Kerenza: A New Australian

by Rosanne Hawke

  I stare at him, shocked. ‘There’re none here.’

  ‘So that’s what you’ve been told, hmm? There were more.’ He makes it sound as if something terrible happened. Then he sighs. ‘Where did you spring from?’

  ‘Cornwall.’

  ‘Ah, Cornwall. Wherever you find a hole in the ground you find a Cornishman at the bottom of it.’ He chuckles.

  ‘My da is a farmer now.’ I’m annoyed because I feel compelled to say it.

  He slurps his tea. ‘I got no bone to pick with the Cornish. My great-grandaddy was one himself. And a miner at Kapunda in the old days.’ He looks over at me. ‘How’s the tea?’

  ‘Strong.’

  ‘It’ll put hairs on your chest.’ He chuckles again but I’m horrified he’d refer to my chest, and I take another sip to hide my face.

  ‘On your way home?’ He holds his head to one side and Rouge puts her nose on my lap. I don’t want to admit I can’t find my way, but by the look in his eyes he’s guessed. I use the same trick on him that Granda taught me about dogs: I try not to look afraid. I put the mug on the ground. ‘Thank you for the tea.’

  ‘There’s room for you here, lass.’

  Does he mean by his fire? I look around me; at least I can see the sky here.

  ‘Rouge will show you the way, won’t you, girl?’

  She gives a quick bark as if agreeing. He whistles and the dog stands to stretch. Then she pads off to the right into the scrub, which immediately thins. I keep close to her, wondering how she knows where to go. Two things I decide: I won’t tell Mam about the snake or the man, and I’ll make sure Kitto puts the hens back in their coop by twilight. I can’t imagine how the man feeds Rouge, unless he catches rabbits like Harry and Jacob. Then I realise I didn’t say goodbye.

  That night, before everyone sits at the campfire, I tell Harry and Jacob I saw a snake. I don’t mention the strange man. A curious look creeps over Jacob’s face. ‘You be careful of snakes. You have to run away from them so they don’t catch you.’

  ‘Jacob, you idiot.’ Harry gives him a shove. ‘You can’t say that to a newcomer.’ Harry turns to me. ‘You stand still so they forget you’re there. They’re much more scared of you than you are of them.’

  I can’t imagine that, but I smile gratefully at him. ‘That’s what I did.’

  Jacob is grinning as if Harry is the fool for being nice to me, and he thumps Harry’s arm so hard he yelps.

  After dinner I have a go at Jacob by the canvas shed. He has wood for the fire. ‘Why did you send me a longer way home?’

  He stops and I can see the mock surprise on his face in the twilight.

  ‘What’s the problem? You got home.’

  ‘What did you expect? That I’d sit in the scrub crying?’ I can tell that’s what he did think. ‘Would you have told someone if I got lost?’

  ‘Don’t be a silly goat.’ And he pushes past me, almost knocking me over. I stare at him putting the wood on the fire and Mam thanks him for being so thoughtful. I don’t understand him at all, and I’m so annoyed I stay with Bobbie and tell him all about it. His sympathetic snuffles on my cheek soothe me until I can join the family without scowling.

  Elowen’s already asleep when Mr Nietschke drops by on a pretty bay mare like Mr Polglase’s in Camborne. ‘Good evening to ‘ee,’ Mam says.

  ‘Mrs Trevail.’ He nods at Mam and me and takes some letters and a folded newspaper from his inside jacket pocket. We haven’t seen a newspaper for weeks. ‘I’ve been in Swan Reach for business, and since the mail coach arrived I picked up the mail.’ He hands it to Mam.

  I get a sudden anticipation like smelling rain. There are three letters, and everyone falls quiet. One is for Uncle Malachi and the boys from Aunt Janna. One is for Mam and Da from Nanny. ‘Janna redirected them to Swan Reach,’ Mam says. And there’s a postcard.

  She glances at me. ‘‘Tis for ‘ee, Kerenza.’ She holds it out and it’s all I can do to stop myself from jumping across the fire and snatching it. I see Jacob watching me as I walk around the fire. I expect him to be mean: Why would anyone write to you? But he doesn’t say anything in front of the adults.

  I take the postcard into the tent, light a candle on the trunk and sit on the mattress. Elowen turns over but doesn’t wake. It’s dated tenth of March, 1911, and written in the tiniest letters I’ve seen.

