown and went through the silent house to a dark kitchen. Still drowsy, she followed her routine: teapot onto the counter, tea leaves into the pot, two mugs from the cupboard. Then she put the second mug back. It occurred to her it was only Tuesday. The funeral, on Friday, seemed a very long way off.
At the kitchen table, she looked at the lone mug in front of her, waiting for its tea. A hairline crack ran from the lip to its base, and she thought of her father’s habit of snapping a cracked plate in two.
The gauze door banged. It was Meg, in her riding gear. She came to Kate, knelt and wrapped her arms about her. She pulled a kitchen chair up to hold her again, and Kate cried into her friend’s shoulder.
‘Dad already sent a telegram to Jack for you. Yesterday.’
‘Gosh.’ Kate hadn’t even thought of Jack. ‘Thank you.’
‘Dad says the Army won’t let him come home for it, you know, for all the time it’ll take to get here and back for the funeral.’
‘Oh,’ Kate said weakly, yet she felt relief. The last thing she wanted was to be someone’s wife. She just wanted to grieve.
‘Anyone else to tell? Apart from Jack?’
Kate shook her head again. ‘Mum and Dad were onlys. Like me.’ Maybe she was the last of the line.
‘Cheer up. You’re not dead yet,’ Meg said, then put a hand to her mouth in alarm. ‘Sorry. Trying to make you laugh.’
Kate turned the corners of her mouth up against their will. ‘No worries. Any news of Robbo?’
‘Well, they reckon he’s alive.’
‘Oh! Thank God!’
Meg hugged her again. ‘Only just, but. We’ll have to see what he looks like, poor bugger. Home in a couple of weeks.’ She got herself some tea and they sat, silent in the still kitchen, her hand resting on Kate’s wrist on the table. It was a relief to have Meg there, and not to have to say anything. In due course, Meg made more tea and refilled the bikkie tin with a batch she’d brought with her. ‘From Mum,’ she said. ‘She’ll be over too, of course.’ She looked at her watch. ‘You gunna be all right? Want me to come and stay?’
‘No. But thanks. I’ll be OK. Really.’
Meg hugged her again, her curls soft against Kate’s face, before she went out. Later, Kate heard voices in the garden and went to the sink. Outside, Meg was with Luca, her head down. Luca. In the morning. He must have come to check on her. Meg wiped her nose on her sleeve, and Luca patted her arm. Even in the fog of her grief, Kate felt a lurch of jealousy, and then relief, as Meg climbed onto Fiva and moved off.
Kate sat in the silence of the house, sipping cold tea from the cracked mug. When she tried to eat some bread, it was tasteless in her mouth. She gave up, did the dishes and went to get dressed. She should go out lambing. Pathetically, she couldn’t do that yet. She didn’t think she could face the men, even Luca.
Mid-morning, she heard a car come up out of the gully. She put aside the list of local people she needed to notify of her father’s death, and went to look at the unknown car. The driver parked a long way back from the fence. A townie, for sure. A little sparrow-like woman got out, much too small for the big car. It was Iris Tuite, wife of the undertaker. She flitted across the dead lawn to the house, and made no noise crossing the verandah either.
‘Hullo, dearie. I’ve come, you know, to help.’
Mrs Tuite took the kettle to the sink to fill it. She smelled of cigarette smoke. ‘Shall I choose his clothes, dearie?’
‘No. I will.’
‘Sure?’
‘Sure.’
‘Orright. I’ll be right here if ya need a hand. Choose what he’d wear for a trip to town.’
She was glad in the end that Ted Tuite had sent his wife. That made Kate go to her father’s room. She stopped outside, steeling herself to go in, then pushed open the door. She drew in a breath at the shock of her father’s familiar smell.
Forcing herself to breathe, she got herself under control. Things her father would wear to town? It was good advice. She would like him to be buried looking respectable.
It took her a while. From the cupboard, she took her father’s best white shirt and wool tie. She found her cheeks wet with tears.
She took his good jacket as well and a pair of moleskin trousers. She’d send some boot polish into town, too. He’d want them clean. Hanging the trousers, shirt and jacket on a coat hanger, she folded the tie into the outside coat pocket and carried everything to the kitchen.
Mrs Tuite was at the sink, drying up. The smell of scones had come from nowhere, too.
Kate hooked the hanger over the doorknob. ‘All here. I’ll just get some polish.’ In the laundry, she shifted the rags off the tins of Kiwi. One was heavy in her hand. She sucked in a gasp as something small and round dropped out of the fabric and onto the floor.
‘You orright, dearie?’
It was just a shoe brush, nothing more.
‘Yes. I’m fine.’ Kate put the brush back with the shoe-cleaning things and took a tin of polish into the kitchen.
Afterwards, Kate watched Mrs Tuite leave, cradling her father’s clothes as if she carried a sleeping child. At the car, Mrs Tuite bent over to lay the clothes on the backseat, disappearing from view. She stayed there, out of sight, for a second. Then she came flitting back across the dead lawn to the house, a small piece of paper in her hand.
‘It were in his inside pocket, dearie,’ Mrs Tuite said, holding the paper, puffing slightly.
Kate smiled her thanks. The woman stayed, wanting her to look. So she opened the little bit of paper. INVOICE – H.K.J. McGintey & Sons. Fine Jewellery and Chattels ran in large letters across the top. Then Kate gasped. Uncut yellow sapphire 30.24 carats. Price: £6,250, it read, in Mr McGintey’s spidery hand.
