The crowd parted and Deirdre stepped onto the boards. She took a step. A step. A step. Head up. Eyes front. Mrs Beswick’s gaze burning into her, already in her place at the end of the hall.
It was then, as Deirdre took those steps in Windstorm Hall, that it dawned on her. She wasn’t Elizabeth Taylor or Grace Kelly. She wasn’t a traveller or a dressmaker. She was Deirdre McMullan. Whose father was a drunk, whose mother had abandoned her, whose fiance had run off with her sister. And she wasn’t going anywhere.
The eyes of the town were on her; she could feel them looking for a sign she was broken. She had no partner to escort her and she imagined the glances being passed through the crowd. So it’s true. Harry left her. Viv left her too . . . Looking up through the crowd it seemed a very long way to go. A step. Another.
‘Would you take my arm, Deirdre?’ She turned to see Irwin Broderick, face flushed, awkward, standing beside her with his arm proffered. She nodded, then she returned to her task and took another step along the hall.
Sweet queen of gentleness and grace, my heart’s aflame for you . . . The curtsey. She slowly sent her left foot back behind her right and dipped respectfully before the dignitaries.
‘Good evening, Miss McMullan,’ Mrs Beswick said. ‘You look nice this evening.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Beswick. I think everyone looks wonderful this evening.’
Mrs Beswick glanced about at the smiling faces. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘I hear we won’t be seeing Vivian tonight?’
‘No,’ Deirdre whispered. ‘We won’t.’ Mrs Beswick looked like she was considering asking after Harry in an act of gentle malice, then thought the better of it.
‘Well, it’s very nice to see you here, Deirdre,’ she said. ‘I believe you are demonstrating an admirable strength of character.’
Deirdre raised her head a little higher and gritted her teeth to show them she was in charge. She had strength of character. ‘I’m not one to miss a dance, Mrs Beswick.’
Mrs Beswick nodded. ‘And I know you very well, of course, Irwin. Very nice to see you.’
‘Thanks, Mrs Beswick.’
The old lady smiled graciously and they moved down the line and shook hands with Mr and Mrs Kingston.
When the dancing started again something was buzzing about in her mind. She wasn’t sure if it was anxiety or relief, but her hands were trembling as Irwin took her in his arms for the waltz. She had always liked the waltz, although it certainly wasn’t her favourite, as she had once told Viv. If there’s a Boston two-step on, I can canter about like nobody’s business, but a waltz? Too slow to do for long – unless you’re dancing with Harry, of course!
Irwin looked uncertain. She moved him to the left a little and started moving to the tune. He bumbled and moved stiffly with her, heavy footed and slightly out of time. She glanced down at his feet and he took the hint, lifting them a little higher so that it really did hurt when he trod on her foot.
‘Ouch,’ she whispered.
‘Sorry, I’m not much of a dancer, Deirdre.’
She smiled at him and decided she liked the gentleness in his face. ‘Perhaps I can teach you,’ she said.
His expression fell. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Some people are for dancing and poems and music, and some people are for hard work.’
Deirdre McMullan looked up at him as he shuffled around the floor, embarrassed. She settled herself in his arms, not allowing herself to think of anything. His ears were glowing red and his mouth was slightly open in concentration, but his eyes were on hers, and they were kind.
‘I don’t think I’m much of a dancer any more, anyway,’ she murmured.
They moved slowly though the dances like bit players in their own film. The music grew louder and conversation and laughter carried through the air and, as she looked back at the kind but unremarkable face of the man in front of her, Deirdre could feel Elizabeth Taylor collecting her fur stole and leaving the dance floor forever.
Teddy stayed in bed all day and hated herself for it. She found herself listening for Will’s voice in case he came back. She waited for the sound of his car on the drive and at one point thought she heard it. Her heart leapt until it pulled up in front of Deirdre’s house and she recognised Clancy’s bark as she jumped down to greet Dog. Hamish had come for a cup of tea with Deirdre. She pulled the pillow over her head. She wasn’t going to join them. She was sick. She found a squashed, wet tissue and blew her nose. It proved to be one blow too many and the tissue dissolved in her hands, so she wiped her snot and tears on her t-shirt, wondering why she had not yet spontaneously died.
