Bloodflower

by Bloodflower (The Returning) (retail) (epub)

  ‘I’m not your mam and da. You never do talk to me about him either, so how can I with you?’

  She’d never thought of it that way. ‘I did forget how to talk about him.’ She still didn’t tell him her fear, because it seemed so silly – that if she had told him, right at the start, why she wanted to work at the Big House, then she would never see Cam there. Though she had not anyway. ‘I did ask to see the Lady, to ask her about him, but when it came to it I could not. Not a word.’

  ‘Try again. Do you ask her properly.’ He shook his shirt and put it on, slapped his hat free of dust. Put it on. ‘I’m busy, with planting. I cannot make the time to see you for a while.’

  The unexpectedness of it, the hurt, left her too surprised at first for words, or crying, then they both came together. ‘I did tell you now, did I not?’ She shouted it at his back, which he was holding all proper and stiff. He walked on, a half a dozen steps, stopped and turned.

  ‘I guess you did.’ He took off his hat and came walking back to her. ‘I should like to see him again, your brother.’

  ‘I love the colours,’ My Lady Graceful Fenister said. She had come to the folding room to choose a jacket to wear with a new pair of trousers.

  ‘They do seem to throw a spell, My Lady, don’t they? So fine on hands and eyes.’ Pin waved a hand happily at the robe she was folding.

  The Lady laughed. Tse-tsa, behind her, glared at Pin. ‘Yes, something like that. You know, My Lord’s betrothal gift sat on the hall table for days and the colours . . . the colours were astounding.’

  It was not the moment, but Pin asked anyway. ‘My Lady, I did think to see my brother here, did hope to.’

  ‘He has business in Dorn-Lannet.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The Lady smiled – such a warm and warming smile. ‘He is My Lord Husband’s Advisor. We could not function as we do without him.’

  ‘I do think . . . I do think he is ashamed to come back. It was the way he did leave, sneaking out, no goodbye. Oh, My Lady I did cry! Did cry and cry, for days.’

  Tse-tsa moved up behind Pin, and her nails went scraaatch at Pin’s back. Pin thought of how these Uplanders did everything through bows and titles and layers of staff, and swallowed anything else she might have said.

  ‘You do know Mam, I did think I would see Cam, at the Big House.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Da. His voice was sharper than Pin had ever heard it. ‘I do not want talk of him. And do not you go asking after him up there either.’

  ‘But I—’

  ‘Not!’ Da roared.

  Pin went to Mam as she had used to do as a small child, and clung.

  ‘Gavrin!’ said Mam to Da. ‘What do you think you do, bellowing at her like that!’

  Hughar said, ‘Was he there then? You did see him?’

  ‘You would, Hughar,’ said Mam. ‘Boots on and mucky.’

  ‘Well, we do all want to know.’

  ‘Huh,’ said Mam.

  And Da: ‘Huh.’

  ‘No.’ Pin let go her hold on Mam. ‘I did look but, no.’

  Orange fish swam ripples, and the silk’s cool touch on her hands, it was like dabbling her fingers in water. The silk slipped against itself, with a szrr-szrr – and into her mind darted a startling thought: herself and Acton, rolling about on the silk, this very silk. She blushed and folded, rushing.

  Then the Lady came and Pin blushed anew, was glad of an excuse not to look up from her work.

  ‘Walk with me,’ the Lady said.

  Pin looked to Tse-tsa, who poked her in the back. (Bow, bow, thank you My Lady.) So Pin did.

  The Lady took her around the gravelled yard. Her children ran and roared and jumped about, a handful of Uplander women trailing them. ‘Everyone was so interested to know what the children would look like, with Gyaar so dark and me so light. I think they were disappointed. They are so mud-coloured.’

  ‘Closer to sand really’ said Pin, then could have bitten her tongue off. But the Lady laughed, and laughing said, ‘Do you wish to pass on a message to your brother?’

  Pin stopped in her tracks. ‘Oh! My Lady!’

  ‘I thought you might. My Lord is returning to Dorn-Lannet, on his way to Ryuu. You may send a message with his party.’

  ‘My Lady, could you ask him to come? To my wedding.’

  The Lady stood before her. ‘He is not mine to order, but I will send word.’

  Pin went back to the folding room and thought later that she must have given Tse-tsa the happiest time of her life, for she was so distracted that Tse-tsa had opportunity to sting-sting-sting with words and fingers all the afternoon long.

  ‘Beer?’ Da was all hearty. Was always all hearty when Acton made his courting visits.

