If Blood Should Stain the Wattle

by Jackie French

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen.’ Nicholas’s voice was quiet. It had no need to be louder, in this wreck of a celebration party. ‘The people of Australia have decided. So have the voters of Gibber’s Creek. To everyone here,’ his gaze took in Felicity, Nancy, Michael, Joseph and Blue, Flinty, Jed, standing next to Sam McAlpine, ‘I want to thank you, for three extraordinary years serving you in Canberra. I . . .’

  Nicholas looked at Jed again. All at once Matilda realised he gazed at her because he did not have the words. It had always been Jed who had given Nicholas the words, even though it was he who wrote.

  ‘Three cheers,’ said Jed, not raising her voice either. It seemed to Matilda that the room focused on Jed more deeply than they ever had on Nicholas. The girl was a leader. Like me, thought Matilda. Or like I was. Twenty years ago . . . even five . . . it would have been me they turned to.

  ‘Nicholas and the Whitlam government have showed us what our nation can be.’ The silence deepened as Jed’s voice rose in passion. ‘We have only lost tonight if we give in! We must keep the candle lit, keep faith with ourselves and each other, and one day we will again have a government that leads this nation to fairness, compassion and a fresh vision for the future. If we keep faith, this election is a hiccup in history. Others will bring vision to Australian politics again, Labor Party members or not. But to the man who has represented Gibber’s Creek in the most tumultuous times in the politics of our nation,’ she turned to Nicholas, ‘thank you! To you, to Gough, to Tom Uren, Rex Connor, to every good person who fought so hard for us. Hip, hip, hurrah . . .’

  ‘Hurrah!’ the room echoed. ‘Hip, hip, hurrah! Hip, hip, hurrah!’

  For a moment the room smiled. Matilda smiled. And then the momentary elation faded.

  What about tomorrow, and tomorrow, seeing all that had been achieved nibbled away? Thompson’s Australian workforce discarded . . .

  A violin’s scrape broke through the growing mumble of voices. Leafsong. Did the girl expect them to dance tonight?

  No. For the music wove a sound that might be trees, led softly into ‘The Ballad of Joe Hill’, then climbed what might be a mountain.

  How could you do that with music? Show them the land they loved, and what that land might be? And she realised she was hearing ‘Waltzing Matilda’, played as it never had been before.

  A drum rolled. But it was thunder, not a drum. The rain crashed upon the roof, beating time to the girl’s music, or she tuned her song to it. And Matilda was back a thousand years, her ancestors listening to music like this, not in concert halls, but with children wrapped in blankets, the players’ faces black and orange shadows in the firelight, as Leafsong glowed brighter than the lights, the violin part of her, the music twisting and wrapping itself about them all.

  This was hope, Matilda’s father’s vision, and hers and Jed’s too.

  And all at once Scarlett was singing, the small voice high and true:

  ‘And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.’

  Then it was over. The rain stopped just as Leafsong put her bow down.

  Nearly a hundred years, Dad, thought Matilda. And we did not forget. Nor will the last three years be forgotten.

  The music faded. But this time, the smiles stayed, with hugs and tears of hope and friendship.

  Her land was safe. So were her people. I could die now, thought Matilda, watching as Nancy headed towards her, another glass of water in her hand. Darling Nancy.

  But Jed was her true daughter. Jed, who would take up the weight of love and duty from here.

  No, she wouldn’t die now. Because if she died here, she would break the spell that the music held over each person in this room. And people might say, ‘It broke old Matilda’s heart when Whitlam lost.’

  No. Her epitaph should read: She kept living, after Tommy died, to see her vision made real. Land rights, women’s rights, children’s rights.

  And now, she thought, I have finally earned the right to die.

  Chapter 95

  I’m tired of raving at wrong things, which must still to the end endure;

  I’m sick and tired of the selfish rich, and I’m tired of the selfish poor.

  Of the Awful Wrongs of the Social Plan (both sides, and in between) . . .

  Henry Lawson, ‘A Song of General Sick and Tiredness’

  JED

  The television muttered up on the stage. No one watched it now. Instead, the voters’ decisions made, they talked, as if it really was a party, about the rain and was there more to come, of sheep or last night’s episode of Certain Women or Bellbird.

