by JH Fletcher
Charlie went ashore after they’d tied up at the wharf and he had checked and double-checked the lines. A drifting dinghy was bad enough; he would never live down a drifting paddle steamer.
There were several vessels in port. He went to each in turn, he visited every chandler’s store and boat builder, but no-one knew anything about a missing dinghy.
‘It’s got Brenda’s name on it,’ he told them.
If it turned up they’d keep it for him. In the meantime there was nothing to be done.
‘I’ll have to get another one,’ Charlie told Sarah. ‘We can’t manage without.’
Here was another problem: Charlie would die before he wasted good money on a new dinghy. They stayed in Wentworth two days scouting around, but there wasn’t a decent second-hand one to be had.
‘Have to leave it till we get to Niland,’ he decided.
He paid off Jig and was glad to see the back of him. A narrow, crooked back it was, too, to go with the narrow, crooked look with which Jig never quite met anybody’s eyes.
Charlie had found no fault with the way Jig had handled the engine, only with the man himself, so he paid him the full amount owing and gave him a reference that stuck to the facts, no more, but said a good deal for those who cared to read between the lines.
Sarah, fully recovered now, had not bothered to open the shop; a man called Laird had opened his own store in Wentworth now, so no-one was interested in what the riverboats had to offer. But Charlie managed to pick up a load of ship’s ironmongery for delivery to Niland.
When they were loaded Sarah took her place by the engine while Charlie climbed up to the wheelhouse. Alex went too; she loved to be up there with him. Everything was ready when the Silas J, a big sternwheeler, came powering down the Murray, raising such a wash that all the craft along the bank were thrown this way and that.
‘Stupid fool!’ Charlie glared at Alex as though it were her fault. ‘I know her owner. I’ll have a word with him, next time I see him. Some folks think of no-one but themselves. Make sure you’re not one of ’em.’
He waited until the river had settled down again, then rang the bell, and the engine rumbled into life. On the deck below them, Elsie cast off the mooring lines and hauled them in. With a farewell blast from her whistle, Brenda pulled out into the stream.
Alex stood waiting by the open doorway while the breeze set the dark curls flying on her head. She knew that Charlie would hand the wheel to her once they were clear of the town and its river traffic. She was eleven years old and had been handling Brenda since she was eight. The first time she held the wheel she’d had to stand on a wooden box, because she wasn’t tall enough to see out of the window. She had done it a hundred times since then, but still loved to take the wheel and know she was in charge.
She looked ahead as Brenda negotiated the first bend. Ahead there were no more town buildings, only a fishing shack or two, and hardly any river craft. On the northern bank a dinghy moored beside one of these shacks was tossing in the chop left by the Silas J. She looked at it, then looked again.
‘Daddy …’
‘Yeah?’ Charlie’s mind was far away.
‘That’s our dinghy.’
‘Nonsense. How can it be?’
‘I can see the chip out of the bow where Luke bashed it on a rock.’
Now Charlie was looking, too. ‘I don’t see the name.’
‘Perhaps it’s been painted out.’
‘Perhaps it has.’ The frost in his voice would have frightened the boldest.
For another hundred yards he stood unmoving at the wheel, then rang down to the engine room to cut off power. The rumble of the engine died; the paddles slowed into silence. Brenda drifted into the northern bank. At this point the water was clear of obstructions, so she snuggled as close as a lover to the mud.
Sarah met Charlie and Alex as they came down from the wheelhouse. ‘What’s goin’ on?’ she asked.
The frosty look still on his face, Charlie explained while they secured the mooring warps to trees.
‘What are you gunna do?’
‘Get our dinghy back. If it’s ours.’
‘Can I come with you?’ Alex asked.
‘No place for kids,’ Sarah said quickly.
‘Let ’er come,’ Charlie said. ‘Alex was the one who spotted it. Besides, it’ll remind her of somethin’ I hope she knows already: that it don’t pay to walk off with other people’s property.’
