by Ann Cliff
Rose was very proud of her garden that spring, and the little orchard she was starting. The fruit trees blossomed and the vegetables were a welcome addition to their diet. Sometimes when mist hung in the trees near the creek she thought about the dark people and wondered whether they would come back. Life was good, Rose felt well and it was even better when Luke started to make foundations for a new building. The long-awaited house was on the way and he took advice from Bert Carr, who had just finished building their house on the hill.
One day when Luke had gone over to Carr’s to borrow some tools, Rose went down to the creek for water. It was warm and the trees were shimmering in the heat. She bent to the water and when she straightened, two Aboriginal women were looking at her. She thought it was the same ones she’d seen before, but the baby was not with them.
‘Good day,’ she said uncertainly, not wanting to frighten them. ‘Are you fishing?’
‘Yabbies,’ one of them said, and they both laughed at her puzzled expression. ‘They’re crayfish, you know? Yes, we speak English. We were at the mission over there,’ the younger one continued, ‘but no good. Too many rules! So we went walkabout.’
From what she had heard of the mission, its intentions were good but if she’d had to live there, Rose thought she would have gone walkabout too. ‘So where do you live?’ There was so much she wanted to know. ‘My name is Rose,’ she added.
The older woman sat on the creek bank and patted the ground beside her. ‘Sit down, Rose. I am Auntie Mary and this young niece of mine is Sal. Mission names, easy for you! We move about, but mostly in winter we stay in one place where it’s warmer, down in the valley.’
‘You will have a baby?’ The younger one, Sal, smiled shyly. ‘We thought you will still be here; white folks don’t move like we do.’ She brought out something from her bag. ‘Wattle seeds. They’re everywhere at the right time of year. Grind them up and make damper.’ The wattles had flowered at the end of winter, yellow along the tracks like shafts of sunshine. Their seeds would ripen in time and she would collect them.
Rose sniffed the large, sulphurous seeds. ‘Thank you for the yams you left for me before.’
‘You like them? Good. There is plenty stuff in the bush if you know where to look … Rose, we will tell you about it.’ Auntie Mary settled herself more comfortably against the bank. ‘Mr Bulmer at the mission, he wanted to know all about what we collect.’ She grinned. ‘Didn’t tell him everything, did we, Sal?’
Sal laughed. ‘Nah. Just said we eat kangaroo and possum all the time. But Rose, if you can catch yabby, it’s good … and ducks … down east we eat swans’ eggs a lot in spring. Big eggs! You seen the swans? Big black birds, you know.’ She made her neck long and looked around and for a second Sal looked just like a swan.
Auntie Mary bent down and picked a mint-like plant at the water’s edge. Rose had wondered whether it was like English mint, but hadn’t tried it. Now she felt as though she had been blind to all the wonders around her; there were herbs everywhere here, just as there were at home. ‘You know this?’ the woman asked. ‘It will make food taste better – and treat your cough as well. Mint warms your belly.’
‘What about when you are sick?’ Rose wanted to know. ‘You have plants you use?’
‘Now, that’s secrets!’ Auntie Mary’s eyes widened. ‘There’s things you will know already, Rose. If you get a sting or a bite, rub it with bracken … everybody knows.’ Rose nodded. ‘And Yanun, that one.’ She pointed to a blackwood tree. ‘Boil up the bark for pains in the joints … you know. And for a cut or when your man bashes you.’ She looked at Rose sideways. ‘Then you chew up some gum leaves and put them on and the place don’t go bad. All sorts of gum leaves will do.’ She reached out and broke off a spray of eucalyptus leaves, crushing them in her hand.
‘Rose wants to know what’s for babies,’ Sal suggested, looking shyly into the creek. ‘You know the soft bark on some trees – paperbark you call them? You can wrap your baby in that … and a possum skin in winter.’ She laughed. ‘And the stuff you get when you cut the gum tree is sticky gum, good for when the baby shit too much.’
There was a rustling in the bushes and Luke appeared with a bag of tools on his back. The dark women shrank down lower on the creek bank and Rose stood up and went to meet him with her bucket of water.
