‘It was you, all right,’ said the man.
The rain fell steadily, walling off the house from the river and hills. The swaggies must have had some shelter — the man wasn’t as wet as he could be.
Further along the verandah the woman hunched on the edge of the boards, her feet in the rain, the other man’s arm around her. She still wore her battered cloche hat tugged down hard over her head, a ragged cardigan thin enough to show the bony lumps of her spine.
‘Where’s your cart?’ Irving asked, and the man’s eyes glimmered with stupid triumph: Irving had forgotten his earlier pretence. He pointed out into the rain, beyond the rose garden.
‘You can’t stay,’ said Rufina. ‘I’ve told you. Off you go. Off my land.’
‘You see,’ the man persisted, ‘after your stockman invited us we all sat down and wondered if it could be true, that he could have — what do you call it? The authority.’ He looked searchingly at Rufina, who was colouring up. Irving had never known a woman like her for the blushes. He’d noticed it first in Rotorua. It made her seem uncertain, or ashamed, or angry. A woman of turmoil. Unstable, was she? He wouldn’t have thought so. Not until yesterday.
Now he wondered, as she stood with her hands on her hips glaring at the intruder, whether she was actually insane. That would explain her loss of decorum. Back home there had been talk of a woman on a farm sent away for behaving like a bitch on heat. That’s how it was explained — a farmer’s daughter mad for anyone with the right equipment. Sent north, up to Kingseat.
‘Mr Fenchurch was mistaken,’ Rufina said. ‘None of the farms around here will take you in. We have an agreement.’
The woman in the cloche hat began to cry, sniffling and mewling like a cat, and there was a dull knock of wood on wood as the companion shifted to comfort her — the butt of the rifle striking the boards. It had been concealed from their view by the angle of their bodies and the verandah post.
‘Where are Bill and Jellicoe?’ Rufina asked in a low voice.
‘In the quarters.’
‘All night?’ She seemed disappointed. ‘The whole night?’ She gave him a look he couldn’t decipher and began to turn away, but the man stopped her.
‘Just a minute.’
‘Some bread, Missus?’ The woman was struggling to her feet, one cracked old shoe coming loose and listing in a muddy puddle like a broken boat. ‘Some bread we could take away with us?’
Rufina wouldn’t look directly at the woman, who had her hands clasped towards them like a supplicant, her sleeves fallen away from her wrists to show bands of bruising as if they at some stage had been gripped or tied together. The men let her beg, the one closest brazenly watching Irving for his response.
‘There are still some scones,’ Irving said. ‘I’ll fetch them.’ They were his to give. Nothing else was, not really. Not yet.
‘No,’ said Rufina quickly. ‘I’ll get them. You stay here.’
She continued on her way, not into the house as Irving expected — the scones were folded into a cloth in the kitchen — but through the rose garden and around the southern side of the house, towards the accommodation. After she passed from view he folded his arms, squared his feet. What was he supposed to do now?
He went back to his sitting room, carried out a wooden chair. On his return they had all come to stand on the verandah, watching after him. The same unease that had filled him at the river did so again but he put the chair down for the woman.
‘Here. Rest yourself. Mrs Fenchurch won’t be long.’
She did as he said, stiff and shivering, though the morning was warm. Balls of midges had come to spin at face level. He swatted. The Australians barely seemed to notice them.
‘What’s your name?’ It was the man who had said nothing so far, the one who had been sitting with the woman.
‘Irving.’
‘Fenchurch? Mr and Mrs, eh?’
He wouldn’t explain their relationship. There wasn’t a name for it anyway, not now. He offered his hand.
‘Irving Fenchurch. You are?’
‘Eric Campbell,’ the swaggie said, ‘and this is my mate, John Lang.’
The other man laughed and even the woman managed a twisted smile, showing her rotten teeth. They were joking, the names weren’t real, a response to his name, which they didn’t believe. John Lang was a name he’d heard before, hadn’t he? He never looked at the newspapers here, nothing in them interested him, but John Lang was someone, he was sure, high up. And the other name rang a distant bell. From his time in Sydney, from the speakers in the Domain. Eric Campbell. But then New Zealand was full of Campbells. All those Scots, thousands of them, all called names like Eric Campbell.
