The pastry would be concrete but even Mrs Murphy couldn’t mess up the filling too much, and Papa could eat it quickly whenever he arrived.
‘I think the bathroom had better be scrubbed today too, with Condy’s crystals in the bucket,’ she added. ‘And thank you. I . . . I couldn’t manage without you.’
‘Thank you, Miss Hannah.’ Mrs Murphy looked pleased, as well as a little taken aback at suddenly having so young a mistress. ‘I’ll have the toast ready in two tweaks of a cat’s whiskers.’
An hour later Papa still hadn’t returned. Hannah headed to the schoolhouse through the paddock, carrying three books as well as her lunch. The books were just for show, and she was sure she couldn’t eat her lunch. She was sure she couldn’t do this either. But she couldn’t not try.
She opened the school gate and blew Papa’s whistle.
The girls’ skipping rope stilled. The boys playing marbles stopped. Sixty-one pairs of eyes stared at her.
Hannah thrust words into the silence before it could be filled with laughter. ‘Mr Gilbert won’t be back till later. My brother is ill and Mr Gilbert and my mother have taken him to the train for an operation in Sydney. We will skip the flag and lining up today. Would you please take your places inside and I’ll call the roll.’
She hoped no one saw her hands shake as she climbed the stairs.
Whispers behind her, and the sound of feet. Would they follow her, or just head home? Or sit anywhere they liked and laugh at her?
She put the books down on Papa’s desk, then turned her back deliberately and began to draw triangles, circles and rectangles on the board. She could still hear feet behind her, but how many, and what were they doing?
She turned. Everyone sat in their place. Some looked startled to find that they’d obeyed her. A few had lurking smiles that meant they were waiting for a chance to turn the schoolroom into a riot.
Hannah picked up the roll. ‘Claude Anderson.’
‘Present.’
‘That’s “Present, Miss Gilbert”.’
He hesitated. ‘Present, Miss Gilbert.’
‘Veronica Campbell.’
‘Present, Miss Gilbert.’
‘Honesty Griggs.’
Somehow the familiar routine swallowed the lurking smiles. When sixty-one students were present and accounted for, Hannah put the roll down.
‘Gwen, would you begin with the times tables, please? Middles, please read the next chapter in your history book.’ That seemed safe. There was always ‘another chapter’ even if she had no idea where they were up to. ‘There will be a test later.’ An essay, she thought, so she wouldn’t have to admit she didn’t know the right questions. ‘But if you wish, you can do the geometry problems on the blackboard. Slates out, please.’
She waited while desks were opened and shut.
‘Please copy one of the problems onto your slate. I want the length of the third side in each triangle and the fourth side in each rectangle.’ Which was so ridiculously easy that even one of the Bubs with any sense could work it out. ‘And the diameter of each circle. Please show the working of each problem, and when you have the answer bring it out to me. And no whispering!’ she added sharply to two of the older boys.
They stared at her. For perhaps twenty seconds they considered refusing.
For twenty seconds Hannah considered what to do if that happened. If she tried the cane, they’d grab it from her. And if they tied her plaits to a chair, or she dived out the window to escape them, all of Port Harris would be laughing at her for twenty years.
One of the boys bent to his slate and began to scratch on it. A second later the other followed.
‘Once one is one. Two twos are four,’ chanted the Bubs from the back.
The Middles either opened their red textbook or began to copy one of the problems on the board.
‘Here, Miss Gilbert.’ One of the Middles was bright enough to realise that the fourth side of a rectangle would be the same as the one opposite.
‘Excellent, Amy,’ said Hannah briefly. ‘Now could you please do a triangle.’
‘We haven’t done triangles, miss.’
‘Boys, have you been taught about isosceles triangles?’
‘No, Miss Gilbert,’ said the boy who had hesitated longest.
‘An isosceles triangle has two equal sides. The equilateral triangle has three equal sides. Now you can see that the triangle on the board has two equal sides, but can anyone tell me how to work out the third side?’
Two hands thrust up in the air just as a voice from the door said, ‘Hannah!’
