Washerwoman's Dream

by Hilarie Lindsay

  As she sliced an onion before dropping it into the pan to braise, adding carrots and chopped goat’s meat which she first rolled in flour, and a cup of water and a generous teaspoon of salt, she thought about what Goolam had said, wondering if she had been too hasty. She had lied about her financial position. Once she had used up the little cash Karum Bux had given her in Adelaide, she had become dependent on the owner of Wallis & Fogarty, who had allowed her to run up an account for groceries, and Westmacott, the butcher who let her have meat on credit. It was on the understanding that her husband would pay. Now she had no husband and was not sure whether there would be any money from the Register until she had sent them the complete story.

  She was finding it difficult, trying to reconstruct the Mecca experience from memory and the few pencil scribbles she had made in an exercise book. It was taking a lot longer than she had expected. It was not like the light-hearted articles she had sold to Life magazine when she was a girl. She knew she would have to find some work until she could support herself with her writing.

  She called on Lycurgus Underwood who ran the Transcontinental Hotel, to see if he wanted someone to make the beds and do up the rooms. Instead she was offered the job of washerwoman.

  It was exhausting work. The boys would call at the hotel and bring the bundles of washing home after school, calling themselves dhobiwallas. She was pleased they did not object, though she reminded them that if they really were dhobiwallas they would take the clothes down to Hookey’s Hole and wash them and lay them out to dry on bushes, as they had seen the men who ran the laundry in Bombay do.

  Instead, Winifred would separate the whites from the coloureds and put the whites to soak overnight in the copper, first soaping the dirty collars and cuffs on the shirts and rubbing them on the washing board. The next morning she rose as soon as it was light and put a match to the copper to bring the clothes to the boil, so that she could have them washed and hung on the line while it was still cool, washing the socks and stockings and delicate garments, like women’s underwear, by hand in a tin tub.

  Once the clothes were dry she would damp them and roll them ready to iron in the late afternoon when the sun had dipped down in the west, and the temperature, which was always over one hundred degrees fahrenheit in the tin hut in the middle of the day, had started to drop. She made starch for the shirts and pillowslips from cornflour when she boiled the kettle for a cup of tea, while the flatirons heated on top of the stove until they were hot enough to begin the ironing.

  It had not rained for a long while and water was scarce. She could only do two rinses, the final rinse with the addition of a twist of blue-bag to whiten the sheets and towels and the white shirts of businessmen who stayed at the hotel.

  Later, the children would bathe in the tin tub, using the water from the copper, which was still warm in the evening. When they were washed and dried and in their pyjamas ready to go to sleep, she would sit beside them telling them a story. Sometimes it was an incident she remembered from her life in England, or a story of something that had happened on the hadj. She read them the story of Abraham and how God tested his obedience by ordering him to kill his son, Isaac. The children would gaze at her, their eyes anxious until they heard that Isaac was spared when his father found a ram in the burning bush, which he sacrificed instead. ‘I have seen those places,’ their mother told them.

  She listened to their prayers, making sure they said, ‘God bless Baba,’ remembering their father. And after she had blown out the candle and the stars twinkled through the pinholes in the iron roof she would say, ‘If you listen the stars will speak to you. Pick a star, and if ever you feel lonely or unhappy you can tell it your troubles. Then you’ll feel better.’

  Later she would undress and sit in the dark in the tin tub in the lean-to, with its iron roof held up by saplings and open to the elements on three sides. She would soak herself, sitting there until the water was quite cold. In the morning the boys would carry the water to the vegetable garden and the few flowers Winifred was trying to cultivate.

  As she sat in the tub her mind would travel back to India as she thought of what she would write. Feeling refreshed, once she had dried herself and sprinkled her body with talcum powder and put on her nightgown, she would light the kerosene lamp. With a pot of tea on the table beside her, she would begin to tap away at her typewriter with two fingers, sometimes pausing to listen to the night noises. There was the tinkle of camel bells in the yards, the whimper of her goat tethered near the front door, the howl of a dingo in the distance, or bush rats scurrying across the roof as an owl hooped softly in the date palms at the back door. One palm was male, and the other female. She called them Sidon and Ruth. The seeds had come from dates the camel-men had brought from India and planted wherever they settled. The men pollinated the flowers by hand, brushing a spray of blossom from the male tree over the female tree.

  Thinking of the date palms always brought her back to Mecca. In her mind’s eyes she could see the oases where they had rested, and relive the feeling of religious fervour, the excitement, the horrors, and marvel at how she had managed to survive and bring Pansy safely home none the worse for the experience.

  Her new life was a lonely one, with only the companionship of her children. Living in ghantown meant that she lived apart from the white settlement which was the town. Once there had been great festivities, such as the feast at the end of Ramadan, and weddings and the birth of children. But now the camel-men were leaving, the heart seemed to have gone out of ghantown. Once the whole town had turned up to enjoy the curries the men cooked in great round boilers, the huge mound of chapattis, the dried fruits, the nuts and oranges. Yet the hospitality was never returned. There were tennis parties in town and dances on Saturday nights. When the wind blew in the right direction Winifred could hear the music. Without an invitation she could not bring herself to go. She had married an Indian man and her children were half-castes. She had cut herself off from her own people.

