Bloodlines

by Nicole Sinclair

  She walks along the creek every morning and shows Beth tadpoles darting in the shallows, a shrieking cocky that splinters the quiet. And she smiles broadly when she spots a kangaroo with a joey in the pouch.

  ‘Like us,’ she coos, kissing Beth’s head. At night she brings the baby to bed with her and the three of them sleep the best they have in months.

  ‘It’s good to have you back, Rosie.’ Clem nibbles her neck. ‘I’ve missed yer, love.’

  *

  By the time Beth is five months old, Rose is cooking for the team again and Beth is passed from shearer to shearer and roustabout to wool classer at smoko, lunch and cut-out. And so she can throw a few fleeces, Rose gives Beth a teething ring and settles her amongst creamy wool in an open pack.

  ‘Gotta keep my hand in,’ she says to Harry Smithson, launching the wool in the air, flecks of confetti drifting down. ‘Just in case Clem decides to give away the sheds and stay home with Beth all day!’

  Most days Beth smells of the shed and sheep shit and Rose holds her close, smelling Clem as well, breathing him in.

  *

  At seven months, Beth stands for the first time. On shaky legs she pulls herself up, clinging to the wool press in Normie Buchan’s shed, and the four shearers turn off their plants and watch her feel her way along the edge.

  ‘Look at her go,’ says Jock proudly.

  ‘Chip off the ol’ block,’ Harry says, smiling. ‘Might have a little wool classer ’ere.’

  On the weekends Rose stands at the kitchen sink looking out the window, glimpsing Clem through the fruit trees striding along the fence line of the home paddock, a gold strip of fabric tied taut around his torso, little Beth safe inside. She imagines what one of those African women might think about a man carrying a baby like that. That she’s bloody lucky, most likely. She knows Clem would do anything for Beth.

  *

  Clem comes across the kitchen, knocks the table leg and sends Rose’s custard tart toppling onto the floor. Sometimes he steps on her toes when she looks up to kiss him. In bed he rolls over and whacks her with an elbow.

  On Good Friday night, lying in bed, he tells her that he loves her. ‘I’m the luckiest bloke alive,’ he whispers, as if this could lessen the goose of him.

  ‘Clem, you’re all I need. You’re enough,’ she says softly. ‘Don’t ever think you’re not.’

  2007

  Sam’s relatives arrive from across the desert one afternoon: a Winnebago, a red Tarago converted into a campervan, an orange minibus, the seats ripped out and replaced with old iron beds and laminated kitchen benches. There are only eight people but already there are too many. Beth keeps working, though school has finished for the summer; she conjures lessons for Macbeth; a review in The West gets her planning a film unit; she reads Pride and Prejudice again.

  Sam, his sister and cousins swim each day, and fish in the afternoon. Beth sees how happy he is now that his family is here. The mother and father powerwalk five kilometres before breakfast, then catch the train to the city, the art gallery, the museum. The cousins hire motorbikes and they follow Sam and his sister on day trips to Lancelin, York, Bridgetown. Nobody mentions how quiet Beth is.

  Beth answers the door to a beaming Clem and Eva, whose arms are full with raw silk the colour of the moon. She kisses them too buoyantly and then, almost frantically, leads them to the spare room all set up: the double bed for Eva, a single mattress on the floor for Clem.

  ‘I see, love,’ Clem finally says. ‘Isolate the snorers. Keep the disease from spreading, eh?’

  Beth doesn’t say anything, keeps moving boxes off the bed.

  Eva places the silk dress over the chair in the corner, running her hand over it to smooth out the creases.

  ‘It’s all done, Beth,’ she says gently. ‘Finished it Tuesday. Shall we fit it now or in the morning?’

  ‘Not today, not yet.’ And then: ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ and she hurries down the hall.

  Clem, Eva and Beth sip tea and eat fruitcake in the courtyard. Sam and his family are at the markets, organising food for dinner. Clem stares at Beth’s face, drained of its usual healthy colour, and he knows that something is wrong.

  He remembers when Beth came bleating into the world, and he sees Rose, beautiful, beautiful Rose, reach for the slippery baby, bring it to her breast as the doctor, arm on Clem’s shoulder said, Look at your girls Clem, you lucky man. And he’d felt expansive that day, like he always hoped he’d be: fuller, grown into himself somehow. He’d seen reams of light radiating from Rose, the shrieking baby and himself, the whole room a-glimmer.

