by Rohan Wilson
Take your ten, she said. Then get yourself away.
Hall scratched her neck. Squatting alongside the bundle she peeled back bits of butcher’s paper and pulled the money bag from within. She gave a tilt of the head when she saw it. She felt the underside of the bag for the weight and dropped it and fought with the knot.
Sister, she said looking up, you are some hard study.
From the sack she counted ten sovereigns. In her grubby hands they were something fanciful, the riches of kings. Her bad leg was cocked to one side and she pushed herself up and stood before Caislin admiring the coins.
So this is what he stole from you.
Yes.
And your father wanted it settled?
He wanted Toosey dead.
What did you want?
Caislin pulled her handkerchief and cupped it under her nose and squeezed her eyes shut. Hall watched her. The chair on which she was perched creaked as she rocked gently, this frail soul who wore her wounds equally within and without. She spoke through the handkerchief.
I wanted to die, she said. My father said I should bear it till it broke my back. Bear it for him. If I died, he said he would soon follow. That’s what he said. He would soon follow.
The creaking stopped. Her eyes crept open. I have nothing, she said. I have nothing.
Come on now.
The girl leaned against Hall and Hall held her.
He pushed me, that man. Into the hearth. Into the fire. He’d come for the bank notes and I fought for them but he pushed me like I was nothing.
Shhh, said Hall. Forget that. Just forget that.
She could feel the girl breaking apart. Each sob made her shoulders jump through her dress, through her thin skin, so that it was like a sparrow she held more than some young woman.
You have to keep up. Are you listening? You have to keep up.
I have no heart.
You can’t give out. There is something else you have to do.
Caislin sank against her.
I reckon I know. Your father, I know where he might be.
She held this hollow-boned girl.
I’ll show you.
CHARLES STREET GENERAL CEMETERY
A MEAGRE SUM OF SEVEN BLACK-SUITED men and women had congregated at the grave hole of Thomas Toosey. They were expirees to a man, the hunchback Payne and his wife, and four bent and badly fared fellows who’d once shared a cell or a shearing shed or a district road with Toosey. Across the damp black pit the men passed a hipflask of sugared and watered whiskey, each man taking his pull before giving it on. The minister had his own bottle from which he swigged. He was a well-known drunk and because of it was favoured by the emancipist class for any service requiring a payment, often made in his case by home-cooked liquor. He roughly corked the quart bottle and slipped it inside his vestments. Then he stepped away to the shade of a willow to relieve himself, head tossed like a whore, groaning as he hosed the tree in full view.
William Toosey among them was the only sober soul. He had borrowed an ill-fitting morning coat that left his wrists exposed and he stood, strangely austere, staring into the depths of the grave at the rough coffin filling the bottom of the hole. Chalk marks where the planks had been sized and cut were all that dressed it. Someone had driven nails through the joints at all angles, each ringed with a bruise, and through the gaps in the wood could be seen the immaculate dark within, the final home of men. The minister came swaying in his faded cassock up before the hole. He fumbled open a bible tagged at the Book of Job with a strip of red ribbon. He coughed and spat.
Man born of woman, he said and coughed. Man born of woman is short-lived and glutted with agitation. Like a blossom he has come forth and is cut off. And he runs away like the shadow and does not keep existing. Who can produce someone clean out of someone unclean? There is not one. Not one. An able-bodied man dies and lies vanquished and an earthling man expires and where is he? His sons get honoured but he does not know it. They become insignificant but he does not consider them. I say again, he said and looked up at that poorly lot of men. They become insignificant. Only his own flesh while upon him will keep aching and his own soul while within him will keep mourning.
Here the minister stopped. He blinked a few times. It seemed he had finished, for he nodded at the men and waved an unsteady hand and then he stepped away and produced his bottle and yanked the cork with his teeth.
The men seized up their shovels and sharing few words filled the pit from a pile of earth, passing in circle, tossing arcs of dirt spread thin as chaff across a few feet and soon the coffin was covered under the sprays and soon it was gone. William Toosey stood there, head low, hearing pebbles drum on the coffin lid. There was something that needed saying and he thought hard about it. In the end he said, That’s a piss-poor box.