‘Then I’m comin’ too,’ Sarah said, no nonsense in her voice. ‘Elsie, you’re in charge.’
Back along the bank they went, walking as quietly as they could, the river lapping at their boots.
They caught their first sight of the shack’s unpainted wall and in the same instant saw a man sitting on the bank with his back to them. A narrow, crooked back in a soiled shirt.
Charlie raised his hand to signal a halt. They stood still, holding their breath. The man was concentrating on a line he had in the water and had heard nothing.
Ghost-quiet, Charlie drifted forward. At the last moment the man looked over his shoulder and leapt to his feet.
Jig Jenkins had a slippery grin on his face that was no grin at all.
‘Mr Armstrong!’ A croak in his throat as though he’d swallowed a toad. ‘Fancy seein’ you! Lord, I swear you made me jump like a blessed kanga, creepin’ up on me like that. And Mrs Armstrong and Alex with you, too. What’re you doin’ here? Havin’ a picnic? Grand day for it.’ Smiling and smiling, while his eyes slithered like a pig in grease.
‘I’m here for my dinghy,’ Charlie said evenly.
‘Dinghy?’ Jig’s voice rose; now he was squeaking like a galah. ‘No dinghy round ’ere that I knows of, Mr Armstrong.’
‘Then you won’t mind me checkin’ what you got in the water by the shack there.’
He took a step forward and Jig moved to block him; the smile that was no smile had vanished completely now.
‘This is private land, Mr Armstrong. I can’t let you go down there. The owner wouldn’t stand for it, see.’ Which was plain nonsense; the shacks were erected by men who used them for fishing and had no title to the land on which they stood. Everybody knew that.
‘Outta the way, Jig.’
Still he would not move. Charlie picked him up and chucked him, sprawling, half in and half out of the water. Charlie walked on without a sideways glance.
Jig was on his feet again so quickly he might have bounced. He snatched up a fallen branch and went after Charlie, while Sarah screamed a warning.
Charlie turned. He waited until Jig was almost on him, then hit him in the face with all his force.
The sound was like an axe biting into a tree. Jig dropped the branch and fell forward on his face.
Charlie did not bother to look at him but turned and walked on. After half a dozen steps he came to the shack. The dinghy was bobbing at the end of a long line. He hauled it in. The name had been painted out but it was their dinghy all right; he could still see the letters where his knife had cut them into the stern timbers. He found the oars and thole pins inside the shack.
By the time he got back Jig was starting to stir, with Sarah staring at him in horror, her arms clutching Alex tightly.
Jig groaned, but Charlie was not in a sympathetic mood. ‘Up!’ He yanked him to his feet. ‘Talk.’
Jig said nothing.
Charlie shook him like a bag of dirty washing. ‘You want me to hand you over to the wallopers, I’ll do it.’ Shake, shake. ‘Or maybe I should just sort you out meself.’
It was a prospect to frighten a tougher man than Jig Jenkins. In no time he was gushing like a sewer.
Tiptoeing across the deck in the moonlight. Easing himself into the dinghy. Casting off. Sculling downriver to the reed bed a hundred yards away. Pushing the dinghy deep into the reeds, out of sight of anyone who did not know where to look. Passing the word to his brother when they arrived in Wentworth.
‘I thought you said he was in the Outback.’
Well, he
had said that, yes. But now his brother had come to town.
Charlie’s expression was terrible; Jig wailed, arms wrapped about his head. It was his brother’s fault. His brother made him do it. He hadn’t wanted to, it wasn’t his idea, but he’d had no choice. Because his brother was a fearful man. His brother …
He would have blamed sister, aunt, cousin, and his own mother for good measure, if he’d thought it would do any good. Maybe there was a brother, maybe not. Either way, it made no difference.
Sarah saw the look on Charlie’s face. ‘Hand him over. Let the police sort him out.’
‘Do that and they’ll want us as witnesses. We’ll be stuck there forever.’ Besides, it was against Charlie’s instincts to do anything to help the wallopers. ‘Take Alex and the dinghy and row back to Brenda. Jig and me’s got some talkin’ to do.’
