by Rosalie Ham
‘What do you think of Streeton’s painting, “The Railway Station, Redfern”?’ they asked Aunt Margaret.
Be yourself, she heard Phoeba say. ‘I prefer a good still life.’
‘What about figure painting?’
Aunt Margaret wasn’t sure what they meant. ‘There’s nothing like a good portrait of a prominent figure.’
‘Life drawing?’
She still wasn’t sure. ‘And nothing like nature and all its wonders!’
‘So, you’re not interested in painting the human form in all its naturalness, painting someone else, painting models?’
Aunt Margaret was flummoxed, ‘I have lived alone for many years …’
‘I think I know what you mean,’ said Miss Border. ‘At Esperance we feel we reproduce the ideal representation of things around us, we capture the beauty of a thing whereas the impressionists, well …’ She screwed her mouth down at the corners.
Aunt Margaret said, ‘That Redfern thing, so messy.’
Mr Spark leaned to Miss Border. ‘Would you like some pineapple, Miss Border?’
‘I like pineapples. Do you like them, Miss Robinson?’
‘No.’ Margaret could never afford fruit.
‘It’s our code,’ said Mr Spark, smiling at her.
‘We use the word pineapple if we approve of potential members,’ said Miss Border.
‘The last chap we had was on about “representation”, how nature isn’t always picturesque and how a studio portrait doesn’t reflect the true, living form. He said it was the Impressionists who represented what is real. Utter rot.’ Mr Spark winked at her. ‘And of course, we must be careful in case you’re interested in “nature camps”. Now, we will transport you to Esperance.’
He rose to his feet and offered her his fine artist’s hand. The next three beats in Aunt Margaret’s neglected heart kicked, and she felt a little flurried.
Aunt Margaret pondered her day out all the way home to Geelong. She would be happy there, she would fit with them. She marched directly home from the railway station, dumped her carpetbag, and found the ancient sewing machine. Securing the lid she wound twine around and around it and wrote on a luggage tag: ‘To, Maude Crupp, Bay View Siding, via Geelong, Victoria’.
On the back of the tag she wrote:
‘Dear Sister, Hope deferred maketh the heart sick. Love, Margaret.’
In her dank kitchen she cut two slices of bread, spread them with butter and jam and sat in her mother’s rocker by the cold stove. She chewed, remembering her mother turning from the stove and flinging a tea towel over her shoulder as she embraced her father. They had waltzed around the kitchen table and her father had kissed her mother’s neck, called her his fair lassie.
It was memories like this that usually made her wish she had married Mr Treadery. Tears spilled from her eyes and she howled with her mouth full of chewed bread. In the backyard a pane of glass fell from the cracked conservatory where she had spent so many hours, alone, painting plants and dead fowl.
But now, at least there was hope. Margaret wiped her nose on her sleeve and said to no one, ‘I will never be lonely again.’
The afternoon was fading and Phoeba lay on her back in a brass bed draped with lace and white muslin, her head supported by a fat, feather pillow and her mouth open. She could make out an elaborate ceiling with roses and small chandeliers for gaslights. The windows were hung with lace and velvet and the mirrored dressing table held tonics and towels and a washbasin with a floral jug.
She felt like a burst strawberry in cottonwool and her nose snorted when she breathed. The skin from one side of her face wasn’t there, she suspected, and her eyes were swollen, restricting her view. Her arms and hands were bandaged.
Her mother sat on a chair by the door with her face in her hands, crying: Phoeba could see the feathers on her hat quivering. Her father walked around the room tapping the walls and opening the cupboard doors. Henrietta was beside her, tears dripping off the edge of her chin and onto the bed sheet.
‘Henri,’ she whispered.
She felt a weight on the side of the bed, the hair brushed from her forehead and her father’s whiskers on her forehead. She smelled his pipe tobacco and the sweet, stale smell of wine and dusty grape leaves.
‘You’re all right, old thing,’ he said.
‘You’ve got to rest,’ said Henrietta and Phoeba wondered what else she could do.
‘You have done some damage,’ said her mother, and Phoeba said, ‘It was Centaur.’