  Except for Nicholas. Had even Felicity noticed when he slipped from the hall?

  Yes, Felicity had noticed. But she looked at Jed, her face expressionless, instead of following her fiancé.

  Jed touched Sam’s hand. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

  Sam nodded. He didn’t ask where she was going. He had seen Nicholas leave too.

  She found him sitting on the edge of the side veranda, out of the window’s slice of light. The dark of the trees along the main street played with the first gold of the moon. Jed waited for the call of an owl. Like the fox on BBC dramas, an owl always seemed to punctuate night dramas around here. But that night the owls stayed silent. ‘Are you okay?’

  He looked up at her, a small part of his mouth smiling. ‘No. I thought I had found my life. Now I’ve lost it again.’

  ‘Why?’

  He stared at her. ‘How can you ask that? I’ve just lost my job.’

  ‘You didn’t really want it.’ She could say that now.

  He hesitated, then nodded. ‘Not really. But it was worth doing. And fitted me all right.’

  Gibber’s Creek deserved more. But she didn’t say that. Nicholas had done his best. And he had been, probably, the best candidate for the Labor Party who might have been elected here.

  ‘I’d say you have lots left. Felicity. Rock Farm. Your writing . . .’

  ‘My book didn’t make enough money to keep me in socks.’

  ‘You don’t need money.’ Not with Rock Farm to live in, the horse stud, and what Felicity would earn as a vet, his disability pension and maybe one from parliament too. But she couldn’t say that to him.

  He grabbed the rail and steadied himself as he slid down to stand on his feet again. On his prosthetic feet. It’s funny, Jed thought, how rarely I remember that those aren’t legs of flesh under his moleskins.

  ‘Rock Farm and everything that goes with it are Felicity’s. I haven’t earned any of them. Not even her.’ He held out his hand. ‘I love you, Jed.’

  All thought froze. There was only feeling. Because she loved him, deeply. Knew him, deeply. This was the love she had glimpsed when she met him. This was the face she had seen, older, the beard with just a hint of premature grey.

  And he loved her. Even when they were together he had never said that.

  But she didn’t want to marry him. Because like Matilda said, love came in many flavours. She knew the bedrock of her life now. It wasn’t him.

  ‘Do you love Felicity too?’

  He looked surprised, either at the question or his ready answer. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you be happy, married to her, even if you feel you don’t deserve it?’

  Again, the sure answer, with a small smile now. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Living at Rock Farm, breeding horses, riding them across the mountains, helping Felicity heal wombats and kangaroos and cattle, caring for Flinty, who may be old but is still the girl who gave you your life back?’

  The smile deepened. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then go and tell Felicity that, you idiot. Let her choose. And I bet she’ll choose you. You and I were lost together, once upon a time, and found lives for ourselves, and we will always love each other.’ Deeper than friends, forever. But not husband and wife. Not her and Nicholas, not ever. ‘You’ve lost a battle, and you feel lost again. But it wasn’t your fault. And yes, of course y
ou deserve Felicity. You did your best, and it was a good best. And she deserves you too.’

  ‘You always were wiser than me.’

  ‘Too right.’

  Jed looked back at the doorway. Sam stood there, Felicity at his side. She waited till Nicholas limped to the rectangle of light, took Felicity’s hand and drew her inside. Sam cast another look at Jed, inscrutable, then followed the others.

  Jed walked slowly into the room, then looked around till she saw him, standing with Scarlett and Nancy next to Matilda. She made her way to them through the crowd.

  ‘Good speech,’ someone said to her.

  ‘Right on.’

  ‘Reckon it’s you who needs to stand for parliament, love.’

  ‘Not me.’ But she smiled as she made her way to the centre of her life. Sam turned as she approached, his face still expressionless. He thinks Nicholas proposed to me out there, she thought. And maybe he would have, if I hadn’t had more sense. He thinks Nicholas has taken Felicity aside to tell her their engagement is over.

  But it was just beginning.

