Liberty

  ‘Look at him.’ Dad guffawed. ‘You couldn’t find a fitter specimen of a young man.’

  ‘Fit as a fiddle.’ Murray grinned, flexing his bicep muscle to prove it. ‘If Walter Leary can get in, I can get in.’

  Everyone fell into an uncomfortable silence. That was the one name that was never mentioned. Dad began fiddling with a stray thread on the tablecloth.

  ‘And you can eat seven-and-a-half pies too,’ I said under my breath.

  Murray shot me a look and a frown and for a moment he looked small and vulnerable and I couldn’t understand why.

  ‘I’m just saying, Dad,’ I looked at my father, ‘that there are valid questions to be asked about both our involvement in the Vietnam conflict and the issues around conscription in this country. There’s a lot of adversity about both. I’m just saying it needs to be looked at from all sides of the argument.’

  ‘I can’t believe this clap-trap rubbish coming out of my own daughter’s mouth!’ Dad slammed a fist on the table. ‘Cowardly yellow-belly nonsense. Is this what you’re learning at university?’

  ‘Oh Dad, honestly.’ I sighed and rolled my eyes. ‘There are a million different points of view in the world outside of Bandaroo Flats. I’m out there in the real world, not this fishbowl and—’

  ‘We need America and that’s what friends do when an ally is in trouble. We stand beside them. You know that whole speech by Kennedy. Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country or whatever it was.’ My father’s voice was passionate. ‘My boy is doing something for his country and I am very proud of him.’

  ‘Australians need to not just lazily tow the party line. Harold Holt said as much and he—’

  ‘He got eaten by a shark,’ one twin giggled.

  I ignored this and kept talking.

  ‘I don’t want to get into a war around the table.’ I sighed. ‘It just feels a whole lot more real and dangerous when my brother is going. I don’t want him to get hurt. I don’t like the idea of Murray being involved in all that death and violence if it’s not necessary.’

  Dad downed his beer in a gulp. He was glaring at me from beneath his bushy eyebrows.

  ‘Well, I don’t want to argue either, love. Murray’s been called up and it is what it is,’ he said, and gave Murray a nod. ‘Serving your country is an honour, Fiona.’

  ‘Yes,’ I sighed. ‘I guess so.’

  ‘Let’s just have a lovely lunch and not talk politics,’ Aunty Jan said, standing up and going to the kitchen. ‘You can come and help me, Fiona.’

  I grabbed the opportunity to leave the table without hesitation.

  ‘Don’t get those blokes riled up,’ she said as she slipped on two stained oven-gloves. ‘There’s no way you’re going to ever change their minds. They’re as stubborn as mules.’

  ‘But Aunty Jan,’ I said gently, ‘Mum’s only been gone … well … not quite six years. Dad and I couldn’t cope if anything happened to Murray. You wouldn’t want your boys going off to war, would you?’

  ‘They’re ten.’ She half-laughed.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ I said, stirring the bubbling peas. ‘I’ve got a friend who is objecting to his draft notice. Another friend who is doing law is—’

  ‘It’s no use, Fi.’ Aunty Jan looked at me, her eyes sad. ‘Murray wants to go. Your Dad and Grandad are egging him on. We have to hope and pray that he comes home safely at the end of it. We’re not special. We’re not the only family having to make this sacrifice, to bear this cross.’

  Silently we carved the roast beef, laid out the potatoes and pumpkin, buttered the peas and carrots, and made the gravy. The radio was murmuring in the background. Outside the rain had started beating down against the tin roof.

  ‘Just don’t mention it again in front of the men, okay love?’ Aunty Jan whispered as we began to take the food to the table.

  I kept my head down and ate my lunch without making too much eye contact with anyone. My reaction to Murray’s news had surprised me. Now it felt real. It felt a whole lot different when it was affecting my own family, more so than the idea of Luke going. I felt a desperate need to stop my older brother, to chain myself or him to the house and scream and yell and make it all go away. We were a Catholic family and I wondered if I could talk Murray into arguing that he was against the very idea of war on the grounds of his faith. But as I listened to the men talk about battles past and the thrill of being on a frontline, fighting for your country, I began losing my appetite for the food and for the idea of conscription. I felt small and useless in the face of their military enthusiasm.

