If Blood Should Stain the Wattle

by Jackie French

  ‘And no more speeches from me either,’ he added.

  The hall laughed, happily, gratefully.

  ‘This is a time to celebrate, not make speeches. It’s a time to do, not just to talk about it. I’d just like to thank you all, every one of you. This has been an amazing victory tonight. I owe it to all of you. To my campaign manager . . .’

  Names, names. Labor Party names, her name, Jed’s name in a string of others. ‘And, finally, my fiancée. Felicity!’ Nicholas held out his hand to her.

  Laughing, she stood beside him. And Matilda saw not a nonentity, but a girl, well rooted in the earth, her own earth, in the mountains. Flinty’s granddaughter indeed. Excellent stock, there. Exactly what Nicholas needed, those roots, to steady him, just as Jed needed.

  Matilda’s eyes flickered about the hall, then settled on young Sam. All nonsense with this commune stuff, but he’d grow out of it. Blue’s boy. You could always depend on good stock when you were breeding sheep, or families . . .

  Cheers on the screen. Shrieks of joy. Why did some women always feel the need to shriek? Gough Whitlam’s acceptance speech, Margaret looking almost tearful. My word, what a night, to have a woman like Margaret Whitlam in tears . . . She realised her own face was wet too.

  But what a night!

  ‘Why doesn’t McMahon concede?’ muttered Jed, next to her. ‘Would you like a meringue?’

  ‘No, thank you. I would not.’

  ‘Coffee?’ suggested Jed. ‘Or champagne?’

  ‘If I have champagne, I’ll go to sleep. Give me a glass though, for the toasts.’

  Jed went to fetch it.

  Matilda held it as up on the stage Nicholas raised a stubbie of beer. She knew the lad would rather have champagne, but this was a Labor Party victory, after all. ‘Men and women of Australia! I give you Gough Whitlam and a new Australia!’

  ‘And a bloody good MP for Gibber’s Creek!’ yelled someone from the back, that Raincloud, Rainstorm lad . . . Swearing in front of women. She’d kept bad language off Drinkwater for more than fifty years, but what could you do when even your own daughter-in-law used the ‘b’ word now?

  Another flicker on the TV screen. Billy McMahon, mouse-like, white faced, a little man, with sticky-out ears, towered over by his wife, looking protective rather than glamorous tonight. A good speech . . . well, an acceptable one, but she could be generous . . . tears in his eyes. He’d done a not-too-bad job, ordering the troops back. He’d done what he could within a fossilised party. The Coalition will have to come up with more policies than anti-communism now . . .

  She found the glass of champagne in her hand, smiled at it, raised it to Tommy. ‘They’re going to have a nine-seat majority, darling. Maybe more, when the Western Australia results are in.’

  ‘Western Australia will stick with the Coalition. But they’ve done it.’

  ‘We have done it. Australia has done it . . .’ Had she said the words aloud? It didn’t matter. The noise of the crowd had swallowed them. Tonight, just now, for the first time since she’d held the reins of Drinkwater, the district did not notice her, but watched the telly screen and the future.

  Which, given that she was ninety-one years old, was entirely a good thing.

  Chapter 23

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 2 December 1972

  Recipe Corner

  Sweet and Sour Fish Fingers

  Contributed by Mrs Daniel Grigson

  1 packet frozen fish fingers

  1 tbsp cornflour

  1 tin pineapple pieces, with juice

  2 tbsp white vinegar

  2 tbsp brown sugar

  1 tsp cochineal

  Grill the fish fingers according to direction of the packet.

  Mix the cornflour with the other ingredients. Bring to the boil, and add the fish fingers.

  Coconut can be added if liked.

  JED

  Billy McMahon was crying. Jed had never thought she’d see a prime minister cry. She watched the television screen as Sonia McMahon led her husband away, and found her eyes were wet too. And Nicholas . . .

  Her eyes sought him automatically, to watch how he took this next moment of triumph. But he wasn’t with Felicity, Flinty and the others. She caught sight of his blue shirt as he vanished out the back door of the hall.

  Gone to the loo? Not at a time like this, even if that was the excuse he had given. She knew exactly what Nicholas felt, because she felt it too.