  Clem knows Beth. He knows when things aren’t right. And then he remembers because it will come back, even when you don’t want it to: a hollow, blue-frocked girl not much older than five who wouldn’t let him out of her sight. All day Beth had stood quiet and still, his tiny shadow, and he’d had some small inkling that she knew: I’m all he has. It’s only me.

  And now this. For once, Clem has no words for his daughter, this papery version of Beth in front of him. He knows she’s lost too much weight and Eva’s dress won’t fit and he wonders how he will sort out the sorry mess of it all.

  Someone knocks softly on the back door.

  ‘Susa, susa,’ Lena calls. Beth murmurs from the bedroom. ‘Beth, you orait?’ Lena opens the door.

  ‘Mi orait, Lena. Come. Come.’

  Lena walks through the house and into the bedroom. ‘I make rice and mackerel. On the bench. You eat tonight.’ Gracie is asleep in her arms.

  ‘Tenkyu tru.’ Beth smiles weakly.

  ‘Ahh Beth. Misis Val says nogat malaria.’ She sits on the chair at Beth’s desk. Grace stirs, then settles again. ‘Good news, thanks God. Now you must rest.’

  ‘Malolo.’

  ‘That’s right, malolo.’ Lena looks right at her. ‘Lewa i bruk.’

  Beth sifts through her Pidgin. Lewa? Heart. She feels a tightness in her throat. ‘I’ll be okay.’

  ‘Hia,’ Lena says standing, and offers to hand her Grace. ‘Take her. She sleep with you. You hold. I’ll be back.’ And before Beth can protest, Lena is walking through the kitchen and the back door clicks shut. Beth looks down at the sleeping Grace: black cheek against white arm, the rise and fall of the little chest. She’s warm and smells of smoky coconut husks, and a thin trail of dribble runs from the corner of her mouth, and Beth thinks how special it is to cradle a child as they sleep, the giving over, the complete trust. A gift. And though every part of her aches, she gently holds Grace until sleep somehow comes.

  2007

  One night, after everyone’s gone to the cinema, Beth tells Sam she can’t do this anymore. She dumps her bag on the kitchen table, takes his hand and leads him out into the courtyard. She pulls out a chair for him and they sit looking at each other across the wooden table.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says softly. ‘I thought I could but I can’t. It’s no good for either of us if I keep going on like this.’

  Sam, face pale, grey eyes searching, says, ‘What, Beth? What’s going on?’

  ‘Reality, maybe. I mean ... I want to marry you, I do. But deep down, I guess I know I can’t.’

  He says nothing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I don’t have any other words. Any reasons or excuses. I can’t find out why. It’s just wrong.’ And then, more quietly: ‘It has been for a while.’

  ‘Shit,’ Sam says, pushing her hand away. ‘Why’d you say yes, then?’

  ‘Because I wanted to. Because I thought it would fix things.’ Fix you. And me, is what she wants to say.

  ‘Wanted to? And now you don’t?’ Sam yells, eyes blazing.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she says, nails digging into her palms. ‘I just can’t seem to make us work anymore.’ She closes her eyes, exhausted.

  Sam tries to get her to say more, but her mouth is dry, her head numb. He drones on about the past and memories and plans, and the wedding, the wedding, Beth, in a few days, but she keeps her eyes closed, ke
eps saying sorry, and feels herself walking through wheat in the home paddock, her hand trailing over the tips, and she can see Clem and Red down by the dam and she knows it’s the right thing to do.

  Later, when she’s propped up on pillows, reading in the bedroom, Sam comes to her. He sits on the edge of the bed, his face white.

  ‘Please,’ he whispers.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, unblinking.

  She puts her book aside and Sam bends down, placing his head in her lap. She feels him sinking into her, clutching her hard and weeping. Dulled somehow, she stares at the wardrobe and rhythmically strokes his hair. She holds him until he is quiet.

  *

  Beth jolts awake as the Triumph hammers into life. She looks at the clock: one am. Then Sam’s sister’s in the doorway, the words tumbling: ‘I tried but I couldn’t. He was wild, Beth, crazy. I couldn’t stop him.’

