The Valley

by Di Morrissey

  Dani now slept through the strident dawn chorus of the bantam cockerels but on Friday morning Jolly’s delighted barking woke her suddenly. The dog was pawing to get out onto the verandah and when Dani slid open the glass doors, she saw why. Two young children were romping in the dewy grass in their pyjamas. A boy had a large floppy-eared rabbit on a long length of string and it was sniffing around the bushes. An older girl had a young black angora goat on a much stronger length of string.

  ‘You’re up early,’ called Dani. ‘Sun’s not even up.’ She pointed to the pale gold and pink streaks in the sky. A low mist hung over the river but she could smell and feel it was going to be a hot day.

  ‘Sorry. We didn’t know you had a dog. Will it chase our rabbit?’ called the boy.

  ‘Stupid, of course it will. Ratso does. All dogs chase them,’ said the girl with the air of a smart young sister.

  ‘I’ll keep her inside. What are you doing with the animals?’ asked Dani.

  ‘Taking them for a walk. Our rabbit gets tired of being in the hutch,’ said the girl.

  ‘Even if it’s a big one. Nan moves them round,’ added the boy.

  Dani had seen Helen move the rabbit hutch onto fresh grass. ‘Helen is your nana?’

  The children came closer to the verandah, looking up at Dani and the eager Jolly. The girl looked to be about six, the boy about eight, same as Tim.

  ‘Yep. We’re coming to live here with Nana and Pop,’ he announced.

  ‘Really? And what about your mum and dad?’ Dani recalled Helen talking with pride about her daughter Angela, a teacher, and her lovely family.

  ‘They’re coming too, of course,’ said the girl as if Dani had asked a very silly question.

  At that moment Helen appeared around the side of the house in her dressing gown. ‘My goodness, you little imps. I’ve told you not to go near the guests. Sorry, Dani. This is Toby and Tabatha, my daughter’s kids.’

  ‘No problem. They weren’t to know Jolly was here. Do you want a cup of tea?’

  ‘I’d better see to their porridge, thanks anyway. They’ve got a day off school and promised to help Pop in the shed. What about you?’

  ‘Painting. Max has offered me space in his studio. Has an extra easel and the works. Very kind of him.’

  ‘Great, so you’ll transform one of your sketches into a big painting then?’

  ‘That’s the idea,’ said Dani. She didn’t tell Helen she was planning to paint the view of the river from the verandah as a gift for her. She’d wait and see how it turned out first. ‘The kids say they’re moving here.’

  ‘Yes, we’re so excited. Angela has got a job at the district school and her husband Tony is finishing his environmental degree. They’re renovating the old cottage down the back of the property here. They’ll help us run this place, and give us a breather occasionally. Can’t remember the last proper holiday we had.’

  ‘You came to Port last Christmas, Nana,’ declared Tabatha.

  ‘So we did.’ Helen grinned at Dani. ‘Barney and I looked after these two while Angela and Tony had a few days away. Some holiday!’

  ‘They live at Port Macquarie?’

  ‘For the last few years. Have a productive day, Dani. Come on, kids, you can groom the animals later.’

  ‘We’re putting them in the Cedartown Show next month,’ explained Tabatha as they turned to follow Helen back to the big house.

  Dani watched them go and suddenly missed her son. She hurried up the hill with her mobile and caught Tim before Lara took him to school.

  ‘Why don’t you come up here for the weekend, Tim? There’s lots to do and I think you’ll enjoy yourself.’

  He sounded doubtful. ‘Ma and I are doing stuff. Anyway, aren’t you coming home soon?’

  ‘Yes, but I want you to see this place. I might spend a bit more time here.’

  ‘Why? You said you’d be gone a week or so. It’ll be a week on Sunday. I miss Jolly.’

  ‘And me too? What are you doing on the weekend?’

  ‘Soccer practice,’ he said quickly. The idea of a long drive to a strange place in the country held no appeal.

  ‘Good luck, sweetie. Jolly is fine, she loves it here. Chases rabbits. Well, put Ma on and have a good day at school.’