Then she was asleep again, exhausted, and Phoeba Crupp fell out of her days.
Wednesday, January 10, 1894
Freckle, his mother and a swaggie sat in the morning sun outside the shop. The swaggie, a well-spoken chap who used to be a jeweller, read the newspaper aloud.
‘Another eighty-one people, claiming William Lane’s “New Australia” wasn’t egalitarian and that Lane was a despot, have left Paraguay.’
‘Where’s that then?’ asked Mrs Flynn.
The swaggie pointed towards the bay’s heads. ‘Out there. “The first public telephone installed at Sydney’s GPO last year has broken down.”’
‘Telephones are a fad,’ said Freckle. ‘They’ll never replace the lightning squirter.’
‘And,’ said Mrs Flynn, ‘look what happened when we got a mechanical harvester in the district. They say Phoeba Crupp will never walk again.’
‘Nar,’ said Freckle. ‘It’ll take more than a horse to bugger her up.’
In the distance the long toot of the ten o’clocker sounded and the swaggie rose. Freckle picked up the empty mailbag and the jeweller handed him a halfpenny. ‘It’s all I’ve got.’
‘It’s enough to stop a train,’ said Freckle and headed off.
The swaggie crouched low in the scrub and Freckle stood on the platform holding the mailbag out on the end of the long hook. The mailman leaned from the van, Freckle waved his empty mailbag, and the train slowed into black smoke that folded around the carriages. The mailman lifted a bag, ready to throw and called to Freckle, ‘Catch!’
Freckle dropped his mailbag and held up his arms. Almost too late he saw that the incoming mailbag was too heavy. It landed with such a thud on the platform that the sleepers jumped. Opening it, Freckle found a black thing with a solid wheel at one end for turning and a thick wooded base. It weighed as much as an anvil.
‘Almost killed by a sewing machine,’ he said, looking around. The swaggie had caught the train.
The long, distant hoot of the train chuffing its way up from Geelong woke Guston Overton and he gingerly sat up in his mahogany four-poster. His desk calendar told him it was Wednesday and his fob watch told him it was late. He pressed his shaky brown fingers over his ears to block out the thudding he could hear, but found it was in his head. Sliding his hand under his pillow he found his whisky flask. It was very quiet outside; he could hear no stockwhips and no whistling stockmen. He tottered to the back balcony but saw no activity at the shearing sheds. There were no stockmen pushing his flocks in from the plains; the loading dock was empty and the bale winch over the wagon hung limply.
‘Bugger,’ he said. They’d only been shearing for two days. He went back to his bed and reached under for his chamber pot.
Later, he found the boundary rider and instructed him to poison every rabbit warren he could find with strychnine. Then he found Steel at the machinery shed. ‘What the hell is going on now?’
‘The rouseabouts want another shilling; they’re on strike.’
‘The rouseabouts?’ bellowed Guston.
‘Yes,’ said Rudolph. ‘How’s our patient this morning?’
‘I didn’t see the coffin carrier in my travel here. Are you telling me, Steel, that those filthy fly-blown, board-rats want a shilling more for working a broom and picking up wool? How dare they! Where’s Marius?’
Rudolph Steel pushed his hat back with the tip of his pliers. ‘He’s taken the brougham to Mount Hope.’
‘So, Steel,�
� cried Guston, ‘what are you going to do about these striking men?’
‘They won’t talk to me because they think I’m a bank man and they won’t talk to you because you’re a squatter, and they won’t talk to Marius because he bought the harvester and they sympathise with the itinerants. They won’t even talk to the vet or the farrier.’
‘There must be someone they’ll talk to,’ said Guston.
The two men came across Hadley sitting on a low stack of empty wool bales in the corner of the huge, empty shearing shed. His forehead rested on the swollen fingers that jutted from the end of his sling.