  Beth scrambles out of bed and they run through the house, out the front door, down the steps, racing after the Triumph as it careers down the street. The motor suddenly cuts out and there’s a screeching of metal, a sharp crack, a dull thud. Fear thumping her chest, Beth grabs the sister’s arm and they run faster. By the time they reach him people have come out of their houses. A man’s talking on a mobile.

  ‘He’s calling an ambulance,’ says a woman in a dressing gown. She’s crouched beside Sam, trying to keep him still but he’s wrestling with the helmet, finally gets it off, tosses it away just as his sister reaches him. Another man’s wheeling the Triumph off the road and Sam’s writhing in pain, groaning. Beth gasps: his leg is torn apart from the ankle to the knee. Blood everywhere, muscle and fat bulging, jagged bone jutting out. She feels her legs go loose, tastes vomit in her throat. Sam’s sister is stroking his face, begging him to be still, sobbing as she strokes his head, and Beth is stranded, unable to move.

  ‘They’re on the way.’ The man with the mobile has finished the call. ‘Must hurt like hell.’ He looks over at Sam and shakes his head. Looks at Beth. ‘Lucky for the grog. At least he’s got something in him for the pain.’

  Sam’s eyes meet hers and she holds her breath, unsure of what she sees. Accusation? Hatred?

  ‘Sam, I—’ She moves towards him and he looks right through her as if she’s not there, and then he passes out.

  Someone says something about hitting a culvert ... something about a drain ... and a shudder runs through her as she leans against a tree and she hears a woman saying, Just as well he didn’t hit that.

  *

  Eva, Clem and Beth make brief, apologetic phone calls to guests, caterers, the priest. Beth won’t stay in the Fremantle house and escapes to a friend in Cottesloe. The friend cooks lentil soup, then organises Beth’s bed: a single mattress in the lounge room. After dinner, they drink tea and smoke cigarettes under the passionfruit vine. Beth hasn’t smoked for years; she isn’t very good at it. The scratch of each inhalation feels like a tiny punishment, a retribution of sorts; she takes another one and watches the yellow moon.

  ‘See Beth,’ the friend says. ‘The big old moon, she always rises.’

  Except on those no moon nights, Beth thinks fiercely. She takes another drag of the cigarette, fighting the tickle caught in her throat. Later, they hear a woman screaming in the street ... Leave me alone ... You gonna kill me if you keep doin’ that! Beth and her friend listen in silence. Then the woman’s big, relentless wails fill the night.

  ‘Think I’ll go to bed now,’ Beth says abruptly. She stands, stubs out her cigarette.

  She lies on the mattress, cushions from the couch wedged along her back, trying not to feel Sam beside her, coiling around her. She can still hear the woman crying.

  *

  Beth feels awkward in the hospital room when she visits Sam. His mother refuses to leave the bedside during visiting hours, and Beth stands by the window or the table covered with vases of flowers, feeling like an intruder. Everyone knows now that the foot peg of the bike ripped through Sam’s leg. The wound is deep and the kneecap is smashed, but despite a bluish tinge to the foot, the doctor is confident they’ll save the leg. They are monitoring it closely, he said. Sam is doped with morphine and Tramadol and slips in and out of sleep. He doesn’t speak. And Beth has nothing to say.

  On the tenth day Beth arrives at the hospital to find Sam’s mother, father and sister in tears: the foot is bluer than before and the surgery has been booked. Amputation just above the knee. His mother looks at Beth with contempt as the father quickly ushers her and the sister from the room, leaving Beth alone with Sam. She sits in the mother’s chair, touches the mattress.

  ‘Sam, it’s me,’ she whispers. His eyes flash open. She feels the sting of tears. ‘I’m so sorry, I—’ She wants to ask if he blames her, if he can forgive her.

  But he closes his eyes and turns his head away.

  *

  Beth heads to the farm and stays in bed on the day of the operation. She can’t bear to know details of the surgery or rehab, though she guesses it will take months for the skin grafts to take. She can’t imagine what’s involved in having a prosthetic leg fitted, or what it will be like learning to walk again. He might never ride again. Or play cricket. Or dance. She clenches her fists against her chest.