  ‘Hi, darling, what’s up?’ Lara sounded concerned.

  ‘Nothing. Relax, Mum. I’m going to paint in a friend’s studio. I was just talking to the grandkids of the woman who runs this place, the boy is Tim’s age, and I thought you guys might like to drive up for the weekend.’ Dani paused and when Lara didn’t react went on, ‘I’m thinking of staying on longer than planned. I feel I’m just getting organised. Would that be all right?’

  ‘Of course. I’m glad you’re feeling creative. But us rushing up there for two days . . . well, it doesn’t seem worth it.’ Lara sensed something in Dani’s voice. ‘School holidays soon. Maybe we could do something then.’

  ‘Okay, you’re sure Timmy isn’t any trouble? There’s all that driving him places and school stuff.’

  ‘Nonsense, I’m loving it. Take care, darling, we have to dash to school.’

  Lara meant what she said. In the past week she’d realised how empty her life had become since quitting her job. With the travel bug satisfied, she filled her days mainly with gardening and keeping the house immaculate. She was bored. Over the past week she’d become quite interested in some of Tim’s schoolmates and their parents. Chatting with them at the school gate and sometimes over a coffee, she became more aware of the increasing problems and dramas many young couples were experiencing. How there was never enough time, or money, or solutions to job and family pressures. It seemed so different from when she was a child.

  Lara had always felt isolated from the family life of her friends. There had only been her mother and her from when she was ten and tragedy had rocked their complacent, simple lives. Even so, comparing her childhood friends with those of her grandson, it seemed for all their material wealth, lavish homes and lifestyle, something was missing in these modern families. It wasn’t just routine and discipline that was lacking, but there was a hollowness, a shallowness, a barely concealed desperation. Why did she now recall those distant childhood holidays with her grandparents with such nostalgia?

  Lara supposed Dani’s return to the country town where their family roots were had triggered her fond memories of another era, of time spent with her grandparents in the fifties when Australia was enjoying security and a postwar boom. A time when she felt loved and protected.

  Lara’s life with her mother Elizabeth was blighted by the shadow of tragedy, the fear of what could happen to change your life in a day, and the weighty knowledge that life was a struggle for her mother. Not just financially and emotionally. The bitter set to Elizabeth’s mouth and the sad, often distrusting look in her eyes made Lara realise her mother was different, not like her friends’ mothers. By contrast, at home at Cricklewood her relaxed grandparents happily indulged her, and taught her to believe that beyond the confines of their small country town, and over the horizon, a huge world waited, a world where anything was possible.

  Lara wondered how Dani felt about her childhood. She’d had only a brief time in the security of a complete family unit. Dani’s relationship with her father was distant, emotionally as well as geographically, and his family was scattered around the USA. Lara hadn’t ever talked in depth with Dani about growing up in a different country, or about Lara’s divorce from Dani’s father Joe, or about Lara’s failed second marriage to Gordon. Yet Dani seemed well adjusted, even after her own divorce. Lara knew she and Dani were very close. Her grandson was happy. And so Lara never dwelt on past unhappiness if she could help it.

  But she couldn’t dispel the feeling that the ground was trembling beneath her firmly planted feet. There was a shadow of unfinished business in Lara’s life and, she realised, it had all begun at Cricklewood, her grandparents’ house. She looked at the dining room table covered in documents, letters and photogra
phs from the long-neglected family archives retrieved from the old house when her grandfather died. They now absorbed most of her spare time and were casting a web around her, of memories, nostalgia and questions she should have asked long ago.

  Lara took a deep breath. For an instant she wondered how Dani really felt about being near her great-grandparents’ home but quickly she realised her daughter had no memories of Cricklewood. Lara had brought Dani home on her first visit back from America when she was eight months old. Lara took her baby home to Cricklewood to meet her grandfather. Emily had died a year before and it was a welcome diversion for Harold who was lonely, sharing Cricklewood and its memories with his little dog Rover.