Brother Payne reached to take his wife by the hand, and she, a stoic, tight-mouthed thing yet. He wouldn’t care, he said. Your pa, God rest him, was harder than a ten-penny nail, made so by the meanness of life.
William studied him for a time. He could not tell if Payne admired this about his father or thought it a misery. Perhaps he admired the misery. William looked away. There was a shovel laying by, the handle worn to a shine, and he took it up and with a steadying breath drove it into the mound. He began now to pace the ground between pile and hole hauling the loaded shovel and flinging clods of earth over the coffin. Beside him the old hands circled likewise.
What kind of life is that? Payne said.
It’s the one I have.
Payne then caught hold of William’s forearm and kept him still, looking steadily into his face. Around them the shovels scratched. There is as much ruin comes from love as virtue, he said. That is a fact, you have seen it. But do not follow that fool into his hole. He wanted more for you. You need to want more for yourself.
William blinked and blinked.
Stay with us, Payne said.
No. You are good and kind. But I can worry about meself now.
Mrs Payne was holding to her mouth a handkerchief in the manner of a gentlewoman, except when she spoke her grey teeth showed. Who will look after you?
No one, he said.
You need lookin after, she said. A boy your age.
William did not answer. He was sweating and the beads ran on his cheeks. He circled with the shovel.
If the police lay hold of you, they’ll stick you in the invalid depot, she said. You know that?
As long as they hang that mongrel Chinaman, I don’t care what they do to me.
Should think they will, Payne said. He’s guilty as Judas.
Brother Payne fished his pipe from his pocket and put it to his mouth, and then in frustration pulled it and replaced it in his coat. The ex-government men had taken up a song in their labour, each one raising his whiskey-harsh voice until the whole of them like a mangy choir sang his own peculiar range and the tune was carried after a fashion and the song found shape. William scooped up dirt and rounded for the grave.
What would your old man think about you? Payne said.
William tossed his load of soil. I don’t rightly know.
He’d think you a grand sight, I’d say. A grand sight.
Payne tugged on his cap and, with his fists in his pockets, walked away towards the vacant street beyond in his strange stooped gait, a wounded bear upright, dust smoking from his heels. His Aunt Minnie came and touched William once on the shoulder, held her hand there a moment, and turned and followed after her husband. The dry grass in the breeze hissing.
William Toosey bent and buried the shovel. The men sang their song, a labourer’s ballad he’d never heard before that day. He lifted a pile of earth, all of them lifting earth, throwing it across the deeply shadowed pit, and he picked up the tune. After a while he picked up the words and when he mended his voice into theirs they looked around at him, and no one stopped but they looked at him as he shovelled and sang, this young man, for his voice was clean and sharp and beautiful, and so they all sho
velled and sang and in this manner was the gravehole of Thomas Toosey filled.
• • •
There lingered also in this hillside cemetery two restive souls searching along the row of hard dry mounds where the newly dead were buried. Caislin Flynn in the covering shade of a blue gum stood with her head bowed, a neat black dress snapping in the wind, at her stomach a bunch of wildflowers of unmatched colours and lengths, and each one twitching. Jane Hall was uncomfortable in this place, for only of late had she buried her father here. She held Caislin’s arm and squeezed it. As the boughs moved overhead the agitating shade below lapped at their feet like dark lake water. They walked quietly looking about. The rank of graves all bore a carven stone save one solitary pile at row’s end that sat unmarked by any memorial. It was to this mound Caislin Flynn came. She stood looking down at it, looking around. Then she lowered to her knees and touched the crust. Beneath the surface a russet soil, rich and cool. The towering light of the sun, the unlit dark of her centre.
Is that him? Hall said.
It’s him.
She glanced about at the graves of the oblivious dead. You sure of it?
Caislin took a handful of soil.
What if it aint?
Then who is it?
Who is it she says. Buggerin hell.
Caislin looked at the mound. She looked up.
You’re a simple soul, Hall said. I swear.
It must be him, Caislin said.
Very well.
It is him.
Hall stuffed her hands in her pockets. Very well.
I should buy him a stone, Caislin said, so as we know.