Will was never coming back and she was doomed to spend her life here on the farm. Responsibilities weighed upon her. She had no qualifications to begin a new career and she had no money to start a new life because the farm could never afford to pay her a wage. She was trapped there, buried, just as Will had said, and her grave was getting deeper all the time.
In the late afternoon there was a knock at the door. She burrowed under the covers. It came again. Louder. She ignored it. Eventually she heard Deirdre.
‘Get down, Dog! No, I don’t love you. Get down or I’ll tie you up to the water tank, silly dog!’ The kitchen door opened and she heard Deirdre come inside, pausing as she passed through the kitchen as if she could diagnose the problem. There was a sniff of disapproval and her footsteps proceeded down the hall. Teddy didn’t move. The footsteps came to her open doorway and stopped. Teddy held her breath. Silence, then the footsteps came to her bed and Deirdre sat slowly and heavily upon it.
‘Here you are,’ she said. ‘I’ve been wondering where you were.’ Teddy ignored her. ‘Of course, I’ve been wondering that for years, now,’ she added. ‘But here you are, a good girl.’ She said it with great satisfaction. A good girl, as if she was personally responsible; as if it could have gone either way. She sat there on Teddy’s bed for a while, and Teddy couldn’t tell if she was watching her or staring out the window to the green farm blossoming, to life outside.
‘So. He’s gone,’ she said finally.
Silence.
‘He’s gone and left you here on the farm, eh?’
Teddy rolled away from her to give Deirdre the hint she was busy.
‘As you know, I lost a man once,’ she said. ‘He was everything I wanted. Handsome, charming, clever. He was tall, too – he was so tall next to me. Of course I wasn’t fat like I am now, mind, and I was a pretty young girl once, you know.’
Nothing.
‘He promised me the earth, Teddy. And when he left me, when he betrayed me, I thought I was going to die of heartbreak and shame. Because for the first time in my life I could see myself as everyone else saw me. Unremarkable. Unlovable. He met my sister and forgot all about me. I lost them both on the same day, and I thought I’d die. But I didn’t die. I kept on living, and it turns out, no matter what hardships life throws at us, that’s what we do. Your Aunty Viv was a beauty, Teddy, like you. She would walk into Windstorm Hall and all the men would look, just look at her like she was something magical – and it wasn’t like they hadn’t seen her before, you know! She liked to laugh, but she was a practical woman. No time for silly fancies. She was a good sister to me.’ Deirdre sounded almost begrudging. ‘She was a good sister. Except that she fell in love with the same man I loved, and the pair of them left me here. They ran away to Perth together like thieves in the night and it hurt me for a long time, Teddy, many years. But I had work to do. I had to look after my father, I had to raise my own family. Life happened, darling, and it happened while I was here.’ She sighed. ‘When I was young, I thought I was special. And when I realised who I really was, I was ashamed of thinking I might have been anything more.’ Deirdre sniffed. ‘I’m not the star in some silly movie or novel, dear. I’m just another old woman the world can forget about. I have lived my life. When my heart was broken all those years ago, I suppose I hid myself away from the world. I nursed my father, married a good man, raised a son, and lost them all. And then when I s
aw what happened to you, it broke my heart. I realise I’ve been your dragon, Teddy, here to scare the world away should you wish it. I’m just not sure you wish it any more, my little princess.’
Teddy sat up and saw Deirdre’s eyes were damp. She blinked a couple of times to clear them.
‘Come out and help me dig. Let’s keep busy, eh? Crying doesn’t solve your problems, Teddy Broderick – and I should know, because I’ve tried.’ She stood up and reached out her hand. ‘Come on, my dear, it’s time to get out of bed and back to work again. I won’t let you be one to give up and cry.’
Teddy looked at her outstretched hand and found she couldn’t move. She loved Deirdre with all her heart. She was stern and unforgiving, but she was loving and kind. She glanced out of the window to the bright, shining paddocks beyond the sheep yards, where the crop was almost knee-high. She couldn’t leave the room. If she did it would be as if she had given up on ever leaving the farm. It would be a tacit acceptance that she was there for good. She fell back onto her bed and squeezed her eyes shut against hot tears of frustration. Deirdre sighed heavily and patted her leg.
