Clonk. Another long broad bone. She worked it out with her fingers. Dug again. Clonk. Bone. Clonk. Bone. Clonk.
Deirdre stood up and Teddy stared back at her, suddenly chilled. The girls stopped talking. Audrey was standing too now, and Trish had put down the pie.
‘Keep going,’ Deirdre said, her voice low. ‘Keep digging, Teddy.’
Teddy looked down at the collection, and rubbed her hands on her jeans. And slowly returned to the small hole she was making in the ground.
Clonk. Bone. Silence from the girls while she dug, until at last the bone they needed to see.
Clonk. A skull. She carefully prised it loose, breathing as though it had been hard work. It hadn’t been, but it had sickened her to dig up a grave. She fell back on her arms and looked up at Deirdre, a statue looking down into the dark past, to the face she had often kissed, the arms that had once held her close.
‘Mum,’ she whispered. ‘You didn’t leave me.’ Audrey hugged her as Teddy ran to her and threw her arms around her.
‘Do you want to sit down, Grandma?’ she asked.
‘No.’
‘Do you need a drink of water?’
‘No.’
‘Deirdre, dear. Your mother has been here with you all along. I’m so sorry, dear. She never got away from that terrible man.’
‘No. She didn’t.’
‘But, dear woman, she never left you, do you see?’ Audrey pressed. ‘She never left you here to this fate – to your drunken bastard of a father. She was going to take you with her. Of course she was.’
Deirdre’s face was blank. Her hands were shaking with shock or adrenaline. And her grey eyes filled with the tears that had washed around inside her since she was a girl. Now they were flooding out silently, free and sparkling, and they were making her eyes sky blue. Lara pressed a cup of tea into Deirdre’s hands.
‘Fetch a spare esky from the shed,’ she commanded. ‘Teddy, you’d better call Hamish.’
Crap, Hamish. Teddy hadn’t even thought of him. He was so busy with his new farm, and with his new baby, that she often forgot to keep him up to date on the dig. Mostly it would have been ‘found a chair’ anyway, so she supposed he was quite happy to be kept out of the loop. She ran to the ute. ‘Channel twenty-one, mobile to mobile – you on channel, Hamish?’
There was a hiss.
‘Yep.’
‘Come now – we just found something in Grandma’s house.’
‘Sounds boring.’
‘Shut up and come.’
‘Okay.’
She ran back to the fireside where Deirdre had been forced into a camp chair and plied with more tea.
‘I suppose we should call the police,’ Margaret said. ‘The police always get called for this sort of stuff.’
‘Tomorrow,’ Deirdre declared. ‘She’s been dead over seventy years. Another night at home won’t do her any harm.’
‘But I don’t think we’re supposed to move the bones,’ Teddy said. ‘Isn’t interfering with human remains a problem?’
‘Well I don’t know that, do I?’ Deirdre snapped. ‘She’s my mother, and I dug her up. I don’t know about the technicalities.’
The ute was roaring up the drive. Hamish came jogging over. ‘What’s up, girls?’ he asked cheerily.
Deirdre pointed to the esky. ‘Meet your great-grandmother,’ she said.
He stopped and peered inside. ‘Are you kidding?’ he asked. ‘She was murdered?’
‘And buried here under her own house for a lifetime. That’s why he knocked over the house. He killed her and panicked. He was burying her when we showed up from school.’
‘Well,’ said Margaret. ‘I think we should say the Lord’s Prayer. It seems appropriate.’
They prayed standing in a circle around the collection of bones, holding hands and chanting to the darkness. Another day was passing; the blue sky was moving on and the wind was pulling their prayers up and dragging them away to Madagascar and beyond.
The school bus had pulled up at the end of the drive as usual, squeaking tightly as it lurched to a stop. Mr Coxon pulled a stiff lever and the doors flapped open.
‘There you go, girls,’ he announced, like he was delivering them to a picture theatre. ‘Home again, safe and sound.’
Deirdre and Viv glanced at each other and pulled their satchels down the bus steps behind them.
‘Bye!’ Ida Wallace called out after them, her hair hanging in messy ringlets around her face. ‘Don’t be late tomorrow, or we’ll leave without you!’