  ‘Tea,’ said Mam. So they sat, stiff as if they all had pokers for spines. Pin and Mam sipped from their cups, nice as the ladies up at the Big House. Da and the twins poured tea off from their cups and slurr-slurrped it from the saucer. Acton, after clutching his cup a while longer, drained it in one long gulp.

  ‘A blowy spring, do you think?’ said Edord. Hughar snorted.

  ‘Aye.’ Acton held cup and saucer awkwardly, right at his fingertips, as if they would bite him. ‘It does seem to be bringing on the lambs early, and I never did see so many twins.’

  They talked sheep, Da and Acton and Edord, then rye against barley, then tree fruit. Acton’s knee firm against hers was the only sign that he knew Pin was there.

  She was allowed to walk him to the door alone, and to draw the door to behind them. Acton grinned wide, bent his head to her ear. ‘Do you hold strong, sweet. Come summer we do wed, and then we can all talk and behave natural again.’ His lips stayed there, making soft brushes on her ear.

  ‘Pin?’ said Mam, from inside. They both jumped.

  ‘My love.’ Acton’s fingers just touched hers, then he leapt off the stoop and strode across the yard and away. Pin turned and went inside, shutting the door firm behind her.

  Going up to bed, she rubbed cream on her hands. ‘Pretty-hand working, so.’ If Hughar caught her at it he would never let her live it down.

  Kisa came up the stairs at a run. ‘Clothes Folder! Yaddle-yaddle.’ He held out a package, a small, flat package.

  ‘Tssss,’ said Tse-tsa. ‘Give her.’

  Kisa skimmed it through the air. It ticked against a chest and fell to the floor. Tse-tsa scowled, and the boy bounded off, laughing. Pin picked the package up – no! Not a package, a letter. ‘He wrote.’ She looked at Tse-tsa. ‘He has truly gone if he does forget that none of us do read or write.’

  The paper felt something like cloth. She held it between her palms. Tucked it inside her bodice and took it out again at once. Written, by his hand. Seven years gone and this paper in her hand, that he had touched. ‘Tse-tsa.’

  The tiny woman stared at her, eyes going wide. She waved her hand in the cutting motion that was the Uplander way of saying no.

  ‘Tse-tsa, do you read it to me.’

  ‘You-ask My Lady.’

  ‘Tse-tsa?’

  Tse-tsa took the letter. Her hands looked pretty-working as she unfolded the paper. She read in her singing Uplander accent.

  Dear Sister. My dearest little Pin-sister. (Though My Lady tells me you are tall and grown and all of a young woman.) I am tall and grown now (Pin laughed) and I stay away because I no longer know how to come home. When I figure it out, then expect me! You could not do better than Acton Mansto. Of course I think of you all, all the time. Cam.

  Pin cried. She screwed her fists against her eyes and cried. Tse-tsa folded the letter and then folded Pin’s fingers around it, and Pin held it to her face and cried all over it.

  ‘Fold,’ said Tse-tsa.

  The Big House gave the staff every fourteenth day off.

  ‘It does feel good,’ said Pin, ‘to be home and doing home things.’ She stood up and looked out over the bottom terrace, as if she had not seen it for years.

  ‘Tire of the grand life up at the
House, do you Pin?’

  ‘Hughar, do you sink yourself in the silage.’

  ‘You working or talking?’ said Mam. So Pin took up her hoe and went on culling the weeds from the rows. The sun pushed a heavy warmth against her back, but the breeze was stiff and just a little too cool, so between them she was comfortable. Dig, dig.

  ‘It is not what I did think it to be,’ she said when she and Mam met across a row

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘Stuck up in that room and only Lea and Gerin and Tse-tsa to talk to. And she—’ Pin meant Tse-tsa. ‘She never lets us talk.’

  ‘That’s where all this chat does come from.’ Mam laughed and moved on up her row.

  The next time, Pin said, ‘I do love the clothes though, the colours and patterns of them and the feel of that silk they do always wear.’ She stopped, blushing, thinking of the carp-patterned robe.

  They broke for the noon meal. Pin took the cider flask in one hand and drank deep as the men. Her other hand she pressed to her bodice, to feel Cam’s letter there. Now? she wondered. She passed the flask on.

  ‘Mam?’ she said, when they were back at work. ‘I do think I’ll quit the Big House, when I’m wed. Acton will need me on his holding anyway, with Da Farmer growing older.’

  Mam stopped her hoeing to straighten and look at Pin. Mam with her thick silver hair and fine dark eyes, and pretty, her Mam. Her smile was warm as the Lady’s. ‘Your da’ll say that’s grand.’

  They finished the potatoes and together climbed up the earth wall and walked uphill to the home plot, to put netting over the soft fruit to keep the birds from it. Pin thought, Now? And still she hesitated.