‘Here, I’ll carry that,’ Luke offered. He hadn’t noticed the women and Rose didn’t mention them. She knew what his attitude would be. That evening she went down for water again and found the wattle seeds tucked into the bank.
As she grew heavier, the time seemed to go more slowly for Rose. She made some loose-fitting dresses and continued her work at the school, but everything was an effort, especially when the hot weather came. Thunderstorms swept the hills and the air was humid.
Luke continued to work on the new house, but Rose could still not see how big it was to be because he decided to finish off one room first. ‘Just for the present.’ He clad the walls in slabs of thick bark, so it was very much like their present hut, except that it had a timber floor. ‘This is what we can afford,’ Luke said whenever Rose asked for something a little more permanent.
TEN
MARTHA EXPECTED THE baby to be born at the end of January and she was very well prepared. Rose was to give birth in Martha’s new house, with all the attention that a midwife could provide. ‘No child should be born in a hut like this one,’ she said to Rose, watching That Spider make his way down the wall. ‘You’d better come over and stay with me, so I can keep an eye on you.’
The summer wore on, hot and dry or hot and wet, and Rose was increasingly uncomfortable. Christmas came and went, marked by a carol service at the school and a nativity play from the children, in costumes made by Freda and Rose. Rose enjoyed the distraction. The parents said they had never seen such a good play and the young actors were ecstatic.
Luke thought Rose should eat meat and bought beef from the Haunted Creek butcher, but otherwise he made no allowances for her condition. The farm was going reasonably well and Luke was happy enough, but it would have been better if he’d been more excited about the baby. He made a cradle because Martha told him it was needed, and that was that. He showed no interest in choosing a name, or wondering what the baby would look like. At times Luke found a few days’ work helping various settlers with fencing, which meant that their own was not done, but at least they had money coming in.
The school was due to reopen after the summer holidays, but Freda told Rose not to worry about the sewing class for a few weeks. ‘We’ll manage until you can come back,’ she promised. Freda had knitted several little bonnets for the baby and Martha had made pillows and blankets for the cradle. Rose herself had sewn cool cotton garments and knitted a few woollen ones, thinking as she worked about the child and how it would grow up. What would the future hold for a child in Haunted Creek?
Rose was looking forward to a few days of rest in Martha’s pleasant house, which was built well enough to keep out the worst of the heat. A few trees grouped round the house gave shade and a green coolness; Bert said it was mad to cut down all the trees, as some settlers did.
One day the Teesdales would have a house like this. There was even a spare bedroom with pretty flower-patterned curtains and a bedspread with a frill to match. Rose hadn’t seen a frill for a long time. ‘We brought a lot of stuff from our house near Melbourne,’ Martha explained.
Rose never got to that pretty bedroom. The day before she was due to go to Martha’s, the pains began. Luke had gone out to catch some fish for dinner and she dare not undertake the journey to the Carrs’ house now. Try not to be alarmed, try to relax, that’s what Martha had said. Rose deliberately made her preparations between the pains: newspaper on the bed under a clean sheet, water … but the buckets were empty. Luke, where are you when I need you? He could fetch water and then go for Martha when he came home.
Hours passed and no one came. Rose felt the baby moving downwards and wondered how long it
would be before the actual birth; she’d heard that sometimes babies came quickly, unexpectedly. The pain intensified; Martha had given her a few drops of laudanum for emergencies, but what if she was unconscious – and by herself?
Rose tied her hair back from her sweating brow and tried to remember the stories she’d heard about births. Women who lived on the high moors in Yorkshire had sometimes, when they’d been left alone, delivered their own babies. Could she do it? There may be no alternative.
This was the low point; all the things that had happened here were nothing to this. Here I am in a hut with an earth floor, giving birth to a baby that the father doesn’t want.
Desperately, she tried to work out a plan. When she felt the baby’s head in the birth canal she would squat down, that might help, and she’d heard that it was traditional in the old days to sit on a birthing stool.