  Dear Kerry Berry

  I hope you are happy. I miss you so much. It’s good living with Nanny and Aunty Dorcas though they’re both sad. Josiah visits to cheer us all up and to eat scones and jam and cream. Do you remember Aunty’s wonderful clotted cream? I swear if I didn’t work so hard at Polglases’ house I’d be as fat as a cow. Willow has settled at last. I found her over at our old place a few times. I told the new tenants not to feed her if she turns up. I reckon she was looking for you and Elowen. How is everyone? I know you’re still on the steamship, but I hope you get this when you arrive. I love you, from your big sister, Wenna

  P.S. Write back and you’ll get a surprise.

  All that happened during the day – Jacob, the snake, the dog and the strange man – didn’t make me cry, but seeing Wenna use the special name she called me when I was little, and Willow looking for me, make my eyes tear up. We always told each other we’d get a surprise when we wanted a favour. How can we do favours for each other now? That’s when I finally cry.

  8

  The wave found me again, snapping and spitting white foam. I was in the scrub and the wave crashed on to the trees, winding through it like a huge snake. It washed away the land, the horses, even the canvas house. Jacob was riding a bay mare on a sandhill and laughed. Harry didn’t see me and rode away on Bobbie. Only Kitto and Elowen were with me, and the strange man, but how could I keep them safe from the water and the man? The wave hissed at me. ‘You will drown – you cannot survive here.’ It was Jacob’s voice, as though the water was in him, speaking through his mouth.

  I lie on the mattress panting, still seeing the snapping white foam. I hated the waves in the storm – the thought that we’d sink. I frown. Why was the strange man in my dream?

  It’s Monday again and the boys bring water in a barrel on a dray from Hampton Well. Nanny said a good housewife always washes on Monday. All morning, as I help Mam with the washing, stirring it in the copper with a stick, rinsing it in the tin bath and wringing it by hand, I think about Rouge and the man. How wonderful it would be to have a dog like that, one you can talk to.

  Afterwards I take Elowen to deliver the lunches while Mam hangs out the washing on wires between two of the pine trees. We’ve been so busy, and it’s a relief to get away before Mam makes us sew new stitches on our samplers. ‘Don’t be dawdling,’ Mam says with a dolly peg in her mouth. ‘Bring Elowen back dreckly. ‘Tis dangerous when they be felling trees.’

  Each day the men are getting further away, but as we walk I can clearly hear the crashing and shouts as a tree falls; the clang of the chains that the horses drag between them through the scrub. It’s sad that so much has to die to grow a crop of wheat. To cover the sounds I sing a song for Elowen that we enjoyed at Nanny’s when she played the piano.

  It’s at the chorus that I see the bird. It’s black, but when it lifts into the sky, its wings underneath are white. ‘Look, Elowen. See that?’

  ‘It’s a chough, Krenza, just like at home.’ My eyes water and for a moment Cornwall doesn’t seem so far away.

  When we reach the men Da gives a whoop. They’re happy to stop work.

  Da murmurs grace and starts on his sandwich. It’s our fourth batch of bread. It’s still a bit heavy but the men don’t seem to notice. ‘Hmm.’ Da’s munching. ‘Real bread like my mam used to make.’

  I’m watching for the emu, but it doesn’t come. Da and I are sitting away from the others and I ask him a question. ‘Will we always live here?’

  He looks astounded for a moment, and then says quietly, ‘Of course, Keren. Where be your sense of adventure? You was always explorin’ in Cambo
rne. I had to come find you many a time. Remember that day in the Penponds woods when you was six? Makin’ a friend with a baby fox, you was.’

  ‘You like it here already, don’t you, Da?’

  He nods. ‘And you will too, if you let yourself.’

  How can I tell Da I hate it here? Just this tired grey scrub they call mallee and red dust that clings to everything. The Mallee is so disappointing: it’s too far away, there’s no houses, no shops, no ponds. It’s hot and there’s dust and flies. And I don’t have a friend. Harry’s nice, but it’s fun doing things with a girl my own age. I wish the girl Valmai Nietschke would visit so I could meet her. My mind goes on and on, complaining. ‘I have these dreams,’ I say. ‘I don’t like it here.’

  Da pats me on the hand. ‘I know it’s hard when you’re young, but I can see what this place will be. You have to give it time.’ I stare at him doubtfully. ‘We’re not giving up the old, just embracing the new. Don’t be frightened.’