  Then the day was done and drawing in and they were all of them sat around the table, eating big after the day’s work, talking little. Pin put down her knife, drew the letter from her bodice.

  ‘From Cam,’ she said. ‘He did write to us.’

  Da stopped eating, mid bite, as did the twins, Mam.

  ‘Give us,’ said Hughar, snatching like he used to as a boy. ‘Look.’ He passed the letter around.

  ‘He said . . .’ Pin tried to find words that gave voice to what Cam had said underneath the words he had written. ‘He said he does come home. Not yet, but he does come.’

  Mam held her apron to her mouth and cried, cried like Pin cried, just tears and no noise. Da shoved the bench back and walked to the door, to the hearth, then stood at Mam’s back.

  ‘Huh.’ He put his hand, his big, veiny, lumpy hand on Mam’s shoulder. Hughar was turning the letter every way up.

  Edord paused his steady eating. ‘So he did ought to.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Hughar.

  That night, as she rubbed cream on her hands, Pin dreamed – of Cam riding into the yard on his big grey, just as he had before; of Acton’s face when she told him; of herself in the carp-patterned robe.

  She waved her hands in the air. ‘So.’

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  There is a cast of thousands I would love to thank, for believing in me, encouraging me, reading my writing whenever I asked you to, for standing by me and waiting patiently while I shut the world out to write. For your unstinting and generous support, and for being happy for me. More or less in order of appearance:

  My family: Maz, Joff Jenz, Hez, Juz and Kaz. Ian James, Tim McVitty, and of course, Riley James. Not only for everything else, but during the most gruelling part of getting this book finished, you’ve cooked for me, cleaned up for me, so that I could write and not worry.

  RMIT Professional Writing and Editing Course. Thank you for your guidance and encouragement Kirsty Elliot, way back when I started, and Olga Lorenzo, and especially to Clare Renner for showing me what writing for young adults and children could be and helping bring Bloodflower into being.

  My writing group. Where would I be without you? For your brilliant feedback, conversation, company, wine and chocolate, not to mention your brilliant writing, Kim Kane, Andrew McDonald, Viv Ulman and Jane Wallace Mitchell – and to Elise Hurst for the lovely maps. You’ve realised my vision beautifully. To Ann James as well for putting in a word for me, where it really counted. Susan Utbers – you’re not forgotten.

  To Allen and Unwin: Rosalind Price, thank you for being interested enough to sign me up, and for your time and encouragement in getting me there. To Elise Jones for your mammoth editorial support, your ‘pretty please trust me on this one’, your pastoral care. To Sue Flockhart, and Angela Namoi.

  My friends: for standing by me and waiting patiently while I shut the world out and wrote. For being happy for me. Lou Boustead, Alison Carter, Ann Lau, Anna Fairbank, Meaghan Flack, Justin Bowd, Steve, Robyn, Murray, Ashah and Winsome Browne, Brian Roden, Fi McArthur, Kim Wilson, Leah Nowakowski, Cath McGee, Juliette Allen, Hiromi Kawamoto, Kumiko Onishi, Ruriko Katayama, Victoria Strutt, Susan Wallace, Rosemary Brookes, Rik Doyer, Suse and Chris Hutchison, Lindy Washington, Job and Cosmina Pinkster, for taking the trouble to read it all, and to Sam Stephens, Paul Duncan, Timmy and Kate Withall, Richard ‘Harry Potter’ Ferens, Aurel Griesser, Killer, James Hamson, Andrew Hergott, Ellie Lim, Anne Barthelemy Tony King, Cherie Holland, Dierx, Sjef Barbara, Johnnie, Laurena Fraser, Adrian, Sieming Tu, Paul Sincock, and all the AMOG crew. The Potts family entire for being employers, friends, nieces and nephews.

  To my workmates at EPPL: Steve Kanthan, Janice Daglish, Petal Brambleby Ian Cashion, Raj Lai, Tore Narum, Andrew Bourke, Des Croke, Alex Cavuoto, Tania Petrov, Jie Chen, Rod Foulds, Ross Tolliday, Eoin Strack, Lucy Fang, Gaowen Hou, Bob Wang, for asking and being interested.

  To John Seymour’s The New Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency, which was my bible for seasons and plants.

  And for those who I’ve left out, but not because I meant to.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Christine Hinwood was born in England and grew up mostly in Australia, but also in England and America. She’s always written. When she was very small, she used to sit and make up stories in her head while cuddling her security blanket; she called it ‘having a thought’, then, and told people she’d have to talk to them after she’d finished it. Christine studied Professional Writing and Editing at RMIT in Melbourne. Bloodflower is her first novel.