  The nightmare had ended. The governmental callousness that had sent young men like Nicholas to a war they did not believe in, facing an enemy who did; an Australia where a girl could be raped, starve and then lose her baby, with no one to help. It had all vanished tonight with Billy McMahon’s concession.

  But the moment when you woke up from a nightmare was when the horrors were most vivid.

  She slipped outside, the agony almost choking her. ‘Nicholas?’ she whispered.

  He leaned against a corrugated-iron wall, out of the dim light by the toilet block, his body shuddering, his hands held up to his face. ‘I’ll be fine in a minute,’ he muttered.

  ‘Nicholas!’

  She had no sense of moving, of choice, or will. Only that her arms were around him, and his around her, and the agony was bearable, because it was shared.

  They cried together, suddenly, violently, sobs muffled on each other’s shoulders. Once more the link between them held them in a small world of two, remote from the disinfectant-smelling toilets, the cheers and chatter from the hall, the rat that peered, inquisitive, from the hall roof, hoping that once again a horde of people would mean scraps. Then abruptly, together, their sobs stopped.

  Jed stepped back. ‘You okay now?’ Impossible to say more. What else was there to say?

  ‘Yes. You?’ He wiped his face with his handkerchief.

  ‘I’m okay too. Wait a second.’ She ran to the ladies, wet her handkerchief, splashed water on her own face in an attempt to get rid of the evidence of tear-swollen eyes, then ran back and handed the cool, damp hanky to him.

  ‘Thanks.’ He pressed it to his eyes, one then the other. ‘Do I look presentable?’

  ‘Very. It was you who won, you know. Not just the Labor Party. A very considerable victory. And a good speech tonight too. Congratulations.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said simply. ‘Thanks for that . . . and for other things. I’d better go.’

  ‘You had indeed. You first. I’ll wait a few minutes.’ She didn’t need to say why.

  She watched him, saw the moment he lifted his head to greet the crowd. People would be congratulating him on every side now. Suddenly she heard, ‘Hip, hip, hurrah!’ Jed waited for the two repeats, then slipped into the hall.

  Of course they’d noticed. This was Gibber’s Creek. The girl who had successfully shoplifted her dinner for a year couldn’t manage anything unnoticed in Gibber’s Creek, not by Matilda, a tiny eagle in her armchair, nor by Nancy. Nor, she realised, by Sam, looking at her with an expression that was hard to read, and Felicity, whose small frown of worry was all too easy to interpret. Jed smiled at her, this brown hen of a girl, and shook her head slightly as if to say, ‘Truly, you have nothing to worry about from me.’

  Felicity bit her lip, and turned back to Flinty, who seemed to be lecturing Nicholas on what he must do the next day.

  Tomorrow, when Gough Whitlam would take command. Perhaps, formally, he would not be prime minister till the governor-general appointed him as such. But she doubted Whitlam would wait for that, or for parliament to sit, or even for his own parliamentary colleagues to gather in Canberra.

  Jed wondered just how much new governing Whitlam could get done in one fine Sunday.

  ‘Jed, darling, there you are.’ Nancy laid a pikelet-scented hand on her arm, took a careful glance at eyes that must still be slightly red, then hugged her. Nancy’s hugs were always the best. ‘It’s been quite a night.’

  ‘It has indeed,’ said Jed.

  ‘I think we’re all a bit drunk on emoti
on. Luckily we have sheep to crutch tomorrow morning. Nothing like crutching sheep to bring you back to earth. Can you give Sam a lift home?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I’m taking them all back. Do you need a hand with the sheep tomorrow?’

  ‘No, we’re fine. Thank you,’ said Nancy.

  ‘Carol and the others left with Raincloud half an hour ago,’ said Sam apologetically, suddenly appearing beside Nancy. ‘Look, it’s fine. Mum and Dad can give me a lift.’

  ‘It’s no trouble. You’re on the way. I’ll just find Scarlett.’

  ‘She left with the others,’ said Nancy innocently.

  Ah. Set up. By great-grandmother, great-aunt and sister. ‘No worries,’ said Jed. She felt like her veins were bubbling with the champagne she hadn’t drunk; like a vast tide of emotion had wiped her clean. ‘It’s a lovely night for a drive.’