  ‘So I got good marks for all my subjects.’ I smiled, trying to change the subject.

  ‘Good for you,’ Grandma said in her gravelly Glaswegian voice. ‘You got brains in your head, might as well use them.’

  ‘Found yourself a doctor or lawyer to marry yet?’ Dad asked with his mouth full. His wink told me that he was teasing.

  ‘Haha, Dad.’ I laughed. ‘Very funny. I have no intention of getting married for at least ten years.’

  ‘That’s leaving it a bit late.’ Aunty Jan smiled. ‘You’ll end up on the shelf if you’re not careful.’

  ‘Speaking of marriage,’ I looked at my brother, trying not to imagine a bullet ripping through his temple, ‘what’s happening with Laura? Why isn’t she here? I’ve missed her. She hasn’t written for ages. I thought she would be here to see me too. What does she think of your call up?’

  ‘Oh.’ Murray shrugged uncomfortably and I felt the atmosphere turn arctic. ‘We’re off. To be honest, Laura got engaged to someone else … Walter Leary … just before he was shipped off to Nam.’

  I nearly dropped my cutlery and tried to swallow that huge chunk of news. Laura and Walter? I suddenly felt dizzy. Laura had been my best friend since we were six. Murray and she had been dating seriously for years. I felt lost. Everything at home was changing and it was hard to keep up. How could Laura have dumped my brother for that horrible Leary boy?

  ‘Oh God.’ I wiped my lips on the starched napkin. ‘Oh God, Murray, I’m sorry.’

  He shrugged but couldn’t look at me.

  ‘Girls can’t resist a bloke in a uniform and she accepted his proposal three nights before he left town. And then there’s all the Leary money.’

  Surely Laura wasn’t so mercenary.

  ‘There’ll be plenty more pretty girls who like a man in uniform.’ Grandad winked at Murray. ‘Those Vietnamese gals are very pleasing on the eye.’

  I shuddered at Grandad’s comment. How had my homecoming lunch deteriorated into such a mess?

  A week later I was digging a ditch near the fence by the dam when a police car rattled over the cattle grid. I looked up to see Constable Duggan behind the wheel. He’d been the local copper in Bandaroo Flats since I was a kid. Watching him pull in outside the house brought back a rush of terrible memories and I felt my legs go to jelly. I remembered the day he came to tell us about Mum’s accident.

  Something was going on so I walked to the back steps, wiping my hands on my jeans, and saw Dad flap out noisily through the flyscreen.

  I went inside and saw Murray in the kitchen, standing at the open fridge, eating a bowl of leftover bread-and-butter pudding.

  ‘Copper Duggan is out front,’ I said, and Murray looked at me spooked.

  ‘Don’t know why,’ he wondered. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’

  ‘Funny that’s your first concern.’ I laughed and threw a tea towel at him.

  ‘Have you studied any criminal law yet?’ Murray asked mischievously. ‘Murder trials. Anything really interesting?’

  ‘Not really.’ I grimaced. ‘Most of it is pretty boring but first year subjects are more of an introductory and grounding. Brisbane’s pretty cool though … well, not cool like in heat because it’s very hot, but I’ve made some nic
e friends and—’

  ‘Any good-looking ones?’

  ‘Well, now that you mention it …’

  Dad walked into the kitchen and the slump of his shoulders silenced us.

  ‘That was Constable Duggan,’ he said flatly, like all his energy had gone out of him.

  ‘And?’ I asked, sensing the seriousness of the visit.

  ‘Walter Leary’s been killed during a training exercise. His own gun went off … and there you have it. Duggan’s letting everyone in town know so we can pay our respects to the family.’

  I froze with the shock. The name Walter Leary had been a raw wound in our family for years.

  ‘Oh God.’ Murray coughed. ‘Really? Oh my God. His own gun. So he wasn’t in Nam, Dad?’

  ‘No, son,’ our father said, shaking his head. ‘In Brisbane at the barracks.’

  Walter Leary was dead. It just didn’t seem real.

  ‘I need to go to Laura,’ Murray said, putting the empty bowl in the sink. ‘She’ll be distraught. Fiona? You coming?’