‘Look at him,’ sneered the woman, ‘hasn’t got a clue. Thinks you’re dinkum.’
‘I’m not from here.’ Irving wondered if it was wise to tell them anything at all about himself.
There was another silence before the woman let her head fall against the back of the chair and said drowsily, ‘I could sleep for a thousand years.’
The rain was lightening a little, chinks forming and filling again, and the insect racket was picking up. From far away, faintly, rang a church bell, carrying in the still air. Matins. It was Sunday of course. Another Sunday he’d let slip, like a Godless sinner. He wasn’t though, was he? Not yet. Perhaps not ever. He felt tarnished by Rufina’s demands.
A bird screamed from the camphor laurels that invaded the hillside behind the creamery and the abandoned rabbito’s hut. It was hard to imagine what the place had been like before they came, his Fenchurch ancestors, who’d made their money off cutting down the forest. Red gold. The cedar. Would have been beautiful.
‘Dreamy sort of a bloke, aren’t you?’ The woman was peering up at him. In a gentler wondering sort of voice she said, ‘Lost in your thoughts.’
‘You worked on a farm before?’ Irving asked the man closest to him. The one who said his name was Eric.
‘I have,’ said John Lang. ‘Jack’s a city slicker.’
So the other one was Jack.
‘Good at shooting rabbits?’ Irving indicated the gun, though he already knew from the contents of their pot.
‘I should say so. And possums.’
‘Rabbits are the problem round here. And dogs.’
‘Need a dogger?’
They did. Wild dogs made up of dingo and heeler and shepherd and who knows what else would come out of the bush and kill calves. There was a story of a lame dingo cross hanging around down the river last winter and coming up to get into the rubbish heap.
‘Come on.’ He helped the woman up — she smelt of sweat and something else chemical — and led them through the softening rain towards the old rabbito’s hut. On the way they passed the horse and cart, left behind the rose hedge. The old horse drooped in his tackle, though the swaggies hadn’t come that far, had they? Unless they’d missed the gate and gone on miles along the empty road towards Clunes and turned back. Irving went to unclip the straps; the horse walked out from between the shafts and immediately dropped his head to crop.
A look passed between the two men but they said nothing and went on, following him between the first of the trees that lined the carriageway.
The rabbito’s hut had weeds through the floor, which had been laid directly on the dirt so hadn’t lasted. A warped slab of wormy wood hammocked under his foot as he stepped in. One of the men put his hand out to stop him going any further.
‘Could be snakes.’
There was only the sound of the rain on the dripping roof but perhaps — he bent his ear — there was a rustling? Australians worried too much. Hadn’t he just walked through the long grass past the creamery in bare feet? Not a snake in sight. He whistled for his dogs to have a look — and remembered they would still be chained up in their little street of stone kennels, unless Jellicoe had let them free. Sunday. Day of rest.
Out of the interior gloom loomed a box bed and three-legged table on a tilt. He felt ashamed of w
hat he was offering them. If he was truly the boss it would be a couple of rooms in the house.
Jack had had the same thought. ‘Can’t you do better than this?’
Footsteps sounded behind them and a sharp ‘Hey!’ A woman’s voice. It gave Irving a fright; he barked his head hard on the low transom as they all turned — Rufina carrying a rifle, flanked by Bill and Jell with a startled Albert bringing up the rear. None of the whites with her, not the hands or the head stockman or cook. Did she think they wouldn’t turn on their own kind? She used the rifle to prod Jack in the shoulder.
‘Go on. Get.’
She looked ridiculous, like a mad woman. She must be having a joke — he laughed, felt more laughter bubble up after the first bark.
‘None of that, Ruwhenua. Where are the scones?’ A blink at the nickname, of which she would have no idea of the meaning. He saw rage quickly follow, the same flush filling her neck and face.
‘If you don’t go, we’ll take you out to the road.’
Bill was armed too, with a rifle older and dustier than hers. And Jellicoe, drooping, still half-asleep, was holding Irving’s own rifle, new, used once and only to shoot a tin can off a post. He held it low, pointing at the ground.
