by Joy Rhoades
Into gear. Release clutch.
She had a sudden terror that she’d have to ask for help, and all of Longhope would know she couldn’t cope.
Handbrake!
She released the brake and the car shot onto the road.
Her drive home was slow and again she had to pull off the single lane of bitumen three times to let other vehicles overtake. Addison’s rejection weighed on her. For one of the first times since she’d learned about the debt on Amiens, she had no plan.
Late that morning, as she walked from the car to the homestead, she felt a sense of relief to be home, taking comfort from the familiarity of the garden, the rattle of the breeze through the trees, the screech of Daisy’s lorikeets, but she felt a keen sense, too, that Addison would take it all from her. There was no one about. The men were already out in the paddocks and it was too late to get Vittorio to catch a horse for her.
She turned to her chores, washing the floors, but found it difficult to concentrate. She mopped, restless, wishing the afternoon would pass so Luca would come to the garden. Her thoughts kept going back to the bank. Addison was crazy. Stopping her from depositing the cheque in Longhope?
That was it! He had stopped her in Longhope. But Addison only controlled the bank in this district. She had to go beyond, to a branch that didn’t report to him. So to Armidale – Armidale was big. And far. Four hours’ drive, more for Kate. She’d not get there today before the bank closed at three. She’d go early tomorrow.
She was pouring water from the mop bucket across the verandah when she heard a car. They must have a visitor. Up out of the crossing, came a police car, and another. Addison. He would try to seize Amiens now. She took the bucket inside, forcing herself to be calm.
The noise of a car door shutting filtered in. She pulled the cheque from its hiding place in her wardrobe and went back to the kitchen. She straightened herself up as she’d seen Daisy do at the Home, and went out onto the verandah.
Wingnut stood with Addison just in front of the steps on the dead lawn. The police car, empty, was parked next to Addison’s Hudson. And behind the two, mercifully, the Amiens truck was coming to a stop, with Ed and Luca aboard. Luca would give her courage.
Kate went to the top of the steps, staying on the verandah, above the men. ‘Afternoon, Sergeant. Mr Addison.’
‘Mrs Dowd.’ Wingnut touched the brim of his police hat with his fingers, his big ears hidden inside the band. He frowned as he unfolded a letter. ‘I, ah, I gotta do this, see, Mrs D.’ He threw a look at Addison, who stood straight, hands clasped behind his back, a small leather briefcase at his feet on the dead lawn. Wingnut exhaled and read, ‘Are you Mrs Katherine Louise Dowd, individual and director of Amiens Pastoral Company?’
‘Yes.’ Her voice was barely audible.
‘I am authorised in my capacity as Sheriff of Longhope’ – he threw another unhappy look at Addison – ‘to serve upon you this court order to quit and vacate the property known as Amiens, in the District of Longhope, New South Wales. You have here’ – he stumbled over the wording – ‘hereto failed to pay and are also … here—hereby directed to pay the amount of —’ he paused ‘the amount of £6,052 … to the Rural Bank of New South Wales of 202 Elizabeth Street, Sydney. You have failed to tender payment or other security acceptable to the bank —’
‘But I have the overdraft money. More than £6,000. I found the sapphire,’ Kate said. ‘And I sold it.’ She took the cheque from her pocket, and held it out to them.
Wingnut’s eyes locked onto the cheque. He gave a low whistle. ‘Ya better have a gander at that, mate.’
‘Serve the court order, Sergeant,’ Addison said.
Kate went down the steps. ‘Dad bought a sapphire for me in Sydney. Years ago. It was thirty carats. I just sold it and now I have the money for the bank.’ She held out the cheque, though her fingers shook. ‘And shearing’s in a month. There’ll be the wool cheque for you then too.’
‘Get on with it,’ Addison snapped at the policeman.
‘Well, now, we gotta do things by the book. The lady’s “tendered payment”, I reckon. With this?’
‘No she hasn’t. It’s not payment.’ Addison tugged at his moustache with his fingers. He still didn’t look at Kate.
‘Cheque’s even made out to ya bank, Adders,’ Wingnut said mildly. Kate blessed her foresight in getting Meg to have Mr McGintey do that.