She turned away from the thought that the birth might be complicated, that she might need help. It’s natural, having a baby, I’ve helped cows to do it scores of times. Yes, and when the calf was the wrong way round, they’d had to call the farrier to help them. Rose took a drink of water from the jug they kept in the house and found that her hand was trembling.
Pain came and went, washing over her in waves. Long shadows were falling across the little clearing as the afternoon wore on. Rose found the kitchen scissors and cleaned them on newspaper; she felt strangely calm. She looked at a chair Luke had made and realized she could take out the seat. It might make some kind of birthing stool. She put padded newspapers under it.
Now it was urgent, the baby was coming, the pain was like nothing she’d ever felt before. Why hadn’t they told her how bad it was? Sobbing, Rose lowered herself onto the chair. She could feel the head. At least the baby was the right way round … At that moment Luke walked in.
‘I’ve got two fish—’ he began, and then gasped as he realized what was happening. ‘Oh Lord! I’ll go for Martha.’ He was about to disappear when Rose called him back.
‘Stay right here and help me!’ Rose gasped. ‘It’s too late for Martha now! Here, see if you can …’
Luke’s tan had turned yellow. ‘I couldn’t. I don’t know anything about it!’ But he shut the door and turned to her, shaking.
Rose summoned all her strength. ‘It’s your baby, you help! Surely you …’ She stopped as another wave of contractions hit her and she pushed with it, pushed with all her might. She felt like screaming, but that would only upset Luke more. The head would be the worst: get that through and the rest would follow… In a haze of pain, Rose pushed and pushed.
Her husband was retching as he bent down to help the baby and Rose prayed and pushed, holding on to the foot of the bed and biting on a handkerchief to stop herself from crying out. Agonizingly, inch by inch, the little body passed through – surely it must be tearing her apart? Rose could see blood. Then there was a rush of liquid and with a soft plop, the baby was out. The father laid it on the newspaper under the chair and went outside to be sick.
Rose lay back exhausted, but after a few minutes she knew that something had to be done. She cut the cord with the kitchen scissors and wiped the baby gently with a towel. It was covered with afterbirth and blood, but it was breathing and soon set up a thin wail.
The little body was perfect; Rose held it to her breast, passed her fingers gently over the little mouth and soon it was sucking happily at the teat. The baby had arrived.
‘Get some water and heat it up. We need to wash baby,’ Rose said when Luke came back. ‘What’s the matter with you, man?’
‘I can’t stand the sight of blood,’ Luke muttered. ‘The whole thing makes me sick.’ He couldn’t even look at her and Rose looked down at herself, covered in blood and sweat. No wonder. ‘I hated it at home when they were killing pigs and calving cows. I like working with wood – something clean that doesn’t scream.’
So much for their farming ambitions, but Rose was in no shape to argue. ‘Fetch me water, put a big pan on to boil and then go for Martha,’ she said. ‘Tell her – tell her it’s a girl.’
‘Hell! A lass, that’s the last thing we need.’ Luke brought the water, but still didn’t look at the child.
Mother and baby fell asleep until they were woken when Martha bustled in. ‘Why wasn’t I sent for? What possessed you to do it alone?’ Anxiety made her voice rough.
‘It happened too quickly … and Luke wasn’t here to fetch you,’ Rose said quietly. Martha’s face relaxed a little as she took the baby. ‘You’ve done very well, Rose, I’m proud of you. She’ll be a lovely little girl when she’s cleaned up.’ She delved into a bag and brought out clean cloths and towels. ‘I’ve brought some of her clothes with me.’
Luke did not reappear. Thinking of his reaction to his daughter’s arrival, Rose said when she and the baby were both clean and cool, ‘Haunted Creek is a rough world, Martha. How will my poor little girl survive?’
‘All the more need for some good women, to soften it a bit,’ Martha said briskly. ‘This little lass will be right at home here and by the time she’s your age, Haunted Creek will be joined with Wattle Tree and we’ll have a little town with shops.’