  He looked at me. I was still dealing with the betrayal I’d felt that my best friend had hooked up with that boy and I hadn’t seen her once since I’d been back. I didn’t know if I could see her or offer the condolences that she needed. I didn’t think I could be properly sincere.

  ‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘No. I can’t.’

  And I went to my bedroom, walking quietly past my brother and father. I lay down on my old childhood bed where I had shed so many, many tears over the past six years. And it surprised me that some of the shock and grief I now felt was for Walter Leary and his family.

  ‘You can be sure that Charles the Bold has sworn an oath to his men that he will not end his siege until he has planted his banner on the walls of Beauvais!’

  Madame Balagny was the sort of woman who held her chin high so that she might look down her long slender nose at people. Her hair was plaited and coiled in tiers on her head, giving her extra height, making herself appear taller than she was.

  ‘You may have tossed one flag away, Mademoiselle Laisné,’ she huffed, ‘but you were simply lucky. I hear they have blasted a hole in the Bresle Gate and it is a burning inferno. The city folk are keeping it ablaze so that no man can breach it without incinerating himself but they will be inside within days. We four women are to leave for safety at nightfall. My husband has ordered it. The guard outside will accompany us.’

  ‘But my cousin still ails,’ I stammered. ‘She is not fit for travel. Her burns are very severe and—’

  ‘The girl is a peasant,’ Madame Balagny said, pulling an ugly face. ‘No. You, my daughter, myself and Liesel the maid to attend us. Not your lowly cousin.’

  ‘Her mother was high-born and the daughter of a merchant and—’ I began.

  ‘No.’ Madame Balagny spat the word at me. ‘It is a kindness enough that the Captain has allowed you to come along when you are not yet married to the Lieutenant.’

  ‘And my father? I cannot leave him behind to face the enemy. He can barely walk.’

  Madame Balagny laughed and threw a look at her daughter, Giselle, who was sitting on a divan looking deflated and slightly bruised and battered, both from fighting on the city walls and the severe dressing down she had been given by Jean Lagoy and her imperious mother.

  ‘The cheek of you,’ the older woman said to me. ‘To imagine that we owe you and your entire family safe passage … it’s shameful. After your wilful escapade yesterday, I am amazed that the Lieutenant wants anything to do with you. I would have had you in the pillory for a week. It seems a suitable justice that Matthew the Coward should be left to face his fate alone, abandoning his wife and child as he did. Shameful. Shameful.’

  ‘We can’t leave the injured girl upstairs, Mother,’ Giselle pleaded. ‘She needs her wounds cleaned and dressed twice a day, although she is strong and healing well.’

  I watched as the Captain’s wife thought about that and nodded.

  ‘Very well.’ She sighed and turned to me. ‘You can take two horses from the stable out the back.’ Madame Balagny frowned at her daughter. ‘Giselle, take Jeanne out and choose two horses for her. Then you, Jeanne, can take your cousin on one, while riding another, to the medics in the marketplace. Leave her there and return immediately. My husband will be enraged if he learns that you have borrowed the horses.’

  ‘I can ride with her,’ Giselle offered but her mother put up a hand.

  ‘You will do no such thing,’ she snapped. ‘You have already been led astray by this unruly peasant and you could have been killed.’

  ‘Mama,’ Giselle replied boldly. ‘If it hadn’t been for Jeanne and the women she rallied to fight against the enemy we might all have been killed.’

  I curtseyed to the woman, trying to contain my smirk. Giselle and I went to ready poor Aimee for the treacherous journey across town.

  ‘We will leave tonight,’ Giselle told me. ‘Out through the tunnels that lead to pockets of thickets and then toward Paris. I am so glad you are coming with us, Jeanne. We will be safe. I like you so much. You are so different from the other women here.’

  ‘While our sisters, the peasants and the farmers’ wives are all out fighting alongside the men, braving the burning arrows and cannon balls?’ I said angrily. ‘I don’t want to go!’

  ‘If you don’t go, then I won’t either,’ Giselle said, squeezing my hand.