Always cheeky. They waved back at her cheery face as the bus pulled away, wishing they could climb back on and go to her house.
It was a five-minute walk up the drive to the homestead, and it was as they came around the corner of trees at the top of the race that they realised something was very wrong.
Their father was driving the old bulldozer. He was screaming and gesticulating, thumping the steering levers on the machine and punching at the air.
They stared, disbelieving, not because he was drunk again, but because he was smashing their home into the dust.
‘What?’ Viv dropped her satchel and gaped from behind the pepper trees. The dozer’s caterpillar tracks were grinding into the dirt and rock, pushing the last of the mud bricks and driving over them, so that the house, their old house, containing what few favourite items they had stowed away, was gone. Buried under the deep red earth of the bricks. Their father hadn’t noticed them. He was railing against the world again but they couldn’t hear what he was saying over the sound of the machine, clanking and puffing as it dragged their home to pieces and crushed it beneath its iron tracks.
Finally the girls sat in the dirt, unsure how to stop him and aware that it made no difference now.
‘Where’s Mum?’ Deirdre asked after a while.
Viv shrugged and glanced around. Maybe she was hiding somewhere. ‘Dunno,’ she said.
It was a cold feeling to watch their home get destroyed. Deirdre felt the familiar tightness in her gut. It was a tightness she was growing used to, except that it was getting bigger now, and it was threatening to turn her body to stone. She put her arm around Viv, who was sniffing softly beside her, and hoped and wished with all her heart that their mother would run from the shearing shed or the shearers quarters, and finally say the words they’d been waiting for: That’s it girls, we’re leaving.
She glanced around, wishing to be saved from this, begging God to kill her father where he sat. But he didn’t, and her mother didn’t come to them, either.
Finally the bulldozer fell silent and Deirdre became aware of a breeze that had gathered behind the hay shed and which now came out timidly, brushing across her face.
Her father was looking at the pile with some sort of furious satisfaction. In the long moment that followed in which no one spoke, he felt around in the tractor footwell for his bottle, and drank the cooking sherry he’d obviously pulled from the pantry while they still had one. He turned to the girls and glared at them as if the fact they now had no home was their fault.
‘Where’s Mum?’ Deirdre asked, as clearly as she dared.
‘Gone,’ he said.
‘Do let us know how you get on, Deirdre,’ Audrey said, as she climbed into her car.
Hamish had gone back to the farm an hour ago and the girls had left too. The mood was sombre.
‘We’re all worried for you.’
‘Nothing to worry about,’ Deirdre grumbled. ‘I’ll be okay. I’ve got Teddy here to help me.’
Teddy put her arm around her. ‘We’ll be okay,’ she said.
Audrey paused. ‘Have you heard from Will?’ she asked gently.
Teddy shook her head. She wasn’t going to. She had sent him away for a reason. Audrey glanced to Deirdre, gave her a nod, and hooked her arm through Teddy’s so that they could walk to her car.
‘He hasn’t left, dear,’ she said quietly.
Teddy’s heart lurched. ‘He hasn’t?’
‘No. H
e’s given up the position on the dig. He’s spending some time with his mother in Perth.’ She reached out and placed her hand on Teddy’s arm. ‘He wants to do the right thing by his mum, to spend time with her while he still can. But Teddy, I also know he can’t leave because he’s waiting for you.’
Teddy gaped and her heart leapt. ‘He stayed for me?’
‘Yes, he did.’ Audrey sighed heavily. ‘Well, he’d love to see you, Teddy,’ she said as she placed her cake tin onto the seat beside her and did up her seatbelt. ‘He’s never wanted to trust someone enough to share his life with them. He wants to do that with you, dear. I really believe you should go.’
She glanced up at her and Teddy had a feeling of hopelessness, as if Audrey had already guessed that, despite her words, she knew that a girl who couldn’t walk through the Windstorm Hall in a dress without pitching a fit was not about to jump on a plane and head off on an adventure with a young man. They gazed at each other for a long moment.
‘Still,’ Audrey said, more brightly, ‘tomorrow is another day. I’m sure the local police will be out early to take away poor Dolly’s remains.’