Rose smiled sleepily. She had agreed with Freda and Erik that they all disliked big towns and loved the bush. But in the end, the best place to be was a prosperous, well-fenced countryside with farms dotted across a rolling landscape framed by plenty of trees, and small towns where people could know each other.
There was something pitiless about the untouched forests. They were too big, too inhuman and dangerous. The trees were on a gigantic scale and the overwhelming feeling in those dark places was of sadness and loss. Australian woods did not lose their leaves in winter and the forest was dark and brooding all the year, a strange, alien background to their lives. The bush was lonely.
Perhaps Ada would live to see this landscape tamed. ‘Yes, she’s Ada, after my mother,’ she told Martha. Luke had no name for the baby, but had never considered that it might be a girl. Ada would change her life, Rose knew; she would have someone to love and care for. She felt ready for the task, more confident now than when she first came to Haunted Creek. She was on the way to becoming strong.
The young chestnut horse was going well. The buggy moved along as smoothly as the road allowed and with a small vehicle Erik was able to avoid the worst potholes. ‘Do you like him? Vulcan’s his name. He’s stylish, but quite sensible,’ he said to his companion, to see whether she liked horses.
The lady sitting beside him nodded, but said nothing. Harriet had never been to Wattle Tree before and Erik wondered what she would make of it. He had been visiting Harriet Sinclair’s father for some time for advice on legal matters connected with buying more land. Harriet had smiled at him and offered drinks of lemonade and he had gradually begun to spend a little time with her when he went to town.
Erik was taking Freda’s advice and was at last looking for a wife, but it was hard to muster much enthusiasm. Was there something wrong with him? Underneath, he knew very well why it was hard to take an interest in ladies from town.
The reality was that it was time Erik Jensen found a girl of his own, a good farmer’s wife – but would a lawyer’s daughter like the bush? He would soon find out.
At first the visit went well. Freda had prepared lunch and Harriet, although rather overdressed for the warm weather in large skirts and an elaborate bonnet, was gracious. After lunch, Freda and Erik showed the visitor round the little school. ‘And I suppose the church will be somewhere near the school?’ Harriet asked, standing near to Erik and looking up at him with large grey eyes.
‘Er – yes, actually, it will be. But the church isn’t built yet. Wattle Tree is just beginning … the post office is at Haunted Creek, but as more people settle here, there will be a church.’ Erik thought he’d better not mention that the social centre of the district was the All Nations hotel, which was lively but not very godly. ‘We hold church services here in the school, for the present.’
‘Goodness me! No church? I had no idea I was so far from civilization!’ Harriet was perhaps joking, but Erik felt uneasy; she thought that Wattle Tree was backward. He had not mentioned marriage, but she must know what he had in mind and she was probably working out whether it would suit her to live here. Perhaps she had seen herself as a leading light in a little church in the hills.
With the sun beating down from a brassy sky, Erik borrowed a parasol from Freda and offered to take Harriet on a tour of the farm. But the lady looked down at her kid shoes. ‘I think not, thank you. Farms are so dirty, are they not? Of interest to men, but not to ladies.’ So they walked round the garden, of which Freda was proud, but Harriet was not very interested in plants. Erik by now was desperately trying to keep up a conversation and feeling inadequate. This woman must have spent all her life in the town; strange, in a young country like Australia.
They sat on a shaded wooden bench that Erik had made for his mother to sit with her sewing, looking out over the forested hills. Wattle Tree was on a ridge between two river valleys, a beautiful, peaceful spot.
Harriet arranged her dress prettily around her, but made no comment on the spectacular view. What could they talk about? What on earth did they have in common? She looked at her spotless kid boots.
Over the grassy paddocks at the edge of the trees, Erik saw a magnificent wedge-tailed eagle taking off with a rabbit in its talons. He loved to watch their powerful flight, but when he pointed it out to the lady, she was horrified. ‘Do you mean to tell me that you live so very close to the forest? How dangerous it must be! Eagles are huge, terrifying … and there may be wild dogs and snakes in there under the trees – and even blacks! You must never feel safe!’ She shivered and he could tell this time that she was serious.