  Outside I could hear the continuing sound of exploding gunpowder and the thud of cannon fire that reverberated up from the floor, rattling the doors in the manor house. The smell of smoke and sulphur and dust sat in the back of my throat and my eyes constantly watered.

  ‘The streets are full of people running to help keep the fire burning at the Bresle Gate and others are busy bricklaying and cementing rocks and stone into cracks and breaches in the city walls,’ the guard told us as he helped put Aimee over the horse, his voice high with panic. ‘It’s a nightmare out there, Mademoiselles. The clergy are running ragged, tending to injured men, women and children. I tell you, every man or woman too old or frail to raise a pitchfork is on digging duty for the dead.’

  ‘How do you fare, Aimee?’ I asked and helped her lean down over the horse’s neck while I took the reins.

  ‘I am in awful pain but rallying,’ she groaned. ‘If I can get to the Cathedral, I will rest and have Mama to care for me. I will be all right. The wound is not too deep but the burns are raw.’

  ‘Look out for my Papa, please,’ I asked her as the horses moved slowly away from the Captain’s yard. Our mounts were two tall, spectacular, matching grey-speckled horses, with neatly plaited manes and silken silver muzzles. The saddle was of the very best leather and as comfortable as an armchair. I turned and waved goodbye to Giselle.

  The guard was right. The stench in the streets made me gag. Mingled with the smell of baking hides was the waste that was accumulating in gutters. And above all – the chaotic stink of choking smoke and gunpowder, dung and dirt – was the smell of death. It hung in the spaces between tightly wedged houses and between the rails of the fence posts. It wafted up over the high walls and burrowed into the dank spaces between shadows. Death hung like a storm cloud over Beauvais. I wondered how many more souls would make their final journey during this terrible conflict.

  Aimee groaned beside me.

  ‘Slower please, Jeanne,’ she whispered.

  We had tied her to the horse so that she would not fall and wrapped her legs and torso in a thick protective wadding of linen to reduce her pain and discomfort. I led her horse alongside mine, neck to neck. Most of the houses were empty. Gaping windows looked into dim rooms, evacuated and abandoned.

  In the marketplace, tents and lean-tos were strung up to keep the sun from burning the wounded, as the nuns and doctors tended to the injured. The undertaker and gravediggers worked tirelessly in the stifling heat.


  I found an old nun with a face covered in a labyrinth of wrinkles. She looked tired but kind.

  ‘Please,’ I begged her. ‘Can you care for my cousin, Sister? She took an arrow in the side. She is badly burned and feverish. She is lucid and will live but she needs care. Here is a bundle of aloe to help with her burns.’

  She nodded with pursed lips.

  With some difficulty, I lifted Aimee from her horse and laid her on an empty stretcher. She winced with pain.

  ‘Thank you, Jeanne,’ she whispered, her eyes dilated with the pain. ‘Go to Colin and flee. I will get stronger and care for your father. Love is everything.’

  I left her in the nun’s good hands and hurried to take the horses back to the manor house. The sky was darkening with smoke and an enormous boom shuddered through the streets. A wall must have taken the full force of a cannon ball. People everywhere began screaming and running in all directions like chickens. The horse I was leading spooked and reared up. I almost lost my grip but held tight, calling for him to settle. Although still early in the day, it seemed like dusk.

  ‘Calmez-vous. Calmez-vous.’ We had started heading back to the fancy quarter of the city when I caught sight of Jean Lagoy speaking with Colin down a side alley. I bristled and pulled up the horses, urging them into the small laneway between the inn and the cobbler. From there I could see the two men but they could not see me. I felt faint. What business was transpiring between my hated betrothed and Colin? Lagoy was looking around furtively as he handed a pouch to Colin, who quickly stuffed it into his shirt, also casting a nervous eye up and down the street. I watched as the tall Lieutenant put his helmet back on and disappeared around the corner to Gateway Road, which led toward the Bresle Gate. I pushed out of the shadows and clattered up behind Colin as he ran ahead.

  ‘Colin,’ I hissed.

  I halted my horse and Colin turned, his face washed in guilt and surprise.

  ‘What is going on?’ I demanded, my mind racing over a hundred possibilities. ‘Is that brute paying you to keep away from me?’

  Colin’s eyes skittered about and he looked afraid.