‘I suppose so,’ Teddy answered, but she wasn’t really listening. She was thinking about Will waiting for her in Perth, if she would only go to him. Deirdre was marching slowly back to her house. Teddy trotted back to her.
‘Hey, I’ve got some chicken soup in the freezer,’ she said. ‘What’s say we make some toast at my place and watch that documentary about the Eureka Stockade?’ Deirdre paused. She looked tired. But she loved Australian history documentaries. ‘Come on, Grandma, how about we escape for an hour or so?’ Teddy pressed her, angling towards her house. ‘Let’s see if we can’t forget about your father and your poor mum for a bit.’
Deirdre looked at her sharply like a bird. ‘And Will?’ she snapped. ‘Are we going to forget about him too?’
‘Soup,’ Teddy replied, and Deirdre altered course and carefully took the steps up Teddy’s verandah and into her little home.
‘I’ll make the toast,’ she said over her shoulder.
Dinner was delicious. The two women ate quietly at the table, engaged in their own thoughts. When they had finished Deirdre washed up while Teddy dug out her history DVDs and a block of chocolate. They watched the drama unfold on the screen, large mugs of tea and sweet milk chocolate melting in their mouths as the men and women fought for their rights in Ballarat.
When the show was over, Deirdre went to the window and watched the fire fading away by the dig. It looked small against the stockpile of mallee root beside it.
Since Teddy had known her, Deirdre had never been a talker, but she was so quiet Teddy was worried.
‘Where do you think we should bury Dolly?’ Teddy asked. Deirdre didn’t move.
‘With me,’ she said. ‘Bury her with me.’
Teddy joined her at the black window to watch the fire.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Well arrange a burial when her bones are released back to us. You’ll be together again one day.’
‘It looks like we’ve always been together, as it happens,’ Deirdre remarked bitterly. ‘Only she was under the ground like a shameful secret, with no one to mourn her.’
‘You did, Grandma.’
Deirdre chuffed an awkward grunt. ‘Oh, I mourned the loss of her all right. But all this time I felt resentment and hurt towards her. I spent over seventy years thinking my mum had left me and never come back.’
Her old hand reached up and touched the cold glass, connecting right at the spot where the fire burned low.
‘He took her from me and Viv, but he also ruined her memory for a lifetime. I haven’t thought of her all these years without feeling betrayed by her, unloved by her. I spent my years as a young woman imagining her with her new family, her new children who she held in her arms and loved more than me.’ She swallowed, and her voice fell lower. ‘But she was here with me the whole time.’ She turned to Teddy and patted her shoulder. ‘I’m off,’ she announced. ‘You should get some sleep, too. The police will probably come tomorrow. It’ll be talk around the town.’
Teddy smiled. ‘No avoiding it, Grandma,’ she said. ‘And I think it’s good that people know. It’s not often we get to be interesting, you know.’
Deirdre almost smiled, too. ‘I don’t want to be interesting,’ she said. ‘I just want to live out my days here in peace.’
‘But you didn’t always, Grandma, did you? You had dreams about getting out once, didn’t you?’
Her grandmother harrumphed softly. ‘I don’t remember any of my foolishness any more, Theodora, not really. I remember the pain of loving and of losing them all, but I don’t feel that pain any more. I think, my girl, as I approach the end of my time here, what I regret is – is allowing my own defeat.’
‘But no one has ever defeated you, Grandma. You are as tough as they come.’
‘Pah! I don’t mean that. I mean, I allowed myself to be defeated. And part of me regrets that now.’ She turned suddenly to Teddy. ‘Of course I don’t regret my wonderful life here, my dear girl. I loved your grandfather and your father, and I have many kind friends who forgive me my silly ways. I’m grateful for them. But I do wonder what might have happened if I had seized my courage in both hands and left this place. Left my father and followed the life I thought would be mine.’ She placed a hand on Teddy’s shoulder. ‘Your Will is a wise man. He sees what you might become, Teddy.’
Teddy swallowed. Deirdre’s face held an unaccustomed expression of approval. But she had mentioned Will and it hurt.