‘Papa!’ He was pale and shadow-eyed as he looked around the room in wonder; nor had he shaved. She wanted to run to him, but that was impossible here. ‘Is Mama . . . and Angus . . .’
‘They are on the train.’ He smiled at her reassuringly, then became the schoolmaster again. ‘Yes, Johnson?’
‘I’ve got the answer for Miss Gilbert, sir.’
‘Miss Gilbert will be going home now.’ Papa smiled at Hannah again. ‘Very well done, Miss Gilbert. I’ll see you after school.’
She stood there helpless. Suddenly she was near tears again, though she wasn’t quite sure why. Couldn’t he at least have let her keep explaining triangles?
‘Your lunch is in the bag on your desk, sir,’ she managed.
She picked up the books she’d brought with her and walked from the school that would have her neither as student nor teacher, except to the Bubs.
She wasn’t going home. She was going to a school where she could teach and learn. Where her teachers might be thousands of years old, like Homer or Socrates, or nearly forty like Mrs Zebediah.
CHAPTER 19
THE BUTTERFLY
‘No word yet?’ Mrs Zebediah asked an hour later as she poured Hannah a glass of lemon barley water from the pottery jug that stayed almost cool on the shaded window ledge. Hannah hadn’t even bothered to go back to the house, but had walked straight here.
‘Only that they caught the train.’ Papa hadn’t even told her how Angus was, whether he was worse or better when they put him on the train. ‘Mrs Zebediah, may I still come here every day? Please? Maybe . . . maybe we could all read the same book and talk about it.’
‘Of course you’ll come here every day, pet.’ Mrs Zebediah passed Hannah a plate of coconut biscuits. ‘I’ll make you dinner to take back for your pa too.’
‘But I couldn’t ask you to—’
‘And I’ll show you how to make it too, as well as some quick things like a cheese soufflé. That would impress your pa no end. But as for me reading books, I think I’ve had all the learning I need. I can read a newspaper now, and write a message if I have to. But it sounds a right good idea for you and Jamie to do till your ma gets back.’
Hannah glanced at Jamie. He didn’t look eager. He just watched from the other side of the table, silent as always.
‘You need to keep learning, lovie,’ Mrs Zebediah said to him softly. ‘I won’t be here forever.’
Hannah blinked. What did she mean by that? Of course, Mrs Zebediah would die one day. Everyone died — but not Angus, please not Angus, not for a hundred years. But Jamie would inherit the farm, wouldn’t he? He would never really need another job.
Jamie stood. ‘All right,’ he said expressionlessly. ‘What do we read?’
‘How about Jane Eyre?’ It was one of the books Hannah had taken to the school, to give her courage, just as Jane had courage. She handed the book to Jamie. ‘I already know it, so you could read the first chapter now and we could discuss it. Or write an essay on it,’ she added, because if he wouldn’t talk to her there wouldn’t be much discussion.
‘All right,’ he said again.
‘But not in the dairy,’ Mrs Zebediah said to them. ‘Hannah needs sunlight today. We don’t want her getting sick too. Take her down to the beach to read your book.’
Hannah didn’t want to go to the beach. She never wanted to see the sea again. She didn’t even like going onto t
he jetty in the river. She should go home, in case a wire came. But Mama and Angus wouldn’t even have reached Sydney yet.
Mrs Zebediah smiled at her. ‘I’ll have something nice for you for lunch.’
Hannah smiled back, despite her worry. ‘You always do.’
‘Go on with you,’ said Mrs Zebediah, pleased.
Jamie was already striding through the orchard towards the track to the beach. Hannah ran after him.
‘Jamie, stop,’ she said, quietly so Mrs Zebediah wouldn’t hear. ‘I . . . I don’t want to go to the beach. It’s got . . . bad memories.’
The memories appeared in her nightmares too sometimes: giant waves that chased her even on the land; Mr Vandergeld’s pale face floating under the water; sometimes even his skull peering out of the foam. The beach was the last place she wanted to be today.
‘You . . . you’ve never found anything washed up from the ship, have you?’ she asked.