  I frown. Am I frightened?

  Harry’s eyes spark at me and I wonder if he heard us talking. ‘Come with me.’ He takes Elowen by the hand and escorts us into the scrub. Jacob watches us with a scowl.

  Kitto comes too. ‘I’ve already seen it.’

  Harry shushes him. ‘Don’t spoil the surprise.’ He leads us to a wide mound of dirt, but stops us before we reach it. ‘Can you see it?’

  ‘See what?’ Elowen asks.

  ‘A bird.’ Kitto’s searching. ‘There it is, in the shadows.’

  ‘It looks like a turkey,’ Elowen says, ‘but it’s the same colour as the bushes.’

  ‘What is it?’ I ask.

  Harry smiles. ‘A mallee fowl.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I read about it in a book.’

  ‘He has a book about Australian birds and animals.’ Kitto says this as if he’s boasting about a big brother. ‘And another one about plants. He reads them at night by candlelight.’ He looks at Harry the way Elowen and I look at postcards of Fanny Moody.

  ‘I knew there’d be no school here,’ Harry says. ‘So I brought books. When we get the land producing, Jacob and I might go to boarding school.’

  Elowen’s face scrunches up. ‘You’ll go on a ship back to Cornwall?’

  ‘No, school in Adelaide, you duffer.’ He picks up Elowen and we watch the mallee fowl digging a hole in the middle of the mound and scattering soil to the edges.

  ‘What’s she doing?’ I whisper.

  ‘That one’s male,’ Harry says. ‘He’s preparing the nest for when the female lays the eggs later on. The chicks should hatch in time for Christmas.’

  Elowen claps her hands. ‘We can come to see them.’

  I never thought I’d look forward to anything here, and now I’m hoping to see the chicks too. ‘Thank you for showing us.’ I make a point of saying ‘thank you’ instead of ‘thank ‘ee’ like Mam and Nanny.

  He looks at me as if he’s thinking what to say, then, ‘Kerenza, you don’t have to change.’ It’s such a surprising thing to say I can’t answer.

  I give him a smile and lead Elowen away. ‘We have to hurry back to get the washing in.’ At least it will be dry. Washing took days to dry in Cornwall because of the clouds and rain.

  ‘Tell me a story, Krenza. You don’t any more.’

  ‘That’s because we’re so busy.’

  ‘Stories would make busy more fun.’

  I smile at her. ‘So it would, chicken. Which story?’

  ‘The mermaid from Zennor.’

  I sigh. In a place like this it’s easy to miss the seaside.

  ‘Please, Krenza –’

  Just as she says that, I hear a noise like a small branch snapping. We are too far away from the men and their chopping for it to be them, and I pause. Elowen stops walking. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I heard a noise.’

  ‘Not a dingo?’

  I shake my head and she relaxes. I think of Rouge. Wouldn’t she show herself if it was her?

  We listen and look around us. I can hear the breeze through the trees, moving the undergrowth too. I wonder if it’s Kitto playing a joke, but he’d have giggled by now. Then a strange wind starts up, blowing around and around on itself and rising to the sky.

  ‘Perhaps it was just the curly wind,’ Elowen says hopefully.

  ‘Yes.’ I say it to put her at ease, but when I heard that noise before the wind came, it truly felt as though someone was behind us.

  Then we see a pebble land on the ground in front of us.

  ‘Who did that?’ Elowen cries, and we both swing round.

  There is a girl standing behind us. She’s smiling.

  ‘G’day,’ she says simply.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I feel silly for thinking she’d try to frighten us.

  ‘I stay here sometimes. What’s your name?’

  ‘Kerenza.’

  She copies me. ‘Krenza.’ She draws out the ‘Kren’ like Kitto and Elowen do.

  ‘What’s yours?’

  She hesitates a moment. ‘Winnie.’

  ‘That’s nice.’ I smile at her. ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Sometimes at Swan Reach – at the mission school.’

  ‘Oh.’ I’d like to go to school again rather than sew and cook with Mam, but I don’t say so in front of Elowen.

  ‘Sometimes with my gran. She camps here often. Dad too.’ Her gaze is drawn to Elowen.

  ‘Have you seen us before?’ I say. Perhaps the noise I heard the other time was her.

  She nods. ‘Can we play?’

  ‘I’d like to, but I have to help Mam with the ironing. When we’re finished we can come back.’