‘Tomorrow. You’ll dig tomorrow, even though you don’t want to. You’ll dig – for me – because you are a good girl, Teddy Broderick.’ Teddy reached out and grabbed an old t-shirt she was lying on and rubbed it across her face to collect the snot and tears. ‘And you’ll be in charge,’ Deirdre added. ‘It’s your task now.’
She was already off, stamping back up the hallway. ‘Lucky you’ve got a strong back, eh?’ she called out, and Teddy heard the flyscreen slam behind her.
The next morning Teddy struggled outside, pulling her jumper on and hopping into her boots to find Deirdre tending a billy, a newly lit fire and talking to Dog about rabbits.
‘The rotten thing is just under the shearing shed,’ she was saying. ‘I don’t know why you can’t seem to catch it.’ She dropped a mallee root onto the blaze and Dog flicked his ears to be polite. ‘Even I could catch it, Dog, it doesn’t look very quick to me.’
Dog rolled over and huffed. If it was so easy, maybe she should.
‘Morning.’ Teddy sat next to the fire and rubbed her hands together in the warmth.
‘Here she is!’ Deirdre was being uncharacteristically cheerful and it was coming across as weird. ‘The boss is here.’
Teddy winced. ‘Is there any tea?’ she grumbled.
Deirdre shot her a look. ‘You do know you’re in the country?’ she said.
It was a joke. Deirdre was attempting humour. She rolled her eyes at her, and Deirdre handed her a cup of billy tea.
‘Just like your grandad used to make,’ she told her. They sat in merciful silence for a while, as if Teddy had a relationship hangover. Eventually, Deirdre tried again.
‘Now, Teddy, what do you need me to do?’
Teddy chucked the dregs of her tea in the fire, where they hissed and fizzed. ‘I guess we keep digging, Grandma, until we find this bloody vase, eh?’ She stood up and brushed her hands against her jeans to let herself know she was going to work. ‘It’s just going to take us a while, that’s all, with only the two of us.’
Deirdre smiled. ‘I thought you might say that.’
‘Well, I did.’
Deirdre smiled again, which was unusual, and which was also accompanied by the sound of cars coming up the front drive.
‘Oh, here they are now,’ she said with some satisfaction. The cars pulled up in front of Deirdre’s house and Audrey, Lara and Trish climbed out, carrying shovels, cake tins and a plastic bag that looked like it contained some old copies of magazines.
‘Morning!’ Lara called. ‘How’s it all been going?’
Teddy was suddenly shy. Did the girls know what had happened? Could they see she had fallen in love with the wrong man and he had broken her heart?
‘It’s going okay,’ she said. ‘We haven’t solved Deirdre’s mystery though.’ The girls turned to Deirdre, who frowned in disapproval at her personal business becoming the stuff of gossip.
‘It’s no mystery,’ she grumbled. ‘There may be nothing to find, you know.’
Teddy sighed. ‘Then why are we all here?’
‘Cake?’ Trish asked hopefully. Deirdre stepped down into the hole in the ground, and looked about as if she had forgotten they were there.
‘I’m an old woman,’ she said. ‘And I’m not here for much longer. I’m a foolish old thing. I’m charmless and grim – I think I’ve lived out here too long with my thoughts and my cow sometimes. The lightness of your company can’t seem to lift me out of the mud in which I stand every day. But one day I’ll die, and my Teddy may well be here on the farm without me.’
‘Deirdre! Stop it! What’s the matter, dear woman?’ Audrey cried out, climbing down into the hole. She put her arm around Deirdre who barely seemed to know she was there.
‘It’s here,’ she muttered quietly, then louder. ‘It’s here – it must be here.’
‘What’s here, dear?’
‘That vase. Unless Mum took it, it’s here.’
‘You want your vase, Deirdre?’ Lara asked, clambering down with Trish and a couple of shovels. ‘We’ll help you look, don’t worry.’
‘I’m a great digger,’ Trish confirmed. ‘I’m always mucking out the stables with the kids. And Teddy’s as tough as they come. She won’t let you down.’
Deirdre looked about her.
‘None of you girls ever have,’ she said clearly. She turned to her granddaughter.
‘Here is our team, young woman,’ she announced. ‘You may command us,’ she said, like she was Napoleon.