‘I’m telling you to get on with it,’ Addison said. ‘The secured assets are in jeopardy.’
‘The secured assets are in …?’ Wingnut said. He looked about, as if this jeopardy might reveal itself.
‘Go ahead, man!’
The policeman pulled off his hat, freeing his ears. They stood out now, like unfolded butterfly wings. ‘Well, the Sheriff’s Office can’t be lockin people out of their homes if the paperwork’s not in order. I can only see a cheque, m’self. Nothin else. So I betta have that from you in writin, eh? If y’gunna say no t’the cheque, I mean.’
‘Look,’ Addison said, annoyed now. ‘Sergeant. You … If you must … I’ll hand-write you a notice now.’ He squatted beside his briefcase and started to flick through it, looking for paper.
The policeman watched him, and spoke slowly. ‘’Cept I can’t take anythin handwritten. Not for the bank.’
‘Of course you can. You know me.’
Wingnut shook his head. ‘Sorry, mate. I need a proper letter on the bank’s notepaper. Gotta be by the book.’ He folded the notice and held it out to the bank manager.
Addison glared at him.
‘Y’better take that cheque, too, eh.’
Addison’s face flushed with anger. ‘I will not be told what to do by a policeman!’
‘Orright, mate, orright. Only, lady’s got a cheque, see. Got your name on it. And she owes ya money. So if ya don’t take it, I reckon your bank’s not gunna be too happy.’
Still Addison would not accept the cheque.
‘And if ya don’t take the cheque, you’ll need to get another order from the Court too, mebbe? Magistrate’s in town first Friday of the month, I reckon. November now, eh? Just before shearin. An I’ll come along. Let the magistrate know what I seen.’
Kate held her breath. Addison’s face was puce. He snatched the court order from the policeman, and then the cheque from Kate’s hand. He turned on his heel for the gate, ignoring Ed and Luca.
They watched the car roar down the track into the crossing.
‘He’d best slow down there …’ Wingnut said, then winced as the car’s transmission bottomed on the rocks, ‘… else ya rip the guts out of it, eh.’ He scratched his ear again, and levered it back inside his hat.
‘Thank you.’ It was all Kate could get out.
‘No worries, Mrs D,’ he said.
‘Can you … Can you stay for a cup of tea?’
‘Nuh. Thanks but I gotta get goin.’ He went towards the fence and his vehicle. ‘Afternoon, gents,’ he said to Luca and Ed as he passed. ‘Good luck, eh, Mrs D,’ he called back.
It was over. Wingnut had stopped Addison, and Kate said many more silent thank yous to the policeman as his vehicle disappeared into the gully in a cloud of dust.
CHAPTER 39
It appears great pain in lambing may inhibit mothering instinct, at least for a time. Men of science have established a correlation of sorts between the length and difficulty of the birth, and the time a ewe will lie prone thereafter.
THE WOOLGROWER’S COMPANION, 1906
A currawong called out from the California pine, startling Kate. She had not dreamed it. Amiens was saved. With Ed and Luca still in front of her, Kate dropped herself onto the verandah steps, feeling the warmth of the stone through her joddies.
‘Mrs D?’ Ed said.
‘What?’ Kate was distracted, still taking in that Addison had been routed.
‘Can I’ve a word?’ Ed pulled his hat off his head and looked at it. ‘I … Ah …’
Kate came out of her daze. Please, please let Ed n
ot be leaving. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
‘It’s Daisy, Mrs D.’
There was a pause as Kate took that in. ‘Daisy?’ she said. ‘Has she had her baby?’
‘Nuh. But she run away, see, from that bugger of a Home in Armidale.’
‘How do you know?’
Ed frowned, uncomfortable. ‘She’s here.’
‘On Amiens? Right now?’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘She walked from town.’
‘She walked? It’s nineteen miles. Is she all right?’
‘Yeah. She wants to hide the baby, see. Otherwise, they’ll take it for adoption. An she wants to have it on country. That’s blackfella talk for the right land. That’s Amiens.’
‘On country? Isn’t that Broken Hill then, where she’s from?’
‘She’d never get there. She’s due in a coupla weeks.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Down near the Abo camp.’
‘With Johnno and Spinks?’