Jamie shook his head. ‘Probably won’t, not for years. The sand will have covered her. I mostly find things that have washed up from far away. You look at those teacups I found for Mum — half the pattern’s worn away. I did find a few planks about a week after your ship sank, but they could have been from anything.’
Or the ship’s boat, she thought.
‘Where do you want to go then?’ he demanded.
‘I don’t know. I could help you plant potatoes?’
‘In that dress? It’d be brown instead of white by lunchtime, and what would your ma say about that when she comes back?’
‘That I should have washed it with a blue bag.’
He stared. ‘I thought you’d have servants to do your washing and cleaning and everything.’
‘We just have Mrs Murphy. Mr Harris pays her. But she doesn’t wash the delicates. Mama and I do that by hand. We didn’t have anyone doing the housework except me and Mama back at our old place.’
‘But your ma buys all those books and stuff. I thought schoolmasters must be rich.’
‘Not country schoolmasters. I think teachers make more money in the big private schools.’ The schools where Papa longed to work. ‘But Mama has some money of her own from her grandfather.’ She carefully didn’t say that some people might think Mama was rich. ‘Maybe your mum could lend me an old dress so I could help you.’
‘No. She wouldn’t want you to get dirty.’ Jamie hesitated. ‘Mum likes it that I have lessons with you.’
‘Because I’m white?’ asked Hannah bluntly.
He nodded. ‘She thinks if I learn reading and to speak more like you and your ma, maybe one day you’ll invite me to meet friends of yours. And then people in Port Harris will accept me and I might even get a job in an office, somewhere else if not here. And after that life will be rosy for evermore. But it ain’t going to happen.’
Hannah had rarely heard Jamie say so much.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘And I don’t know anyone to introduce you to anyway. You’re the only friend I have here.’ She held her breath, realising she had just called Jamie her friend. Would he laugh at her?
‘Wouldn’t work even if you had a hundred friends to introduce to me. I’d still be me.’
‘What’s wrong with being you? Mama says that colour is only skin deep,’ she added.
Jamie gave a strange barking laugh. ‘It’s all right for your ma to say that. You and her don’t know . . .’ He stopped suddenly.
‘Know what?’ Hannah demanded.
‘Who I really am.’
She stared at him. ‘Of course we know who you really are.’
‘No, you don’t. You’ve only seen me here, at the farm.’ He paused then added, ‘Want me to show you?’
‘Yes,’ said Hannah, puzzled.
‘All right.’
He shoved the book into his pocket and headed into the undergrowth again, but this time to a fainter path that led uphill. Hannah followed him. Suddenly the scrub ended. Sugar cane rose in front of them, taller than Hannah, and so thickly planted she couldn’t see beyond it. She could hear voices not far away, and the thwack of what sounded like machetes.
‘Is this Mr Harris’s plantation?’ she whispered.
‘Yes. He’s bought up all the others around here,’ said Jamie shortly.
‘Should we be here?’
He flashed her a look. ‘No. But he won’t be out in this heat, nor the foremen. No one will see us if we’re quick. Everyone’s working over the hill now.’
‘Are they cutting the cane?’
‘Not yet. Clearing the land to plant more. Come on.’
Hannah had heard Mr Harris boasting about how much more land he was putting under sugar. This must be part of it. She followed Jamie along the edge of the cane field. The ground between the rows looked like it had been tilled recently, but already small weeds had taken hold, dwarfed by the abundance of cane.
The track veered away from the cane fields. She looked up, but even though Mr Harris’s house was on top of the hill it was hidden by a small tree-topped rise above them.
They passed through vegetable gardens: maize, potatoes and other crops she didn’t recognise. Beyond the gardens, the long low sheds she had seen from up at the main house shimmered in the growing heat. Now she was closer she could see they were made of untrimmed wood with gaps between the slats. The rotting thatched roof sank in places. The place stank of dunnies, sweat and mould, with a tang of smoke and other smells she couldn’t identify.
Jamie opened the nearest door — made of more planks, with ropes instead of hinges — and left it propped open. ‘There,’ he said.