  She surfaces, heads for the kitchen as the sun is sinking low in the sky. She’s relieved to see Clem outside, chopping wood. She leaves a message for the family at the hospital.

  No one returns her call.

  *

  The next afternoon Clem knocks on her door.

  The words slice through her: ‘Sam’s sister called,’ he says gently. ‘He got through the op okay, but ... well, it’s best you don’t contact him, Bethy.’ He looks away, looks back at her. ‘Sam wants that,’ he says. ‘It’s not yer fault, love.’ He walks towards the bed.

  ‘You know nothing.’ Her words are acid and he stops in his tracks.

  ‘Bethy.’ He sighs. ‘No one held a gun to his head and said, Hey fella, drink a skinful and then go for a ride.’

  But she feels the weight of it all. If she hadn’t called off the wedding, none of this would be happening.

  And maybe deep down she knows she should never have said yes in that clearing near Walpole. All those months before.

  Each day food is left at her front door: pumpkins, bananas, pawpaws, fish. Beth hears the hushed voices as families drop by on the way to school, but she feels too weak to talk. Lena brings her crab cooked in coconut and ginger, or chicken and rice from the restaurant, and leaves it on the back step. Beth reads books in bed, writes letters home and watches The Sound of Music three times. She sleeps in the afternoon and fourteen hours each night.

  On Thursday morning she wakes at six and sitting at her desk, begins to write. The pen rushes across her notebook, an outpouring of shame, guilt, grief. Of sorry. For hours, she writes and cries, laughs and shakes her head, cries some more. Gets water, a banana, and then returns to write as she eats. Later she has tea and toast at the desk as she’s dancing with Sam on that first night, lazily walking along Hadrian’s Wall in Cumbria, wrapped in winter coats, Sam’s hand in hers, eating huge strawberries outside Sacré-Cœur before chasing the gypsy kids from their backpacks. It’s the joy of coming home, the wonder of the Walpole trip and Sam proposing, writing the euphoria through swimming eyes. Then it’s Fremantle and hard and hurt and sad. She just didn’t know. Just didn’t know. She sees herself in their bedroom, curled up under the blankets, immobilised with fear. It was like she had a gun in one hand and a knife in the other: whatever she chose, it was going to end badly, and people would talk. And then she knew what she had to do, and rushes it all down: the conversation, telling him it was over, then the accident, and Sam’s gaping wound. Blood everywhere, his sister screaming. The hospital with its sharp sheets and disinfectant, the vigil of his weeping mother. The dark days of worry and guilt. The surgery. Sam refusing to look at her, to talk to her again. And then Pirate, standing at the gate in the morning, surprising her, the nights on the yacht a
nd liklik ailan, loaded with longing, wanting him to stay, go. The man she thought might save her. When she had no right to ask him, even if she’d never asked him with words. She writes, writes them out, she and Sam and Pirate, until there are no words and no more tears.

  She stares at the pages, numb, spent.

  That night when everyone’s asleep, Beth goes outside to the haus win, clutching the pages. One by one she screws them up and carefully puts them in the fire pit. She strikes a match and watches the spark take life, blue and yellow flames dancing over the sheets, licking the night air. She sits cross-legged and watches until they are smouldering, those men, and still. And though it’s after midnight and the air is sticky, a slight breeze tickles the back of her neck and the ashes stir and flutter, tiny silver specks floating in the moonlight.

  *

  She wakes to hear Grace singing through the walls, mixing island language with Pidgin and English. Later, Moses brings her a square of tapa cloth painted with brown and black shapes like the ones Beth admires at The Bilas. She knows it’s most likely come from his home village on the mainland. Moses smiles but says nothing, and she clutches the bark cloth to her chest, then steadies herself against the door frame, eyes filling with tears as she watches him walk away. Delilah visits every afternoon with a bunch of hibiscus or bougainvillea for her bedroom. She is weak and tired but Beth begins to feel light again, finds herself smiling in the shower.

  Val’s watched the stream of offerings being delivered to Beth all week. She’s taken soup, fresh bread and DVDs herself, and on the weekend, waits for the heavy afternoon shower to end before walking across the soaking lawn to Beth’s house. Her arms are laden with gin, tonic and wedges of lime.