CHAPTER 30
Unlike his shepherds, a sheep will move more readily uphill than down.
THE WOOLGROWER’S COMPANION, 1906
‘There’s nothing else in the pockets, Mrs Tuite? Nothing at all?’
The woman shook her bird’s head. ‘You should look, too, dearie.’
She took Kate’s arm and they went back to the car, Kate fighting an urge to run there. Mrs Tuite held up the jacket, and with shaking hands Kate rifled through the pockets. Then she went through the trouser pockets, turning the first inside out, the white cotton lining bright in the sunshine. She went over every inch of the coat and trousers twice. Nothing.
‘Sorry, dearie,’ Mrs Tuite said, and laid a featherweight hand across her shoulder. ‘Might help to go to church in a while.’
‘What?’
‘You might want to go. Do you a power of good.’ She gave a little wave and was gone.
Kate watched her go; her head was full of the missing sapphire, not church. Had her father taken the stone and receipt somewhere while wearing his jacket? Or was the receipt just in there from when he bought the stone in Sydney? She could not guess. Mr McGintey had said ‘about £6,000’ and he’d been right. If she could find it she could pay off the damn overdraft. Even in her grief, she cared about Amiens.
Late that Tuesday morning, Kate heard another car coming up out of the gully. It was Reverend Popliss. Mr Popliss, she recalled. He’d corrected her once. She went out to the fence, hoping to stop him from coming in, but he probably wanted a cup of tea after the nineteen-mile drive from town on a dirt road.
He wore his dog collar with a suit, yet looked unclothed without his long black robes. Squinting into the weak sun, he shook her hand over the fence. ‘My condolences to you, Mrs Dowd. I’m sorry that your loved one has passed away.’
‘My father,’ she said, correcting him. He must have used the same phrase all the time. Raw, Kate tried not to dislike him for it.
‘Yes. Now. The funeral arrangements. I’m sure you understand, I like to go over things with the family early.’ He looked at the chairs on the verandah.
She ignored him. Grief had made her brave or rude, or both.
‘Friday at two for the service. Mr Tuite tells me that suits you, which is marvellous.’
A marvellous time for a funeral. She hadn’t thought of it like that.
‘Mr Grimes, Ted Tuite, and his boys will be the bearers?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Yes.’ He paused again and looked at the verandah. ‘So, to the eulogy. You’ll write something out for me?’
‘For you?’
‘As your husband won’t be here, and with no other men in the family, I’ll give the eulogy on your behalf.’
Ladies didn’t speak in public. But her father had thought the reverend an idiot and it offended Kate that he would give the eulogy.
‘Also, I’m afraid I must mention the charge for the service. It’s a guinea. You’ll not forget?’
Kate started to speak. He cut her off.
‘But if it’s a problem, Mrs Dowd, don’t be concerned at all. All right?’
She was silenced by his unexpected kindness.
‘I’ll bring the money. But thank you.’
‘All shipshape then. Until Friday.’
Not long after the minister had gone, she heard another car. It was Mrs Yorke, Meg’s mother, come to see if she could help. Kate made more tea.
She followed the same pattern all that day Tuesday and Wednesday too, as callers arrived and went. Mrs Riley, Meg again, even Elizabeth Fleming. They came quietly, gently, bearing kind but unwanted cakes and scones and bikkies, each wanting to comfort. Their kindness overwhelmed her.
On Wednesday afternoon, in a lull, Kate made he
rself sit at her father’s desk to write the eulogy, fighting back tears at the job ahead. She had to do it, but it was the first time she’d been in his office since … since it happened. The room was musty, the desk cluttered. To get some air through, she pushed open one of the verandah doors and propped it with the doorstop.
She had to get a grip. Carefully, she moved letters and bills aside. The desk in some sort of order, Kate tried to think how to start. It was not easy, the writing, knowing it would be Popeless who spoke these words. It made her angry to think of it. Popeless be damned, her father would have said. Then it struck her. She would give her father’s eulogy; she would. Her pique evaporated fast. How could she speak in front of all those people? She’d had the same fear at ten when she had to do a lecturette for school. She’d practised it over and over, to the wisterias, to the dogs and to her mum. Only she didn’t have as much time to practise this, and she didn’t have her mother to help. She wished her mother were alive. She felt a sudden anger then with both of her parents, leaving her so young and with such a mess of the money. She inhaled and picked up her pencil.
Ralph Francis Stimson was … Maybe she didn’t even need to say that? Of course they’d know who he was. She rubbed that out. A big gust of wind hit the house, and the verandah door she’d opened blew shut with a bang. Kate got up and propped the door open again, and stopped to look out across Amiens. Her father must have stood here a thousand times surveying his land, this land that owned him. She didn’t know how to do him justice.
She sat again at the desk for more than an hour, writing, rubbing out, writing again. Finally, she sat back, staring at the pieces of paper in her hand. It would have to do. With her hat in hand, she went into the garden to try out the speech on the jacaranda tree.
Under the jacaranda, a perfume hung about her, the soft scent of the wisteria blossom from the trellis, sprays of white flowers on one end, mauve at the other from the vines planted on either side. Kate had some listeners outside the fence, Gunner and Puck. Puck was patrolling, sniffing, exploring. Gunner lay on his side, soaking up the warmth of the spring sun. He moved to lie closer to Kate, and she read out what she’d written, trying hard to remember to be loud enough.