  Sometimes she called on the sisters at the mission; they always made her feel welcome with a cup of tea, but they were even busier than she was, looking after the health of the local people and answering calls to go to the assistance of some lonely settler miles from anywhere.

  Trapped in a culture that seemed no longer relevant, Winifred’s Moslem faith started to waver. Once she had been sustained by people with a common belief and had taken comfort in the sound of men’s voices as they prayed together at the mosque. Goolam had left and now the mosque was silent. The scene was changing rapidly in ghantown with the imminent opening of the railway to Alice Springs. Those who could afford it had already left. Some returned to India to be reunited with their wives and families, others moved south to the ghantowns at Beltana and Marree, and a few to Alice Springs in the north.

  Rather than pay the agistment fee of ninepence per head to the government for grazing their camels on common land, the camel-men turned them loose. Soon there were great herds roaming the outback, until the government declared them vermin and put a bounty on their heads. When that happened, the day of the camel-men was well and truly over.

  The Aborigines who once worked for the camel-men were still living to the north where the sand dunes began. At night Winifred could see the smoke from their fires. She walked to their camp to see if any of their old helpers were around. Even though her story of her trip to Mecca had started to appear in the Register and she was being paid, she was reluctant to give up her job at the hotel. She was living on the money she earned from washing and saving what she received for her writing. She would not have to pay the Aborigines wages. They worked for tea, sugar and flour, plus tobacco, supplementing the rations by hunting and foraging.

  Winifred hired Joe and his wife Mary, who had travelled with them on their camel train. She had taught Mary how to make bread and she knew how to light a fuel stove. She could turn the mangle to wring the clothes and peg out washing, but was no good at ironing. On her first attempt she scorched a shirt
and burned her hand, dropping the iron because it was too hot. Winifred had to pay for the shirt and Mary refused to return until she had been bribed with extra tobacco and given a new dress.

  Winifred was particular about the ironing, taking pride in the shirts with their starched collars and the women’s crepe de chine blouses with white lace trim. She would fold them carefully, first doing up the buttons then tucking in the sleeves and wrapping them in brown paper so that they were returned to their owners smelling clean and fresh.

  Joe was strong so she used him for carrying water and collecting firewood, which meant going a long way from home. In the desert country that stretched for hundreds of miles around Oodnadatta the only trees were stunted acacia or mulga, and these were few and far between.

  Once, when the hotel was quiet and there was little laundry to wash, she left the children with the mission sisters, and travelled through desert country almost to the Western Australian border on a wood-gathering expedition. She took twenty camels and Joe and Mary to help her. After the weeks spent at her typewriter and over the washtub, it was a relief to get away, and she revelled in the freedom.

  Eventually they came to luxuriant country with mighty gum trees, where parrots clustered on the branches as they sipped honey from the fragrant blossoms. The trees fringed a waterhole almost a mile long where ducks were swimming. Winifred’s Aboriginal companions divested themselves of their clothing and jumped in. She envied them but was too modest to do the same. Instead, she removed her dress and underwear and hung it on a tree. Clad in her petticoat she luxuriated in the cool water, floating on her back, her hair streaming out behind.

  Later, dressed, her petticoat hanging on a tree branch to dry, she rested while Mary lit the fire. ‘Who owns this place?’ she asked when Joe returned with a duck he had shot and threw it at his wife’s feet so that she could pluck and clean it before putting it in the camp oven to roast.

  Joe replied, ‘No that white fella man no bin see him longa this fella place.’

  She was pleased to hear it and christened the spot Winifred’s Joy Waterhole.

  While the duck was cooking they each took an axe and stacks of ropes and began to hack away at the sandalwood. It was hard work, but Winifred found it exhilarating and won the admiration of Joe, who said, ‘My word, missus too much good one fella longa axe.’ Mary was not so inclined to the axe and Winifred, who put it down to laziness, sent her off to find some wild yams to go with the duck. She was hoping she might bring back some wild honey to eat with the breakfast damper and a few wild peaches or apples.

  Mary dropped her axe and scampered away on her skinny legs. She came back later carrying a porcupine, a lizard and five grubs in her dillybag. But there were no yams or wild honey.

  In the three days they were away they gathered six months’ supply of sandalwood. The trip had done Winifred good. She felt as if she was connected to the Australian bush again, to the place she had come to love. It was the way the horizon stretched into the distance as if the land would never end. There were the soft nights, with whispers in the sand as small nocturnal creatures foraged for food. Before she drifted off to sleep she would gaze at the sky blazing with stars, trying to pick out the constellations she knew. She would wake later to see how the positions of the stars had changed, with the Southern Cross low on the horizon, and lie there thinking about life and how insignificant she was in the mighty scheme of things; how people died but the world went on forever.

  Then, soothed by the sound of camel bells, she would snuggle closer into her blankets, feeling the chill wind that came out of the desert towards morning, to be woken just before dawn by a shrill chorus of birds. She would see the faint hint of red in the eastern sky and know that it was time to rise, grab a quick breakfast and be on their way before the full heat of the day overtook them.