No you won’t.
Why?
No stones, no names, else Beatty will get peery. Jesus, you don’t want that philistine about. He’s as likely to pick up the tale and come askin about you.
Caislin lowered her eyes. You’re right, she said.
Look, girl. He won’t be forgot. Not by you, not by your sisters.
No.
You are his keepers now. Here he is and he aint leavin. Bring them out, bring them to see. That will have to do you.
Caislin touched the mound. She laid the wildflowers there to wither and dry. After a while she put her cheek on the cool dome and closed her eyes and in time she laid out beside it, with one arm over the hump as if she hoped also to sleep there. Dirt painted her black clothes brown, and there she lay.
Through the heat of the afternoon Jane Hall stood in the shade of a nearby gum. The sun slipped lower and their shadows crept out like elongated horrors, but Caislin seemed hardly to notice. She lay as before, arm cast across the mound, silent and still. Hall began to wonder if she was not delirious and she called to Caislin and Caislin brought her dark eyes to bear and she saw that it was only pain, only pain. So she waited, cocking and resetting the pistol, plucking leaves, dozing off.
In time Jane dreamt of the cold dead in the earth far removed, and far above, among the mounds, hearts that beat hot like coals in a burning hearth and when the fire dies the ash collects, always more dust than ember, more death than life, for that is the way. And the chiefly gift of parent to child is this, to bed down the land with their ash and make a place where fire will breathe and be warm, and the debt is told in beads of white smoke, the furrowing heat. And the sound of love is to name those lost who lived for others.
She woke on dusk and looked about. Caislin had not moved. She went and took the girl’s hand and at first she was averse to leaving and tried to pull away but Hall, whispering through the ruffles of her bonnet, not words but soothing sounds, gripped her arm, lifted her, whispering, and in time she stood. For all the history of her, nothing was like those seconds. Seeing this burnt girl’s grief, a thing still hot and whole in her breastbone. The loss of her own father gone these months felt new in the presence of it. The kink in the chest, the closed-off throat. It came to Hall anew until their sorrow seemed jointed at a common root.
Let’s see you home, she said.
She led Caislin through graves placed everywhere without system, brought her close and held her, together, out onto the street. It was growing dim in the late day and the few folk they saw, perhaps for fear of what these two appeared to be, averted their eyes. They leaned into each other as they stood by the road, arms locked. The town rooves below were hued in bronze under smoke and the steam of breweries. The long black train inched over its track beyond the town’s edge. They stood considering the troughed road, Jane Hall holding the girl and whispering to her, holding her dirty fingers, and then, as one, they wandered forward. With a kink of her mouth, Hall whistled loud and waved her arm and a horse cart by the roadside kicked into life. The driver wore a wide-awake hat made of felt and wore gloves made of leather. He waved and when the cart pulled up he dismounted from the bench in a ginger sort of way and stood smiling at them.
Was you waiting long? Hall said.
Oh long, he said. Yes, a while I’d say. But don’t fret. You pay well.
He lowered the gate of the dead cart. Sawdust covered the bed and he had thrown hessian sacks across the mess and a fold of canvas lay to one side, which he spread for them. Then he jumped onto the bed and held out his hand. Come on, he said.
Hall took hold and climbed and Caislin followed. They lay on the canvas, on their backs, where they could hide. For a fee he would smuggle them out of the city. They stared up at the late eastern sky. A spread of shapeless cloud. A faint stain of sun like fire. The driver doubled the canvas across their legs and he stood looking down at them. Won’t no one will see you there, he said.
As far as Perth, Hall said. That’s all we need. We can worry about the rest tomorrow.
I’ll have you there soon enough, he said and turned away. He climbed onto the bench and chucked up the reins and the horse when it started forward jerked the cart and startled them. They held each other secretly beneath the canvas. The driver looked over his shoulder.
I never had no one breathin back there before, he said. No, it’s the first time I’d say. To cart the livin.
But the girls did not hear him. The reddening sky scrolled past. The wind sang fine through all the cemetery gums. A sweet smell of sawdust and oiled canvas. They did not hear him for they were busy watching the descending sun.