  Her mother Elizabeth had been very emotional and excited at seeing her first grandchild but she was working and unable to go with Lara and the baby to Cedartown. Lara was secretly glad. She wanted Poppy all to herself. When she got back to her mother in Sydney there was a lot of tension between them that was difficult to cope with, impossible to understand. Her mother refused to talk about whatever was making her so stand-offish after such a warm welcome a fortnight earlier. So Lara told Joe that she was coming back to America earlier than intended.

  Life around Elizabeth was always drama filled, recalled Lara as she walked into the kitchen and switched off the murmuring radio. Thoughts of her mother and grandparents swirled in her head; places, incidents, people, feelings, confusing images of her childhood years.

  Lara strode outdoors looking for something to do. Suddenly she envied Dani having a project, even if it was just an experiment for a week or so. I should go up there too. Make a pilgrimage to the ancestral homeland, she joked to herself. Why not? Lara swung back indoors feeling invigorated. She had plans to make.

  3

  Cedartown, 1928

  Emily and Harold

  ‘HAROLD, IT’S ALL FULL of trees! Bushes . . . my goodness, I hadn’t remembered how . . . wild it is!’

  ‘That’s why it’s called a bush block, Em. We looked at it over a year ago and it’s not been touched.’

  ‘Well, now it’s ours. Every wretched weed and tree. Oh dear, it’s going to be a big job clearing all this to build. Are you sure you can manage, dear?’ Emily was having second thoughts about her planned trip to England and leaving her husband Harold to hold down his job as head porter at Cedartown Railway Station and to help construct a home. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t spend the money. We’ll need it for the building. They keep talking about bad times coming.’

  Harry affectionately patted his wife’s shoulder and lifted Mollie, their two-year-old daughter, from her arms. ‘You’ve done a wonderful job managing the money and saving up and I know you’ve been looking forward to showing the girls off to the family back home.’

  He gave the little girl a kiss on the cheek and smiled at the tiny determined figure of his wife beside him. Emily still looked as young and pretty as the day he’d proposed – her soft brown wavy hair parted on the side, her peaches and cream skin that she protected from the harsh Australian sun by always wearing a hat of some kind, her blue eyes and small, cupid’s bow mouth. She was a dainty thing, and was often compared to Elizabeth Bowes Lyons who married the Duke of York who later became King George VI.

  But Harold had come to learn Emily had an iron will and feisty temper once riled. She was not a lady to be trifled with, to be short-changed or not treated in a manner she thought her due. She was firm with the girls, telling Harold he was too soft on them. He always gave in to her with a good natured, ‘Whatever you say, Em.’

  When she announced she’d saved up the fare for herself and the girls to travel – even if steerage class – to England, he’d been slightly surprised, but pleased she’d managed it. Yes, it had been a struggle but for six years Emily squirrelled away shillings of the housekeeping money, keeping it separate from what they’d put in the bank from Harold’s pay packet to buy the block of land. She’d been frugal.

  They were also lucky in that Harold was well liked by the farmers and business people whose produce and wares came through the railway goods shed where he worked. He often came home with little gifts of appreciation, particularly at Easter and Christmas. And they also frequently gave him damaged items that spilled from broken freight containers. Every time he shunted railway wagons out to the bacon factory and abattoirs on the southern edge of town he would check in with the shift boss and be given a parcel of saveloys, sausages or tender pork fillets. The manager of the butter factory on the other side of town also offered a billycan of cream or milk any time Harold helped out with freight shipments. These added luxuries were very welcome and cost no more than a smile and polite service.

  ‘Remember, we won’t have to pay any more rent to Mrs Moon while you’re away,’ added Harold to reassure his wife. ‘I’m going to camp here and get cracking. In six months or so when you three come back it will all be nearly done.’ He gave Mollie a playful nose nuzzle in the tummy and they both laughed.

  ‘I’m afraid we couldn’t manage in a tent,’ said Emily. There was a touch of embarrassment in her voice. The idea of a nicely brought up London girl living under canvas would not be well received back in the old country where her father had a certain status in their essentially working-class community – he was in charge of furniture maintenance at Buckingham Palace. No, camping with children was out of the question. It was difficult enough in the two rooms they rented in the better part of town over the bridge.