  Chapter 24

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 2 December 1972

  Correction: The photograph captioned ‘Local boys Angus Sampson and William McWhannel win Rotary scholarships to USA’ in Wednesday’s edition of the Gazette should have read ‘Angus Sampson and his family’s prize-winning bull at the Gibber’s Creek Annual Show’. The Gazette apologises to both families and congratulates both young men on their sterling scholarship achievement.

  JED

  Moth wings brushed Jed’s face, wings of warm night air as well as of bogongs, fat, flappy and suicidal in Boadicea’s headlights. They drove in silence for a few minutes.

  ‘Carol left early,’ said Jed, to cut the tension.

  ‘What? Oh, yeah, they all did. They wanted to celebrate with Greg. He’ll have heard the results on the radio. We probably shouldn’t have left the poor bloke alone tonight of all nights. We just got caught up in it all . . .’

  ‘Who’s Greg?’

  Sam grinned. ‘Mrs Weaver’s alien.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Neither did Mrs Weaver. Greg’s a draft dodger. He’s been hiding out for over two years now, down in Melbourne and then, when things get too hot for him, up here. Mrs Weaver met him down by the river one day and somehow he ended up doing odd jobs for her, cash in hand.’

  ‘And he told her he was an alien? That’s cruel.’

  ‘No, it was all a misunderstanding. He says he told her he was “alienated from society” and she took it the wrong way. Greg tried to correct her for a while, then gave up. Plus he says the old girl really did need a bit of help around the place. The gutters were almost rusted through.’

  ‘Is he staying?’

  Sam shook his head. ‘He hasn’t seen his family for two years. He’ll be heading back to Melbourne on Monday, after he’s said goodbye to Mrs Weaver and made sure she’s booked her car in to get the brake linings changed.’

  ‘Maybe he should just tell her he’s going home,’ said Jed. For after all, Mrs Weaver had been talking about seeing aliens for far longer than a draft dodger had been hiding at Halfway to Eternity. It might be painful if she was disillusioned now.

  More silence, the heaviness of things unsaid. Another vast bogong splattered against the windscreen. Tiny moths fluttered in the darkness. Which meant no rain for at least a week, thought Jed. She glanced at the man next to her. ‘Nancy is matchmaking.’

  Sam looked relieved. ‘Yep. I have a confession to make.’

  ‘Worse than hiding an alien?’

  ‘Much worse. This morning at the polling booth Mrs Thompson hired me to give you a Christmas present. Solar hot-water panels for Dribble.’ His voice was gentle, as if he guessed her vulnerability tonight.

  ‘Just what I’ve always wanted.’

  ‘Yeah. Me clambering all over your roof for a couple of days.’

  Jed considered, then grinned at him. ‘I can think of worse Christmas presents. Which Mrs Thompson?’

  ‘The dragon.’

  ‘Matilda? I used to think of her as a dragon too.’

  ‘Not now?’

  ‘Only sometimes. She’s softened since Tommy’s death.’

  ‘Maybe to you,’ said Sam feelingly. ‘She’s still Lord High Executioner to the rest of the district. But speaking of worse news . . .’

  ‘Okay, what is it?’

  ‘The other Mrs Thompson, Nancy, hired me at lunchtime to build you a chook house.’

  ‘Another Christmas present?’

  ‘Got it in one.’

  ‘They mean well,’ said Jed at last.

  ‘Sure. I’m a nice local lad from a good family.’ Sam grinned at her from the shadows cast by the headlights. An excellent grin, Jed decided.

  ‘Even though he lives in a commune and installs solar panels?’

  ‘They think I’ll grow out of it,’ said Sam easily. ‘They may even be right. Anyway, Mum lived in a sort of commune.’

  ‘She what?’

  ‘The circus. I wish you could hear some of her stories. Auntie Mah’s too. They shared everything back then, even clothes. Even we don’t do that. Well, not much. As Mum said, when you had to depend on everyone else in the circus for your life when you were underwater or getting sawn in half, you tended to trust them with everything else too.’

  ‘Is that why you put the old circus tent up? To remind you that communal living could work?’

  ‘Nope. Because it was big and waterproof. Well, almost waterproof. We’ve discovered that domes leak.’