  As they travelled they would see great herds of kangaroos that went bounding off at the sight of the camels, and emus that hovered anxiously while Mary foraged for eggs, until the birds took fright and went thudding through the timbers.

  Added to that was the feeling of freedom, the relief of being away from the constraints of civilisation which were still very evident among the white community in Oodnadatta, despite its distance from Adelaide. She thought it must be the same anywhere else in the world where a small community exists in an alien element — a bit like the British in India, who believed themselves superior to the indigenous people. And even in Indian society there were different layers, with the educated Indians at the top and those who did the hard labour, the untouchables, at the bottom. Thinking about it she could understand what Gandhi was trying to achieve.

  * * *

  Winifred planned to leave Oodnadatta as soon as she had saved enough money. Yusef was almost twelve, and Rhamat seven. They had had little or no formal education and were far behind the other pupils in the one-teacher school. It made Winifred feel guilty because she had neglected their education. She knew that if she been willing to settle in one place they could have started school when they were younger. But she could not bear to be parted from Ali. He had been her whole life and she knew that when he died he had taken part of her with him. He still came to her in dreams and she would wake, feeling her heart beating faster, only to find she had folded her arms around herself as she slept and was alone in her bed. But the interval between these episodes was lengthening and the hunger for his body was diminishing, though the pain of her loss was still strong.

  Sometimes she thought of Bombay and the luxury of living in a palace with marble floors and servants to bring the food and do the washing. She would remember the jasmine climbing over the trellis in the garden and smell the sweet perfume. She recalled the water springing from the fountain in the women’s quarters. There she had been respected and her opinions sought. Often the inactivity had irked her and she had yearned to go outside into the real world — the world of men. Thinking of it she wished with all her heart she could return and spend her days in idleness, telling her children stories, brushing her hair, spending hours deciding what sari to wear, and watching the flashes of light as the sun glinted off the coloured glass bangles the women wore.

  Always her thoughts would return to the present and she would look at the dirt floor in her hut and feel the heat radiating from the iron roof as she listened to her sons’ voices when they returned from school. If only she could get a piece of real land where they could raise a few cattle and the boys could learn to become stockmen and perhaps end up like Henry Kidman. She had heard that he controlled land the size of England, Scotland and Wales put together. She thought that a piece of land the size of a small island, like one of the Channel Islands, would do just as well. She had a sudden vision of her father and his excitement when he found he could get some land. It hadn’t done him any good. He had worked until he was worn out and his only consolation was in drink. Hard work wasn’t the answer. You needed money and luck. She knew she had no way of becoming rich, no matter how hard she worked.

  That afternoon, while Pansy was asleep, she sat down at her typewriter and wrote a letter to the Minister for Lands, care of Parliament House, Adelaide.

  Dear Sir

  My name is Winifred Steger and I have three children, two boys grown up and a little daughter who has not yet started school. Where I live in Oodnadatta there is land as far as the eye can see and I am writing to see if it possible for us to get a piece. Just enough land to raise a few head of cattle, and where I can keep a few hens and grow some vegetables.

  We are not asking for the land for nothing. My boys are strong and prepared to work hard. Once we start earning we will pay it back.

  Yours sincerely

  Winifred Steger Widow

  Months later a reply came in an official-looking envelope and she opened it with trembling hands.

  Dear Madam,

  The Minister has considered your request, but is unable to grant your wish because it would create a precedent.

  She cried when she read
it, wiping her eyes with her apron so that the children would not notice her distress. That night as she sat by her door looking across to the horizon and the miles upon miles of empty land she felt angry. It had been such a little thing she had asked for. She wondered if it would have been easier if she had been a man. But then you had to be white. The camel-men hadn’t been allowed to own land. All they had were their camels. And now with the new railway their camels were worthless. Life was unfair.

  Soon, however, Winifred’s luck was to change in the most unexpected way. A letter arrived from India. When Yusef brought it home she opened the envelope, expecting it to be a reply to one she had written months before thanking Maulana Shaukat Ali for his hospitality, and telling him that her husband had divorced her and that the camel-men were leaving Oodnadatta. There had been no reply and she put it down to the fact that he and his wife travelled a lot and may not have received her letter.

  The letter turned out to be an invitation for Winifred to become governess to the children of King Amanullah and Queen Souriya of Afghanistan, who had just returned from Europe. Impressed by Western culture the king was instigating reforms and the queen had plans to open schools to educate girls. The royal family had sought advice from the Khalifat in Bombay and Winifred’s name came up as the ideal choice. She was a Moslem who had been to Mecca, was a mother and was also articulate and forthright.

  When Winifred first read the letter she was astonished. In her own eyes she had no qualifications for the position. She read the letter aloud to her children and saw Yusef and Rhamat exchange a look.

  ‘Does that mean that you’ll take Pansy, and Ray and me, we’ll be left behind with someone we don’t know, like last time?’ Yusef asked.

  ‘No, I’d never do that. The only reason I took Pansy to Mecca was that she was safer with me. She’s only a little girl. I went to Mecca because I had to. We’re Moslems. One day you and Ray will go there too, and then you’ll understand.’