  Winnie’s face falls.

  ‘We can make dolls,’ Elowen says.

  This makes Winnie happier and she glances at the sky. ‘All right, you’ll come here?’

  I nod and Elowen jumps up and down. ‘C’mon, Krenza, let’s do the jobs quick so we can come back.’

  ‘Gran’s expecting me so I’ll see youse later.’ Then she’s gone. It’s even hard to remember which way she went.

  9

  In the afternoon another wind blows up and along with it stinging dust and sand. It feels as if sewing pins are blowing into my skin. The northern sky is as dark as late evening. The men stagger back to the tents. The horses stand in the canvas shed with their backsides to the wind. Da belts long nails through the canvas to keep the tents anchored to the ground. Then we all sit in the warm kitchen tent until it blows over. The sand rolls down the inside of the canvas walls as though it’s alive, and I hate to think how high a pile of sand is growing in our bedroom. I worry about Winnie. Where is she and is she still waiting for us in the storm? There’s no way Mam or Da would let me go outside in the wind to check.

  Hours later after the dust storm stops, we get to work. The boys and I shovel the sand out of our tents. Elowen uses a floor shovel to put the heaps of sand into a bucket. After the shovelling I sweep, but the hessian floor never seems to clear. What a horrible place this is. We never had a dust storm in Cornwall. Now we’ll have to wait till next wash day to have clean sheets and pillow cases. It will be awful sleeping in gritty sheets.

  Everyone’s tired at dinner time. I hope Winnie is all right and doesn’t mind that we couldn’t come.

  That night I paint a picture in my scrap album with blue and red paint. That’s all I need, because the Mallee is red dust and the sky is huge and blue. The sky is so much brighter than the sky in Cornwall that it makes my eyes squint. Then I finish my first postcard to Wenna.

  Twenty-fourth of April, 1911

  Post Office Swan Reach

  South Australia

  Dear Wenna

  When we came there was no road in the scrub so the men had to use axes to cut a track to get the drays to our land. As far as I could see there was just scrub and orange-red dirt. Even the trees aren’t green, not like in Camborne. We have to wear hats all the time on account of the sun and the flies. T
he flies are as big as bumble bees and make as much noise. Da can’t wear his black hat he wore at home because it gets too hot. Now he has a broad-brimmed straw one and he looks like an Australian.

  It’s so big and horrible here and there are many wild animals. Da says it’s an adventure, but it’s not at all. Have you been to Gwennap Pit recently or seen the castle at Carn Bre? I miss things I never noticed when they were free for the looking.

  I miss you.

  With all my loving thoughts from your little sis, Kerenza

  PS: Today we had a dust storm. It felt like we were in the Sahara Desert. I’m so tired from all the work. I wish you were here. Thank you for your postcard. I love it very much.

  PPS: I met a brown girl today – she wasn’t dangerous at all. She appeared like magic in the scrub and disappeared the same way.

  In the morning Elowen is still asleep so I put on my stockings and dress, my boots and pinny too. It’s as I walk through the doorway I feel a flutter above my toes. I stand still to check. Sure enough, something is creeping over my toes in the boot. I don’t wait: I plonk myself on the ground, unlace the boot, and pull it off. Out falls a thing with hundreds of waving legs. ‘Ugh!’ I drop the boot and Kitto turns up.

  ‘What’s wrong? You squealed.’

  I point to the ground. ‘Look at its pincers. It could have killed me.’

  ‘Yippee! It’s a centipede. What a beauty. It must be five inches long.’ He follows it as it tries to squirm away.

  ‘Kitto, stop. It will sting you.’ But he doesn’t listen. I check inside my other boot to make sure it doesn’t have a friend. From now on I’ll check my boots before I put them on.

  I have to milk Gertrude because Mam doesn’t feel well in the mornings. I don’t like milking Gertrude. If she’s in a bad mood she kicks the bucket. This morning I tie her to the slip rail and she tries to butt me. And when I put the bucket under her udder she kicks it out of the way. Imagine if it was full of milk? So I lay stones on either side of the bucket and put my arm through the handle so she can’t tip it over.

  While I’m sitting on a kerosene tin milking, Kitto follows the boys around. It means I don’t have to watch him. He helps Jacob and Harry get water and tend to the horses; they have to be fed an hour before they start work. I like the smell of the horses in the early morning and their snorting into the trough. It reminds me of Josiah and home.