Still bent uncomfortably in the doorway, Irving put his hands on the swaggie woman’s shoulders. He stepped out, pushing her gently ahead of him, and realised the others could think he was using her as some kind of shield. He wasn’t. Rufina wasn’t about to shoot anyone. She was being stupid, unkind.
‘Rufina Fenchurch, this is …’ He waited for the woman to supply her name.
‘Evie.’
His grandfather’s widow stared, those turbulent icy eyes fixed on the woman’s face. ‘Evie?’
The woman gave a sharp laugh, lifting her hand to her ruined mouth. ‘What my mother called me and it’s stuck all me life.’ Standing this close to her he could see the deep crow’s-feet, the smile lines in her cheeks. Before whatever disaster or slow impoverishment that preceded taking to the road, she had led a happy life, or happy enough. White faces wrinkled up so early that you could read their natures by the time they were thirty. She was perhaps about that age. A smudgy skirt of some kind of serge hung to her knees, too hot for this climate. The yellow dress he’d seen spread on the rocks acted as a kind of blouse, bunching where it was tucked in.
With a quick, fluid movement, Rufina lowered her gun and tugged the hat from Evie’s head. Hair half-dyed red but mostly mouse and streaked with silver clung to the bony head. ‘It is you!’
Evie looked surprised. ‘What? I don’t know you, lady.’
‘Stop it, Evie.’
Evie snatched back the hat and jammed it on her head.
‘She’s Evie Falkirk,’ supplied the nameless man, Eric Campbell.
Rufina drew closer, scrutinising Evie’s face. ‘You could be. So easily could be. What is it, nineteen, twenty years? A long time.’
‘We’re from Gosford. Just out of there. You know it? North of Sydney,’ said Eric. Maybe he was her brother. The same beaky nose.
‘I said they could have the hut but it’s no good.’ Irving took the rifle from Rufina. She was still staring suspiciously at Evie. ‘The roof’s gone and — ’
‘Don’t think you can appeal to my sympathies. You must have planned this all along, to come back.’
‘You’ve got a slate loose, lady.’
The women glared at one another and the dogs arrived, the youngest a crossbreed Irving wasn’t sure about yet, bounding roughly around his legs. The shepherd and the bluey stood back, awaiting instruction.
‘Day of rest,’ Irving told their eager faces. ‘Sunday.’
Beside him there was a sharp crack, flesh on flesh, and an eruption of flailing arms and legs. Although he hadn’t seen who made that first blow, he had a fair idea. Their hands were locked in one another’s hair, Rufina kicking with her dusty boots at Evie’s skinny shanks and grunting, like an animal.
‘Ladies!’ said Bill, a twitch at the corner of his mouth as if he was in some way amused by them. Irving hated seeing women fighting; he’d seen it in the village at home, in Sydney, on the road — women of all colours and creeds.
Together, they pulled the women apart without much effort and he was aware as they did so of Albert and Jell melting away towards the accommodation, disappearing as fast as they could. As soon as she was separated Rufina broke into a run too, overtaking the men and rounding the house with the young dog barking maniacally. Nipping at her heels, Irving noticed, though Rufina paid it no heed, disappearing along the verandah and through the front door, slamming it after her. A moment later he heard her feet drumming along the hall.
Next to him, Jack had his arm around Evie and they were whispering — but he couldn’t hear them. It was true. He was going deaf; he wasn’t just imagining it.
‘You oughta get her locked up,’ Evie said clearly, when she saw him looking at her. She had a long scratch on her face.
‘Sorry, Evie,’ he said. What else could he say?
‘Who does she think our Evie is?’ asked Eric.
‘Don’t know.’ He would find out.
It was like a disease here, the unrest, something Rufina had caught. It was trying to get him too, he could feel it. His people — the outsiders — had brought it with them, and he felt it keenly, how the unsettling immanence didn’t spring from some alien long dead past, from the lost, original inhabitants, but rose around him in the present. More a warning than a haunting.