  ‘Sam.’ She grabbed his hand, grinned at him, at Matilda, watching with sharp eyes, at Nancy and at Scarlett, staring at them both, then got down on one knee, the crowd around them staring. ‘Will you marry me, Sam McAlpine? And accept Scarlett and Matilda and Dribble and all I love that comes with me?’

  Sam’s grin spread slowly. ‘Matilda and Scarlett too? Are you offering me a harem?’

  Scarlett giggled. ‘Okay by me.’

  ‘Shut up, brat,’ said Jed. And to Sam, ‘You know exactly what I mean.’

  ‘A pity,’ said Matilda. ‘That might have been the last proposal of my life, decent or indecent.’ Her face was pale, her voice slightly breathless. But her smile held deep joy and a strange fulfilment.

  ‘Darling Matilda,’ said Sam. ‘Will you marry me?’

  ‘No,’ said Matilda, grinning, showing small and only slightly yellow teeth.

  ‘Or be my mistress and wear that pink suspender belt?’

  ‘No,’ said Matilda. ‘A pink suspender belt?’

  ‘The one in your wardrobe, next to the petticoats.’

  ‘No way,’ said Jed. ‘I had to wear suspender belts at school. I’m not wearing suspenders ever again, even for you. Pantyhose, sometimes. But not stockings and suspenders.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll marry you,’ said Sam. ‘But only because Matilda turned me down.’

  And suddenly there were hugs. And tears. Wet hugs and tears of many, many flavours, and Nancy calling, ‘Michael! Guess what!’ And Blue crying with happiness, and Nicholas watching across the room, arm in arm with Felicity, who smiled at Jed for the first time with no hesitation or anxiety.

  Chapter 96

  ’Tis a weariness born of twenty years of ‘rastlin’ with Truth and Lies,

  And of writing on rum and blood-stained tears, that the People might Wake and Rise!

  I am wild, Damned Wild, at the wages paid for fighting with Freedom’s Foes,

  And the awful blunders the people made when at last they Woke and Rose.

  Henry Lawson, ‘A Song of General Sick and Tiredness’

  MATILDA

  They drove her home, Michael and darling Nancy. She sat in the back seat with Tom’s and Clancy’s small warm sleeping bodies either side of her, with Jed and Sam and Scarlett following in Jed’s silly, wonderful sports car, like a convoy to escort her. She kissed the boys before she got out of the car at Drinkwater. ‘Sweet dreams,’ she told them as they slept.

  The breath left her as she walked up the front steps, leaving a heart cramped with pain, which she knew would expand, soon after she had lain down.

  Michael and Nancy kissed her good night at the front door. ‘You okay, Mum?’ asked Michael.

  ‘Of course. Sweet dreams,’ she said to him too, as she had always said to him when he was young.

  He smiled. ‘Sweet dreams to you too, Mum. We’ll get them another day.’

  ‘I know you will,’ said Matilda, trying not to let her breathlessness show, watching as they walked back to their boys in the car. Her son. Her wonderful, incredible, precious son. His wife, to comfort him, and keep his feet strong on the earth.

  Jed helped her up the steps, into her nightdress, to bed. Jed, her true daughter. Blood and generations didn’t matter. ‘Sleep well,’ said Jed, kissing her lightly.

  ‘I will,’ she promised.

  She heard her chatter to Sam and Scarlett downstairs. Then they were gone. But they were there too. All were still with her. Love never truly leaves.

  Maxi lay now beside her bed.

  Maxi knew.

  But she couldn’t die yet. Nor would she lift the telephone by her bed to call an ambulance. For she would die, here where she had slept and loved, not in the antiseptic ward of a hospital, nor with tears. She had said goodbye to those she loved, had even rung Jim that morning. She had carefully said everything she needed to the last two years, knowing that soon she must walk through the last door. And now she was almost there.

  She lay back, looking at the night. Only those who had grown up with electricity thought the night was dark. The golden highway of the moon, the silver paths of stars, faint as bandicoot tracks across the universe. Two small bats winged by, and then another. A deeper darkness: that would be an owl. Two old-man possums snarling at each other. Stupid creatures. There are trees enough for both of you.