Deirdre smiled her rare smile and left her without another word. As Teddy watched from the window she noticed she was throwing a couple more mallee roots onto the campfire, which now flickered and curled around them, drawing breath to blaze again.
Teddy washed their mugs and brushed her teeth. It was time for bed. She was passing the lounge when she glanced out and saw movement. She crossed to the window and peered into the night. In the firelight she could see that Deirdre was still there, wielding a shovel and working at the dirt around her mother’s bones. She looked like she was muttering to herself and she was digging with a grim, furious determination. Teddy ran outside.
‘Grandma!’ she called. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘Digging.’
‘It’s late, and it’s cold. Let’s go to bed and we’ll dig again tomorrow, I promise!’ Deirdre ignored her. She plunged the shovel in again, her stout leg pushed down, and she dragged the dirt up, dumping it beside her haphazardly. Again. Pushing with her foot, dragging the shovel back.
‘It’s here,’ she said. ‘I know it’s here!’
Teddy jumped down into the hole and grabbed for the shovel, but Deirdre wouldn’t let go. ‘Grandma, stop! What the hell are you doing?’
‘I told you. I’m digging, and I’m going to keep digging all night if I have to!’ Teddy let out a shout of frustration, and then picked up a shovel herself.
‘Couldn’t you have gone crackers in the daytime?’ she grumbled.
‘This is my business, Teddy. You can go to bed.’ She dug again and dumped more dirt.
‘No, I can’t. You’ll die of a heart attack and I’ll feel bad.’
‘Well, don’t.’
‘Look, if you are going to dig here in the dark, can you at least dump your dirt in a bucket so I can take it away? We’ll be stamping it back into the ground shortly if we’re not careful.’
Deirdre grunted, but she started dumping in the plastic bucket Teddy placed beside her.
And so they worked together for a long time. Deirdre was miles away and years ago, her old body pushing on, her hands covered in mud, and her feet and her shoes filthy and black. She stayed bent to her task, grim and determined, muttering occasionally to herself about murder and about the time that had been stolen away. Teddy worked beside her, digging faster and carrying out the buckets as they filled. Occasionally there would be a small piece of glass or china, but they ignored these.
They were not looking for trinkets from the grave. Teddy found a few more bones, and the revulsion chilled her every time. She didn’t mention it to Deirdre, but collected them in the esky and put them aside. Deirdre didn’t notice; she was consumed with digging.
‘It’s the rest of the lounge room,’ she said. ‘It’s been pushed here by the dozer. It’s here. I know it’s here.’ She rubbed her hands on her old floral dress and took the shovel again.
Teddy winced. She was going to go to bed for a week after this. She shouldn’t let her. She couldn’t stop her. Teddy dug again, pulled out a broken bottle and tossed it aside.
The moon had been shining down on them both, but now some clouds skidded across the night sky and the hole was darker, lit by the light from Teddy’s lounge-room window and the flickering orange of the fire. The sky darkened some more.
‘I think it’s going to rain in a few minutes,’ Teddy announced hopefully. Nothing. Deirdre kept digging.
‘It’s here, Teddy. I know it’s here now.’
‘The vase?’ She dug faster now despite herself.
‘She didn’t leave, so she didn’t take it with her – don’t you see? I wasn’t sure before, but now I know it’s here!’
Teddy eyed the gathering clouds.
‘Grandma, why is it so important though? I mean it’s probably just family folklore, isn’t it?’
‘Don’t be silly, girl. I don’t have time for sentiment. Just you keep digging, Teddy, and we’ll find it together . . .’
She wasn’t making any sense. The first spots of rain fell across her face and back, stinging like tiny needles.
‘It’s raining,’ she said.
Deirdre didn’t look up. ‘Just spitting,’ she grunted.
Teddy’s hands were sore. She’d been digging all day, she was exhausted and she wanted to go to bed to cry about Will. It had been a crappy, emotional day and she had been looking forward to it, as if her tears were a luxury item she could only indulge in once her duty was done. She put her back into it and moved her dig closer to Deirdre, so her grandma would know she was suffering, and so Teddy could check she was okay.
The Cowgirl Page 28