He laughed. ‘No. Only women allowed for the birthin.’
Kate inhaled. ‘We’re lucky Wingnut didn’t know she was here – but the police’ll catch her, you know. Eventually.’
‘Yeah. Probly. Can she stay, but?’
Kate weighed this in her mind. If Daisy was caught on Amiens, the locals would be convinced Kate was as loony as her father, or that she’d gone native. But with his death, many probably thought that anyway. Kate bitterly regretted sending Daisy back to that Home. And for now, Amiens was safe from the bank.
‘She can stay,’ she said. ‘Of course.’
Ed nodded, relieved. She understood his surprise. She wouldn’t have said yes six months earlier, but things were different now. ‘Do you think she’d be willing to talk to me? I’d like to see how she is.’
Ed shook his head. ‘Aw, I’d let it go for now, eh, Mrs D.’
‘Does she need anything? Has she got enough food?’
‘Johnno’s keepin damper up to her. She’s gettin bush tucker too.’
‘I’ll get you a loaf of bread for her, and some jam and bikkies. But be careful, won’t you? Grimes’ll dob her in to the police if he gets wind of this. And how will she have the baby? Who’ll help her?’
‘The Auntys from the Mission’ll come. Aunty Nance and so on.’
‘She’s not really Daisy’s aunt, though? She can’t be.’
‘The old girls? They’re all called Aunty, the whole lot of em. Aunty Nance is orright – I hear them women stick together, eh. Aunty Nance is one of em who does the birthin, and Dais seen a few bein born, too. Growin up.’
Heavens. Imagine a child seeing a baby come into the world. Kate knew nothing about birth apart from what she had learned in lambing. All this information rolled round in her head. Daisy was lucky she had Ed. ‘You’re right to help her.’
‘Yeah. Ta, Mrs D.’
Kate stood on the verandah and watched the truck trundle away. From the passenger seat, Luca gave her a lazy wave, with a broad smile of something. Of what? Then it struck her. Pride. Luca was proud of her.
Early the next morning, as Kate headed for the chooks, she saw someone moving along the creek bed. In among the myalls and the red gums, just before the ground fell away behind into the sandy dirt of the dry bed, was Daisy, standing, holding a stout walking pole, watching her. She had her future before her, Kate’s mother would have said, her belly round and high.
Kate gave a sort of half-wave across the hundred yards that separated them. Daisy was still, watching. She must have been heading to get an egg too. Now she probably wouldn’t, not with Kate there. So Kate would be quick, she decided. She walked on to the chooks, checked for the waddy on her way in, then did the rounds. She got three eggs, the last just laid, warm in her hand. Coming out of the run, she looked at the spot where she’d seen Daisy at the edge of the creek. The girl was gone.
‘Here, Missus,’ a voice said, and Kate turned.
Daisy was sitting on a dead tree trunk, on its side in among the fallen trees between the creek and the chook run. She got to her feet, putting her weight on the pole for support. Kate went to her. Overhead, a family of galahs shrieked, chiacking from one tree to the next, filling the silence.
‘You all right, Daisy?’
‘Yeah, Missus.’
She was different from the girl Kate had last seen five months before. Big with the baby, of course, and wary of Kate. That was fair enough.
‘You should stay. To have the baby,’ Kate said.
‘Yeah.’
She held out the eggs. ‘Please. You have them.’
Daisy looked at her, her face unreadable. She didn’t take the eggs. Kate swallowed. She leaned down and placed the eggs, one by one, in the dead grass at the edge of the track. ‘They’re for you. Please.’ She walked away and left the girl, afraid to look back, but with every step she felt an almost physical pain. She knew now she cared so much for Daisy, and felt for her, for the hand she had been dealt. If Kate could undo the months since the young girl had arrived, she would.
CHAPTER 40
A sheep separated from its flock will panic, for it thrives, not unlike its human shepherds, only in the safety and comfort of the herd.
THE WOOLGROWER’S COMPANION, 1906
In the two days after Addison was seen off, and Daisy had arrived, Kate felt off kilter. Perhaps it was natural, she told herself as she went about her work. All those months with the fear of the bank taking Amiens? Now that her fear was gone, there would be some shock, surely, some adjustment. And there was Daisy. Ed seemed unworried by the impending birth. Kate was not.