‘He’s not worth going to jail for,’ she warned.
In the green light beneath the trees Charlie’s eyes were like flame. ‘No jail,’ he said. ‘Not for either of us. But a bit of a lesson.’
So Sarah left with Alex and they rowed down the river to Brenda, leaving Jig Jenkins squirming like a fish in Charlie’s grasp.
‘Did you guess Jig had stolen it?’ Alex asked.
‘I had my suspicions,’ Sarah said. ‘You know some men would never do such a thing, but I saw from the first that Jig Jenkins wasn’t one of them, so when the dinghy disappeared I wasn’t surprised.’
Charlie came back later, walking along the bank, and when he came aboard they saw that the flames were no longer burning in his eyes.
‘Did you kill him?’ Alex asked.
‘No. Though he thought I might.’
‘What did you do to him?’
‘I explained the error of his ways.’
‘With your fists?’ Which were indeed red and swollen about the knuckles.
Charlie raised his eyebrows at Sarah. ‘Is there no end to the child’s questions?’
‘It was you encouraged her to have an inquiring mind.’
‘So I did.’ He smiled thoughtfully, flexing the fingers of his big right hand. He looked across at his wife. ‘It’s early for tea, but I feel like sausages. Some meat will go down a treat after all the excitement.’
And later, after the day had wound to its peaceful end and Elsie and Alex were asleep, there was a mingling of smiles and flesh in the golden lamplight.
Good days, and nights, upon the river’s breast.
1893
CHAPTER 42
Another year: of schooling for Alex, of life for all of them. They met up with Luke every month or two. Each time they saw him he seemed to have grown inches. His voice, like his chest, had deepened.
‘Next thing he’ll be a real man,’ said Sarah dolefully. Where had her little boy gone?
‘You wouldn’t want ’im to stay a kid forever, would you?’ Charlie asked her.
Of course not. Or would she? It was hard to be sure.
In the meantime the days unrolled peacefully, so that it was no longer possible to distinguish one from another.
Then came the case of the missing friend.
Early in 1893 they put into Niland. Home once again for the summer holidays, Alex went ashore and hunted up and down the riverbank, looking for the Aboriginal friend she had named Bethany, but couldn’t find her. The wurlies were deserted, the bush around them devoid of life. Even the footprints were gone.
The ranks of trees watched Alex’s frantic search and said nothing.
‘Bethany! Bethany!’ She hunted deeper into the gum forest without luck. Her voice died between the columns of indifferent trees.
Eventually, disconsolate, she gave up and went back to Brenda.
‘It’s their way,’ Sarah said. ‘They stay for a while in one place, then move on.’
‘Will they ever come back?’ And a yet more painful question: ‘Will I ever see her again?’
Neither Sarah nor anyone could give her the answer to that, not even the river, which flowed silently on, and the trees, which kept their age-old counsel.
1894
CHAPTER 43
It was October 1894 and they were halfway to Goolwa when Alex went to Sarah in a panic and told her she was ill, perhaps dying.
‘Blood …’
Sarah gave her a strip of towelling and showed her how to fasten it, then took her forward and sat beside her in the bows. The wind lifted the hair on their heads, a kite whistled shrilly as it circled above them, and Sarah told Alex, hesitantly and with many pauses for reflection, what it meant to be a woman.
‘You know about babies?’
‘I know they’re there.’
‘And where they come from?’
No, that she didn’t know. ‘From the store?’ she guessed, but hesitantly, sensing that she was wrong and afraid of seeming a fool.
‘No,’ Sarah said. ‘Not from the store. You ever seen babies in the stores we take up the river?’
Alex shook her head. No, she had not. Nor did she understand what babies had to do with her illness.
‘Wait and you’ll understand.’ And again silence as Sarah worked out what to say. ‘What is a mother?’ she asked eventually.
‘You are.’
‘Not who, Alex. What. What makes a mother? Is your dad a mother, or Luke?’