He took the tramps around to the kitchen, sat them at the table, fed them the scones, made tea. He introduced them to Nan, who bathed Evie’s face and dabbed it with cochineal, and Helena, who explained to them who the other Evie was — her mother. He took a chance to ask Nan, quietly, ‘So it’s not her then, you’re certain?’
‘Not in a million years. Nothing like her. She’s got brown eyes. Evie’s eyes were blue.’ She followed him to the porch. ‘Don’t leave me with them.’
‘You’ll be right.’
He went out to the water butt to splash his face before going upstairs to see her. If he didn’t go up she could come down again, and in her current state of mind could embarrass him further. At the kitchen door he paused, thinking he would ask Nan to come with him, or Helena, for protection, but the impulse was born of cowardice. He started up the stairs, each footfall a betrayal of himself, of the man he’d been until now. Would he find her in the bedroom or belvedere? The belvedere would be preferable, less dangerous.
Her bedroom door stood ajar, the soft dark beyond, as if the curtains were still drawn. A chink of morning light striped the floor, picking out petals in the worn carpet, travelling over discarded garments. For a one-time maid she was disorderly, but she could be, couldn’t she, since Helena did for her.
A soft weeping reached his ears, not so soft that he couldn’t hear it. Did she know he was there and so had lifted the volume?
The same reluctance paralysed him at the breach as it had last night. If he didn’t go in to comfort her then what kind of man was he? Until yesterday she’d shown him nothing but kindness. And the demand she had made of him, what was it but an urge to draw him closer. Further kindness, though wrong-headed.
He went in — there was the musky scent of the perfume she had doused herself in before she’d joined them for the party, the old worn frock tossed over a chair.
Another step so that he drew level with her dressing table. She was in the bed, an inert mound opaque through the mosquito net.
No. She was behind him. The weeping had stopped and there was a word, two syllables, the consonants lost to him but the vowels the same as his name — and she was rising from one of the chairs near the fireplace, her arms open, coming quickly towards him as if she knew he would give no resistance, that he was hers.
‘I came to see if you were all right,’ he said, as if he was defending himself, but he found himself responding to her as he would do if she was his wife, or as if he was one of the shearers from hom
e out on a Saturday night with a goodtime girl, or as if he was embracing his fiancée, with whom, because of their faith, he had never done this, or that, or carried her to a bed. At first it was that distant girl he longed for, until the memory of her tearful refusal to accompany him to Australia intruded and he opened his eyes to Rufina.
Her white face, her encircling arms, the press of her body against his.
Pleasure. Nothing more or less. She had made herself anonymous. A woman, a body. She had rewritten the rules to suit herself. It would cost him nothing.
15.
THE NEXT NIGHT HE STAYED AWAY, AND THE NEXT, AND Rufina knew better than to complain. A third night went by, a fourth. To catch a man you have to think like a man, and a man wanting another’s fealty does not exert pressure. He makes himself plain and then waits for the other man to respond. She told herself she was better to sleep alone, to conserve her strength, to survive the too-hot late-summer nights. It was as if the heat pulsed up from under the very ground, as if the earth had stored enough of the day’s relentless sun to fight fire with fire through the sweaty dark hours.
On the fifth night she ran a bath, setting the water dribbling at its full force, tepid from the single tap, before she went back to her room, undressed and put on her wrap, a scarlet silk kimono that proved stifling. Back to the bathroom for her towel and then a chair on the verandah outside her bedroom to catch whatever breeze there might be. She left the French windows open so that Irving would know where she was, should he come looking for her, and occupied herself making a list for the party.
It would be in a few months, in the autumn, at Easter, and extravagant — roasted meats and cakes and brandy, beer, sherry and music. Wine and singing. Irving and his friends could practise up some dance songs. She would say to the neighbours — bring your men and their families! She would get alongside Albert and tell him he could invite his friends and family, if there were any remaining since the police had come from Lismore on the new native policy and broken up the camp, rounded them up and taken them away to see if any had white blood in them. There was a theory you could tell by the moons in their fingernails, absent in full bloods. Was it true? Assimilation! Did anybody know what it even meant?
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