Teddy grinned at the girls. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll set out a grid pattern on the new site which runs from here –’ she indicated a spot on the ground – ‘to here. Dig as shallowly as you can. I’ll get you buckets to fill, and I’ll take them out so you don’t have to lift them. The vase is some sort of ceramic, so it’s not likely to be super fragile.’ She turned to Deirdre, who was looking at the earth. ‘Grandma, do you have anything that you’d hate to see broken, assuming it’s survived, or do you want us to move it along and not worry too much about what might get damaged?’
‘Just dig,’ she said. ‘There’s only one thing I want from this place.’
Teddy drew up the grid and each worker stood in a square, their own small excavation site. Just as they started work, a few more cars came up the driveway. Margaret, Cate and Sarah had arrived.
‘Hey! Check out the enormous hole!’ Sarah bellowed. ‘You girls sure know how to dig!’
‘Hi all!’ Cate called out. ‘What did we miss?’ she asked.
‘Deirdre wants to find a vase,’ Teddy explained.
‘She thinks she’s dying,’ Lara put in.
‘Not today, thanks Deirdre,’ Margaret said, poking a tentative foot out of the car. Cate circled the vehicle to help her.
‘That dicky ankle again, Marg?’ Deirdre asked.
‘Yes, I wrenched it a couple of days ago feeding the rotten chooks, of all things!’ She waved her leg gently in the air. ‘I thought I was going to drop an egg, so I lunged. But don’t worry about me, I’ll be in charge of catering. No one will go without a cup of tea or a piece of something to keep body and soul together!’ She hobbled to the fire and threw on a mallee root as a sign of her commitment. ‘Oh, look,’ she said. ‘Who brought the carrot cake?’
Teddy repeated the instructions, Cate and Sarah took up their posts, and together they all started to dig into Deirdre’s past.
‘When did your father knock the house over, Deirdre?’ Trish asked.
‘I was eight. I came home with my sister, Viv, and he was going mad in our bulldozer, smashing it down. Drunk of course. Yelling and screaming and carrying on.’ She pushed the shovel into the dirt again. ‘We were terrified.’
‘But you’ve never mentioned it,’ Lara said.
‘It never came up,’ Deirdre informed her.
The girls were digging with great enthusiasm and experience –
not of archaeology, but of gardening and shifting piles of superphosphate and sheep manure when warranted by circumstance. Their shovels and spades speared into the damp soil with the sounds of shushing, and the scraping of metal blades on rocks and stones.
‘Rock!’ Audrey called out.
‘I’ll get it.’ Teddy came to the spot and crouched to lift it up and out of the dig, but it was going to be hard. She placed her hands on either side and gripped.
‘Hang on, Ted.’ Cate had dropped to her haunches on the other side. ‘Many hands make light work, eh? Isn’t that the working bee motto?’ There was a laugh from one of the diggers further down the line, and together the two girls pulled the rock from the earth and flung it out of the hole.
Trish looked up from where she was digging. ‘What was that rock? Have you been baking again, Cate?’ she asked.
Cate laughed. ‘Nah, Henry does most of the baking at our place. Brigit’s picking up all his tips.’
‘Did I tell you I got hold of a box of old co-op photos from the shire?’ Margaret called from alongside the fire.
‘No,’ said Audrey. ‘Were they from old Mr Honeyman’s collection?’
‘Yes, they were. Deirdre gave me the hint they might have them there. I found some wonderful old shots of the ladies in the tearooms, and farmers carting wheat by horse and cart. It’s a real find. The historical society will be very pleased.’ Deirdre nodded in satisfaction.
From Teddy’s vantage point she saw Margaret slicing a chocolate cake, and looking interestedly at a neat arrangement of jam drop biscuits.
It wasn’t long before things started to come out of the ground. Part of an old valve radio was the first item to be found, and then a rusty knitting needle, a metal magazine rack and part of a jug. Some marbles came up next, which were nearly missed. A couple of side tables had been mangled together, and there were thick clods of earth that may once have been the lounge-room armchairs, the stuffing holding together like a deeply subterranean mulch. There were areas of earth that were darker and of a different texture, but whatever they had once been, books or wooden furniture, they had long since dissolved, leaving only dark scars in the sandy soil.
The Cowgirl Page 26