Hadley had worked at his new job for exactly two hours. He had been of no use since Monday lunchtime, couldn’t do anything except wander about the shed, watching Harry – and now the blasted rouseabouts were on strike. They really should be getting on with the harvest, too, but the stookers and stackers that belonged with the thresher team were afraid to upset the itinerants. The entire community, he decided, was being held to ransom by a bunch of Luddite ratbags. He was not earning any money, and he was so anxious to do something at Elm Grove. He would have felt better if he could say he was engaged. But Phoeba was injured and ill, and he couldn’t even face her. He had let her down and couldn’t rid himself of the picture of her with her hands in the air: catch me. She was the only true friend he had, apart from his sister, and he had failed them both.
‘Please, God, don’t let her die.’
‘Parsons.’
Hadley jumped up, lost his balance and fell back onto the folded wool bales. He lay on his back like a turtle, grabbing at the air. ‘My arm’s not right yet,’ he explained.
Rudolph hauled him to his feet and he spluttered, ‘Thank you.’ Damn the man for always accommodating him.
‘Now look here, Parsons,’ said Guston, ‘I have a proposition for you.’
Hadley drew himself up to his full height.
‘We’re not getting anywhere with these bloody shearers and rouseabouts. They’ll have nothing to do with us. Titterton tells me you’re a good sheep man and Steel says you’re good with young Harry. Harry’s my cousin’s son and I appreciate your patience with the boy.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
The gist of the matter, Guston explained, was two-fold: the rouseabouts were striking for more money, and the shearers and other men had gone out in support of them, leaving thousands of pounds worth of wool sitting at the property because no one would load it. He had ordered trucks to freight it to the docks and now the railways were threatening to haul the empty trucks away.
‘You are a neutral person,’ continued Guston. ‘You have offended no one and you’re a worker but if you’re ever to be a manager you must develop a manager’s wisdom and I am offering you a chance, Parsons. You won’t let me down.’
‘My name is Pearson, sir, Hadley Pearson.’
‘I know that!’ said Guston. ‘I knew your father.’
Rudolph intervened. ‘What we need, Hadley, is the men paid a reasonable price and the wool shorn and shipped out as soon as possible. Just see what you can do.’
‘I will,’ said Hadley, rubbing his shoulder confidently.
‘For a reasonable price,’ warned Guston, wagging his finger. He turned and walked away and it was Rudolph who thanked him.
‘How’s Phoeba?’
‘Why don’t you see for yourself?’ said Rudolph.
But Hadley couldn’t just go into Phoeba’s sickroom on Steel’s invitation. Phoeba was a dignified person, proud, and he had let her down. He would send a note. In the meantime, of course, he must find a way to placate the shearers and get the wool moving. It was his moment to achieve something great.
The air smelled of burned roast rabbit, and bush along the creek was hard and sharp. Ribbons of fallen bark crackled under Hadley’s feet and he knew they were watching him, hiding in the bush. He sensed a faint din, the soft movement of a hundred resting men. His confidence drained: it would all go wrong. Was he being used or should he really be proud Mr Overton had selected him to negotiate? His blood moved reluctantly through his veins, slowing his progress. A hard, spiked branch leapt up like a striking snake and caught him on the soft plane inside his thigh and he fell, writhing on the ground and holding his leg. His face screwed in pain. All he had wanted, he thought, for the hundredth time, was to class wool, to earn money, to breed sheep, to get married, to grow old ... He opened his eyes, replaced his dislodged spectacles, and saw the perfectly round metal holes of a double-barrel shotgun an inch from his nose. Three shearers leaned above him and he put his hands at his ears, squeezing his eyes shut again. I am going to die, he thought.
‘I come peacefully,’ he said. His voice sounded like a piccolo and he badly wanted to piss.
They lifted him by the arms and marched him through the campers to the heart of the unhappy lot, past men lounging against trees and lying on swags, playing cards and smoking. They were weary and suspicious. The foreman, a thin-lipped chap with a massive beard and small eyes, didn’t move from the log he sat on, didn’t take his eyes off the boiling billy until Hadley offered the rouseabouts sixpence more. Then he gazed at him, incredulous, and threw his head back laughing.