  And then, at last, the soft notes of the cuckoo.

  Daybreak then, soon. Her last. Day breaks as an old woman breaks, the last scissor snip of life . . .

  She could hear Maxi’s breathing. Feel the dog’s alertness. Maxi, doing her duty to the last. A dog’s duty to love, and to be with her.

  She held on to the last notes of her strength, knowing that if she closed her eyes now, they would never open again. She had to see the day . . .

  Dark grey, light grey, soft grey, gold grey, silver light upon the world. She found the strength to whisper, ‘Good dog. Find Jed, Maxi. Jed!’ And at last, what she had been waiting for, the eagle, riding the thermal down towards her.

  She had never told anyone she was an eagle. Not even Flinty, or Rose Clancy. Auntie Love had told her, a year after they’d been together, but it had taken Matilda years to understand. She suspected Jed had guessed.

  Dear Jed. Michael, Jim, Nancy, Tommy, darling Tommy . . .

  She was the eagle now, the old woman’s body left on the bed. She rose, her wings more powerful than the earth, then let the thermal carry her up again. Why waste energy when the land itself would make you fly?

  And there it all was below her. The land and people. She had thought she would need a last farewell.

  It wasn’t needed. This was not goodbye.

  Matilda smiled, and let the eagle carry her.

  Chapter 97

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 14 December 1975

  Yesterday Australia’s voters spoke, electing Malcolm Fraser’s Coalition government in a landslide victory with at least a 53-seat majority in the new parliament . . .

  JED

  The sun woke her, creeping across the sky to rise in a new place until mid-summer.

  Jed rolled over and saw Maxi lying on the sofa, her head on her paws. She must have nudged the back screen door open. The dog whined softly, hopped off the sofa and headed to the kitchen. She sat by the fridge as if to say, ‘This is what you must do now. Feed the dog.’

  Jed ran to the phone and dialled the Drinkwater number.

  No answer. It would be an hour at least before Anita arrived.

  And if . . . if . . .

  Whatever had happened, if anything had happened, family should be there, not hired hands, no matter how loved.

  She grabbed the leftover roast lamb, chopped off pieces and put them on a plate on the floor, filled an empty ice-cream container with water, dressed, scribbled a note for Sam and Scarlett, then paused by the front door. ‘Are you coming?’ she asked Maxi.

  Maxi glanced up from the water, the r
oast meat ignored. She whimpered, once, then padded back up onto the sofa, lowering her head once more onto her paws.

  ‘Your choice, old girl,’ said Jed softly.

  Chapter 98

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 17 December 1975

  Gibber’s Creek Says Goodbye . . .

  JED

  They came like an army of black ants across the landscape. Women in black summer dresses and hats, men in black ties, their jackets abandoned in the heat, and shirts with rolled-up sleeves.

  There was no more room to park along the road to the church, except for the three parking spaces left for the family.

  And so they walked, more than a kilometre, to say goodbye, nodding silently to Jed, Nancy, Michael and Scarlett as the big black funeral car passed, at Tom and Clancy, in black ties too, in miniature suits exactly like their father’s, sitting on Nancy’s and Michael’s knees.

  So many people. A whole district grieving. For this was the woman whom their grandmothers had told them had hounded off the debt collectors when they’d tried to repossess farms in the Depression, who had led the CWA, the Red Cross and countless other women’s organisations through World War II.

  If a child had needed glasses or treatment for a stammer, there had been cheques in the mail from Drinkwater. Christmas hampers arrived with ham, turkey, puddings, shortbread and presents for the kids if the man of the house was unemployed, or his wife was sick. And if you needed a job, she’d find you one. If you were prepared to work hard. ‘My land, my rules,’ she’d said. A tyrant, but a kind and compassionate one. Their tyrant. One of Australia’s last.

  The car drew up outside the church. Nancy and Michael got out first, setting the boys down, while Michael unstrapped Scarlett’s chair from the roof rack.

  Jim and Iris and their boys were waiting for them, Sam and his parents and sister hovering behind.