  It was now two years since they’d moved up the line from Lairwood to Cedartown to take advantage of Harold’s promotion to head porter, but they had decided against another move, even if it meant Harold might miss being promoted to station master. They agreed it would be more practical and less disruptive to family life to settle in one place. So they’d bought the half-acre block of land for one hundred pounds and applied for a housing loan from the Government Savings Bank of New South Wales, which had a charter from the state government to facilitate the financing of houses in the country. The bank had a selection of house plans available for potential borrowers and the Williams had chosen plan number one hundred and twelve.

  The house had big verandahs front and back, a wide hallway with two bedrooms on one side, kitchen and living room on the other. The bathroom was at the end of the hall, but the sanitary pan toilet was well down the backyard. Emily had eliminated the two open fireplaces in the bedrooms, but retained the big open fireplace in the living room. It was a wooden house with an imposing brick wall on the front verandah. The roof was galvanised corrugated iron.

  ‘And nor would I expect you to live rough in a tent. Come on, let’s have a cup of tea to celebrate,’ said Harold warmly. ‘And you have to look at the plans and tell me if there are any more changes you want made.’ He turned to check on their other daughter Elizabeth and spotted her down the back of the block poking a stick into a large ant bed. ‘Hey, stop annoying those ants, Elizabeth,’ he shouted, but without a hint of anger. ‘They’ve got a right to live here, just like us. Come on, we’re going now.’

  Elizabeth, a pretty seven-year-old, threw the stick away and skipped up the bushy block to join the family as they began walking towards the nearby railway station. ‘Where’s our house going to be, Mummy?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s going to be right here. Dad’s going to build a lovely house for us to live in when we get back from England. See, there’s a house being built down the road.’ Emily was trying to visualise her own completed house fronted by a rose garden with a nicely painted paling fence and a shiny letterbox.

  Suddenly there was a burst of laughter from the top of a nearby tree.

  ‘Kookaburra,’ announced Elizabeth. ‘There are two of them with a nest in that tree near the ants’ nest.’

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ said Harold. ‘Well, in that case I’ll make sure that we don’t cut down the tree so they can be there to laugh for you when you get back from England.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’

  Still holding Mollie, Harold to
ok Elizabeth’s hand and led them across to the railway station where he had his cubby hole office beside the big wooden goods shed. He’d miss his girls and he worried about the task he’d undertaken. His carpentry skills were basic but a mate who worked at Flanagan’s Saw Mill had promised to help him build a rough timber storage shed down the back of the block. The builder of the house would be recommended by the bank. He hoped Emily wouldn’t make many more alterations to the basic plan.

  Emily had already made a trip down to Newcastle – glad of the discount fare on the train – to choose several essential items for the new house. Her list included a sanitary pan cover costing twenty-four shillings and sixpence, a number two Bega stove with porcelain door for wood fuel at seven pounds nine shillings and threepence, and an Anti Splash bath with lion’s claw feet at eight pounds three shillings.

  Emily’s most important request was that the house have a brass nameplate next to the front door and it be called ‘Cricklewood’ after the London suburb where she and her childhood sweetheart Harold had first met.

  ‘First impressions are very important,’ she declared.

  As they walked across the railway line that divided the town, Harold was conscious they were settling on the side of the tracks where other battlers were making their homes. The well-to-do families lived closer to the river or in spacious homes near the centre of town. Nevertheless he felt a small stirring of pride knowing that he was providing a solid home for his devoted wife and daughters. He’d come to this country as a teenage lad with his dad and had never looked back or longed for the old country. Once his mother, brother and sisters had joined them they all considered Australia home. And he’d fought for his adopted country in the Great War.

  Briefly thoughts of hardship and painful times flashed to his mind, but he resolutely pushed them away and began to whistle a cheerful song. Even after a decade, the war years sometimes encroached on his peace of mind, disturbed his sleep, or hit him with a deep sense of loss.