Hannah peered inside. The entire hut, except for a small space by the fire, was filled with a wooden framework from which hung sagging, hessian sugar-sack bunks. No blankets or sheets, no pillows, not even stools to sit on. A dirt floor, black and grey smoke-stained walls and the fireplace didn’t even have a chimney. A vast iron pot and metal ladle, two dented buckets that held water, and a pile of rough hand-carved bowls sat on the dirt by the fireplace.
‘This is where I should be,’ said Jamie.
‘I . . . I don’t understand.’
‘My dad was brought from the islands, to work the cane fields.’
‘I thought your dad was Aboriginal.’
‘What? No, none of the men who work here are. Dad signed a contract to stay and work in Australia for three years, except he couldn’t read so he didn’t know what he was doing when he put his mark on it.’
Hannah stifled a scream as a rat scuttled across the floor. ‘But why did he come?’
‘His pa had been a canecutter too. Signed a three-year contract, just like Dad. But it was different back then. Maybe it still is different in other places. My grandpa came back after six years with forty pounds and a rifle for hunting, and lots of other things. Dad said it made him a big man in the village. So Dad signed on.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘He was sold and brought to Port Harris.’
‘Sold! That’s . . . that’s slaving.’
‘Wouldn’t know about that.’
Hannah shook her head in bewilderment. ‘But that must be against the law.’
‘Like your ma said, voting makes you a person. We ain’t people.’
‘Anyone who buys people like that should be put in prison,’ said Hannah fiercely.
He gave her a strange look. ‘You’d put Mum in prison then too.’
‘What!’
‘How do you think Mum and Dad met? Mum’s pa bought the contracts for six men and four of their wives.’
‘But your mother wouldn’t make people live like this!’
‘It were her parents, but no, I reckon Grandpa looked after his workers all right. They had proper cottages — nothing flash — though they’re falling down now.’
Hannah thought of the wattle and daub huts she’d seen behind the farmhouse.
‘Mum’s got lots of stories about those days,’ Jamie went on. ‘The women taught her to swim, and Mum’s pa played the accordi
on and they used to have dances, island style and Mum’s style too. Mum says they were grand days. Then Mum’s parents died . . .’
‘Your mother said Mr Harris wouldn’t let her sugar be processed in the mill,’ said Hannah slowly.
‘That’s right. Mum couldn’t afford even the six pounds a year to keep the workers, and Mr Harris bought their contracts from the bank when Mum couldn’t pay them. All except one — he married an Aboriginal woman he’d met and went to live with her people. Don’t know anything more about him, but. He ain’t allowed back in Port Harris.’
‘Why not?’
Jamie gestured to the scar by his eye from his beating after he tried to go to school. ‘You seen what happens if people like me go to Port Harris. White men don’t like us because we work so cheap and take their jobs.’
‘But your father stayed?’ said Hannah slowly, trying to absorb it all.
‘He was in love with Mum by then. But according to Port Harris, this is where I belong.’ He looked around the hut. ‘They wouldn’t let Mum register my birth, so there’s no proof I’m her son. Mum doesn’t realise if I try to act educated and get a job the police will probably just chain me up and bring me here.’
Hannah stared at the squalor in shock, then back at Jamie. ‘Mr Harris wouldn’t do that!’
‘Wouldn’t he just? Mr Harris don’t let his people ever go home. The money’s only paid at the end of the contract, see, so if they can’t leave he don’t have to pay them. He brands them on the arm to prove he owns them.’
‘But can’t they escape?’
‘Where to? My dad was from an island called Kiribati. It’s a long way from here, I think, but I don’t know how far.’ Jamie glanced at her. ‘I had a look at the map on the wall back at your house when your ma wasn’t looking, but I couldn’t see it.’
‘Mama wouldn’t have minded you looking for the island. I’ll ask her if she can find it for you when . . . when Angus gets better.’ She tried to push away the image of her brother’s small face flushed with fever. ‘Don’t any of the men here know where Kiribati is?’
‘How can they? But most of Mr Harris’s men were born here.’
‘What? How?’
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