The second afternoon, when she went into the garden, she didn’t have the patience for light work. Instead, she had a go at the yellow trumpet vine that was now, despite the drought, spreading tentacles along the pipe that connected the roof to the tank. She took the ladder to the tank stand, dragging it round from the lean-to and across the dead lawn, propping it against the tank, shifting its feet about until it felt stable against the curve of the corrugated iron.
The ladder stayed put on the tank as she climbed, one careful rung at a time. From the top, she could see over the shrubs running along the fence line. On the other side, only forty feet away or so, the truck was pulled up in front of the shed, with its bonnet up, hiding Grimes’s head as he worked, the sound of metal on metal. The heavy shed hose snaked out from the building, across the track, filling the trough for the bigger poddy lambs.
Kate got to work, clipping and pulling, pruning in an arc from her perch. When Luca came in through the gate, she waved at him from above.
‘All right, Signora?’ He put a hand on the ladder to steady it. ‘I get clippers.’ He glanced at the ladder and then disappeared briefly.
‘Down now, Signora?’ He waved his clippers up at her; he wanted to switch places.
‘I’m almost finished. And it’s pretty stable.’
He frowned and stayed put, clipping, always within an arm’s length of the ladder. She went back to her work but out of the corner of her eye she saw a bicycle come up out of the gully. Vittorio. He rode across the house paddock up towards the shed, where Grimes was working on the truck. He had a bag hung from each of the bike’s handlebars, and he cycled along the track, one hand holding a cigarette, the other steering.
‘It’ll be done soon,’ Kate said to Luca at her feet. ‘I tell you, really, you don’t have to stay near the ladder.’ But he did, and Kate went back to her cutting.
A noise made her look up. Now just past the truck, Vittorio had blown a raspberry at Grimes, loud and long.
Grimes swore at him and the sound carried into the garden.
‘What do this?’ Luca asked. The tankstand blocked his view. From atop the ladder Kate could see everything.
‘Vittorio —’ she started to explain, glancing down. But the dogs barked beyond the shed and there was another shout. Suddenly, Vittorio and his bike were on the ground at Grimes’s feet, the heavy hose out of the trough, water running across t
he ground.
Vittorio got out from under the bike, wet patches on his trousers, brushing the dirt off his bag.
‘C’mon, ya little dago,’ Kate heard Grimes say. He dropped the hammer and, fists up, waved the POW to fight. ‘Ya blew off at me, you pansy?’ When Vittorio didn’t move, Grimes gave him a shove and he stumbled backwards, still clutching his bag.
Gunner arrived, barking, confused.
‘You’d better go over, Luca,’ Kate said, and he went.
‘What’s in the bloody bag?’ Grimes yelled. He grabbed at it with his left hand, and threw a punch with his right, landing it on Vittorio’s chest.
‘Stop it!’ Kate shouted. Grimes didn’t turn.
He threw another punch and Vittorio fell backwards onto the bike. Kate came down the ladder, jumping from the last rungs, and ran for the gate, throwing her clippers onto the lawn. When she came round the shrubs, Luca held his clippers in front of him like a knife. Behind him, Vittorio was on all fours, a cut bleeding above his eye. Luca and Grimes circled.
‘Stop!’ Kate yelled.
Grimes picked up his hammer and threw it hand to hand, his face red. ‘You got your eyes on some skirt, you little wanker Canali? Wanna do time like that other bastard?’
Luca moved with him, ready, wary, the veins in his arms bulging as he gripped the open clippers in his hand. Grimes lunged at him with the hammer, but Luca swerved and got behind him, grabbing him round the neck with one arm, holding the clipper blades to his chest with the other. Grimes dropped the hammer but pulled at Luca’s wrist, wrenching it off his chest. Grimes punched, fast and hard, up and over his shoulder at Luca’s nose, and the clippers fell away. Free of Luca’s lock, Grimes grabbed for a fistful of shirt and held on, landing another punch, but the shirt ripped, freeing Luca, revealing the deep scars across his chest. The two men circled again, and Grimes lunged another punch at the POW.