Alex would have laughed at such an idea, had she not been too worried. ‘Of course not. They’re men.’
‘But why can’t men be mothers?’
‘Because mothers are women.’
‘Quite right. Mothers are women, and women have the children.’
‘But where do the children come from?’
‘They come out of the mother’s body, from that place where the blood came to frighten you today.’
‘But how do they get there in the first place?’
‘The father puts them there.’
‘But where does he get them from?’
‘You know how Luke is a different shape from you?’
‘Yeah. He’s nobbly below the waist and I’m flat.’
‘The baby comes from the part where a man is different from a woman. It starts as a seed that the man puts inside the woman, then it grows and turns into a baby, and then it’s born.’
‘Is that what happened to me?’
‘To you and me and every man and woman who ever lived. All of us were born in the same way.’
‘What about the Queen?’
‘The Queen too. All of us.’
It was strange to think of a queen being born.
‘And Bethany?’ she asked.
‘Bethany too.’
It was strange and wonderful at the same time. Yet one question remained unanswered. ‘What about the blood?’
So Sarah explained to her about the blood too, and how it would return every month and was a sign that Alex was no longer a child but a woman.
In some ways that was the most mysterious thing of all. She had a bit of a stomach ache but apart from that felt no different from how she’d been yesterday, before the blood had arrived.
‘So men don’t have it too?’
‘No.’
‘They’re lucky.’
Sarah smiled. ‘We’re lucky too, in other ways.’
‘How?’
‘Because we’ve been given the gift of caring. More than men, mostly. They’re strong in their way, we in ours. To have your own child is a wonderful and terrible thing. A responsibility, perhaps the greatest of all, because a mother shapes her child’s life. I dunno how to put this properly, but I think it makes us somehow closer to God. All this …’ she gestured at the passing banks, the willows’ green brilliance, the white and brown trunks of the trees, the olive tide of the leaves shifting in the wind ‘… and knowing that within us we’ve got the ability to make a child, to bring it to life, to show it the joys and fears that we’ve known in our own lives … Sometimes it seems too wonderful to be true, yet that’s what bein’ a woman means.’
‘Being able to do a
ll the things you said?’ Alex felt she was drowning in the emotions that spilt from her mother’s explanations.
‘Yeah. Something like that.’ Sarah looked at her, suddenly embarrassed by her own words. ‘Enough yappin’. Come and help make the tea.’
Because that, too, was part of what being a woman meant.
CHAPTER 44
Later that month they heard the first rumours of trouble upriver.
It had started with the shearers, but it hadn’t been long before the miners and boundary riders had joined in too. Living on the river, never staying in one place for more than a few days at a time, the Armstrongs had picked up echoes but did not know much about the problem.
Then, when the unrest spread to the wharfies, that changed. At Wentworth they found shouting and threats of violence and police with batons, fat and sweating in their helmets. Charlie cast off from the wharf and anchored in midstream, keeping a head of steam in the boiler, in case the violence spread to the river. To be extra-sure, he kept the shotgun loaded and close at hand. ‘Anyone comes looking for a fight might just find one,’ he said.
But no-one troubled them and the next day things were quiet, so Charlie went ashore to see if there was any cargo to be had.
The atmosphere along the wharf was so prickly he could have shaved it with a knife. The offices of the squatters’ and shippers’ agents were closed, with shutters over the windows, and the lines of camels and bullock drays that were usually waiting to deliver cargo for shipment downriver were nowhere in sight. A poor lookout, with Brenda’s holds half-empty, but the pub was open and through the open windows men’s angry voices rumbled like a swarm of bees.
Charlie went inside and shouldered his way to the bar. The hive was seething, the shouting so loud that it was hard to make out what anyone was saying. The air was blue with tobacco smoke and the tension razor-sharp.
There was clearly no chance of doing any business or even of talking sense, so Charlie ordered a beer and tipped it down, planning to get back aboard as quickly as he could and head on upriver, when he turned and for the first time saw the face of the man beside him.
‘Will!’