‘You’re doing your master’s bidding, but you know even the shearers deserve more than they get. The rousies won’t work for less than a shilling more!’ He was leaning close to Hadley. ‘And if you try to recruit those seasonal workers,’ said the foreman, pointing to the outcrop, ‘you’ll waste time and money scouring the country for teamsters willing to drag any bales away.’
Behind him, some men lifted branches to their shoulders, like spears. The ends had been whittled, shaved to sharp points, and some were bound with broken bottles.
‘They have strychnine to put in the water as well,’ said the foreman, softly, ‘and they’re eager to slaughter the prize ram and eat it.’
This couldn’t go on. Hadley knew they could easily capture and eat The General, knew the flock were suffering in the heat and the men were suffering too. He drew himself up. ‘If your men attack then they won’t have any sheep to shear,’ he said, his voice sounding more certain. ‘They’ll have to flee, hungry and hunted.’ He rubbed his sparse moustache, hoped they didn’t detect he was still quaking in his boots.
‘It makes no difference where we starve,’ said the foreman, ‘but the squatters are up against time. They think they can have everything their own way.’
Hadley decided to try reason, starting to explain that the banks wanted money they loaned to the squatters to produce wool for prosperity for everyone. But it was no use: the foreman was laughing again. Still, eventually Hadley got them to agree to put their case to Guston, and asked if they would hold their attack for one more night.
‘I’ll put it to my men,’ said the foreman, ‘but I can’t be held responsible for all of them. A few are fairly bloodthirsty.’
Hadley nodded, and made his way back skirting the camp and scuttling along the creek bank. He ducked behind a tree to piss, only too late noticing a shearer watching a string cast into the low amber water nearby. His cheeks were sunken and his eyes set deep in his head.
‘Are they biting?’ Hadley called, buttoning his fly.
‘Fished out long ago,’ said the man. ‘I’m hoping for a tortoise. An eel would do. I’d make do with a leech.’ He shrugged.
They weren’t sinister, these men, thought Hadley. They were downcast and desperate, their self-respect eroded.
Voices in the distance came to Phoeba. Men whistled, dogs barked, footfalls came and went on carpeted wood. She even heard the rustle of passing satin and lace, smelled perfume and cigar smoke. In the blackest part of sleep Widow Pearson was in bed with her, prodding her ribs with a knife, her innards spilling like offal tumbling from a bucket. Then she rode Spot all over the outcrop searching for her lost legs, and the vicar followed her, calling, ‘Come with me!’Alarmed, she forced her eyelids open to see the vicar’s chins quivering behind plump fingers pressed together in praye
r. His shut eyes made two puckers in his fleshy face.
I have been placed in soft sheets under ceiling roses in a grand house with servants to die, she thought.
Then she felt safe because Rudolph Steel came and sat by her, holding her hand. When he left the fear and pain ebbed and swelled and she was helpless again, waiting in the strange room slipping in and out of a soft, dark sleep. At times the dirt rushed up to her and Centaur bellowed. His hoofs thwacked and she flew, catapulted again towards Hadley’s outstretched arms. But he didn’t catch her and she woke abruptly.
‘I haven’t accomplished anything and it is so easy to die.’
Rudolph Steel was there again. He leaned close to her and smiled. ‘But you will, Miss Crupp, you will,’ he said and winked. She felt better.
That evening, Hadley put on his new suit, picked up a bundle of novels and flowers to leave for Phoeba and went up to the big house. He waited in the kitchen until the maid summoned him then followed her to the drawing room. Guston, Marius and Rudolph Steel stood waiting. Guston pointed to the chaise longue and Hadley sat, concentrating on his balance, on the backless end next to Marius. He steadied the books and flowers on his lap.
Mr Overton cleared his throat to speak but Hadley blurted, ‘With respect, sir, you won’t get anywhere unless you start at sixpence at least – and in the end, I think you’ll find you need to give them a shilling and the shearers will probably ask for thirty shillings a hundred for the rams—’
‘Humbug. We’ll get the itinerants and swaggies.’
‘They’ve burned sheds down before this, Father,’ said Marius quietly. ‘They’ve stolen wagon wheels and eat the oxen.’