  ‘But mud sticks?’

  ‘If thrown the right way. What are you going to do now?’ he asked.

  ‘Go to bed. Alone,’ she added, in case he thought the first was an invitation.

  ‘I didn’t mean that. Now that you’ve left uni.’

  ‘Pretty much what you’re doing, I think. Use my body as well as my brain for a while. Lend a hand on the property. Write the odd article for the Gibberer.’

  ‘Not manage Nicholas’s electoral office here in Gibber’s Creek?’

  ‘Nope. The Labor Party have picked out a nice girl for that. The niece of the branch president. But I don’t want the job anyway.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘You’ll swallow a moth if you don’t watch out. I don’t want to manage an electoral office. And, despite what you’re thinking, and maybe Matilda and Nancy too, I didn’t slip out to have a quiet snog with Nicholas tonight.’

  ‘I never thought you did.’ His tone was serious. He met her eyes as she glanced at him, then turned her gaze back to the road. ‘You went to comfort him,’ he said quietly. ‘And maybe for comfort yourself. A quick snog might be better.’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘A quick snog might just be celebration. But tonight it was as if . . . as if you and Nicholas felt the same thing.’

  ‘Everyone in the Town Hall felt the same thing tonight.’

  ‘Not like that. Everyone else was triumphant. Overjoyed. But you two were . . . sad? Overwhelmed?’

  This young man saw a lot. What was he doing, stuck in a hippie commune plastering mud walls? Did he really believe that he was building a new civilisation as well as adobe cottages?

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Jed at last, as Boadicea turned onto the road to Halfway to Eternity.

  ‘Not that you owe me any explanations.’

  ‘No, I don’t. Thank you for that. So I’ll tell you anyway. Nicholas saw things in Vietnam. Did things he’s probably only ever spoken of to me. Tonight he realised now no other young Australian has to go through what he did.’

  ‘And you?’

  Okay, thought Jed. ‘I told you I was raped. I was living with my stepmother, and she had this boyfriend. He bothered me for a long time, but I was careful. Got away from him a lot. But he caught me in the end. They put me in a home for wayward girls when my stepmother discovered I was pregnant. I escaped, ran south. Hitched, got bits of work where I could . . . stole food when I couldn’t. I . . .’ she swallowed ‘. . . I went into labour too early. I was sleeping under a bridge at the time. The baby . . . died, or was born dead, I don’t know. If I’d been able to afford medica
l care or even had a pension so I could afford to eat and have a roof over my head, she might have lived. And tonight I realised that maybe now that will stop happening to girls in Australia.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Sam softly. She glanced at him, then back at the road. There was no revulsion in his tone. No pity either.

  ‘We both had to deal with hard things three years ago, really hard things, and we had no one else our age to talk to who’d understand. It’s left a . . . bond . . . between us.’

  She did not mention the vision of the future she’d seen. No, not a vision: everything she saw, past or present, was real. That deeper love was in her future.

  Instead she said, ‘I’m not ashamed . . .’

  ‘There’s nothing for you to be ashamed of!’

  ‘Well, anyway, now there’ll be free medical care for anyone like me. And a free place at uni. And equal pay for equal work. If I’d even had that when I washed dishes in cafés, I might have been okay . . . And here we are.’

  The track to Halfway to Eternity was chook free, some chooks presumably roosting in their chook house, others on the gumtree branches above them. Chooks were definitely anarchists, thought Jed, no matter what Carol said. She parked Boadicea safely out of pooing range.

  ‘I think I’d like a chook palace,’ she said. ‘Something magnificent. Why should chooks always have a ratty old shed?’

  ‘Done. I found an old chandelier at the dump last week. It’ll be perfect. Purely decorative, of course. Probably not safe to wire up a chook house.’

  A most suitable young man indeed, thought Jed. And a nice one. A friend. Matilda was a good judge of people, as well as sheep and political parties. Nancy was too.

  She looked at Sam’s face, dappled with leaf shadows. A squarish face, even with the beard . . . almost rock-like. But rocks were good things. Perhaps, just perhaps, Matilda and Nancy might be right.

  ‘Not much time to get panels up and a chook palace built before Christmas,’ said Jed. ‘See you Monday?’