Absolution Creek

by Nicole Alexander

  ‘Where have you been?’ Meg said as Sam entered the room.

  Sam, who had showered and changed, ignored his wife. He looked around expectantly at the sideboard, but then noticed its empty decanters and the water jug on the table. He frowned before slumping into his chair. ‘Sorry.’ He didn’t sound at all apologetic. ‘I didn’t realise there was a train to catch.’

  Cora tapped her nails on the table. ‘You’ll appreciate an early dinner after a few days with Harold.’

  ‘Sure.’ Sam shovelled stew into his mouth. ‘No need to go to all this trouble for us though, Cora.’ He waved his fork at their surroundings. ‘We’re kitchen people.’ His eyes fell on each painting, each lamp, the height of the pressed metal ceiling. One of the ornate cornices dangled a good foot from where it should have been secured.

  ‘I always eat dinner in here, Samuel.’ Cora shook a cigarette out of its packet and lit it with a sigh of satisfaction. ‘People dress for dinner in the bush. We always have.’

  Sam swallowed noisily. ‘Thought I might go to town tomorrow, pick up some supplies.’ He pushed his chair out and leant back on two legs. ‘Nice table.’

  ‘Mahogany.’

  ‘Hmm, matching chairs?’

  ‘Burr walnut,’ Cora answered.

  ‘Pricey, eh?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Sam brought the chair back down so that it rested on all four legs.

  ‘We don’t need anything in town, Sam. Besides, this is a six-day-a-week job.’

  ‘Well, I’ve a mind to go exploring.’ He pushed his plate away sulkily.

  ‘Town is a once-a-fortnight event for supplies.’

  Sam glared at her. ‘Meg and I didn’t come here to be bossed around, you know. I never actually said I’d be working for you.’

  ‘And what did you actually think you’d be doing? Living here under my roof gratis?’ Cora exhaled cigarette smoke, which drifted up towards the embossed metal ceiling. ‘If you intend to find work elsewhere – which, I might add, I’d be happy to see you do – I’d charge you board accordingly. That’s fair.’

  ‘Fair? There’s fair and then there’s downright bossy.’ The crockery rattled as he stood.

  ‘Is that right? Well, in the meantime have a think about what you’d like to do. Work here or elsewhere, remembering that you’ll be on trial anywhere you go. There are no free rides out here.’

  ‘Who do you think you are?’

  ‘The person who owns the fuel bowser. Did you fill up when you came through the village?’

  Meg knew Sam was far better off working here and keeping a low profile, at least until his latest fighting debacle was forgotten. Although she doubted the police would chase him this far north, it would be a different matter if the man called Jeffo had ended up with serious injuries or worse.

  ‘I don’t know where you get off –’

  ‘I’m the owner, Sam,’ Cora pointed out, ‘and your prospective employer.’ She leant towards him. ‘My offer was for your wife. You’re lucky to be here.’

  Meg’s heart felt as if it was slowly detaching itself from the inside of her chest.

  Cora took a sip of water. ‘And I’ll remind you both that there’s no corner shop here. It’s a 200-mile return trip to Stringybark Point, so keep a list handy if your memory fails you for when we do go to town for supplies.’

  Sam glared at her. ‘Well, ain’t that some sort of welcome. We come here in good faith –’

  ‘This is my home, Samuel Bell.’ She leant forward in her chair. ‘There’s little point you trying to throw your weight around here. I’ll remind you once only: Meg is family, and while you are both to a certain extent on trial, you have to earn the right to be here.’

  Meg widened her eyes in response to Sam’s furious stare. He’d not once raised his hand at her or the girls, but there was always a first time. ‘Sam.’ She knew how her voice must sound – plaintive, pleading.

  Cora took a long, languorous draw on her cigarette and blew the smoke directly at him.

  ‘Sam, please.’

  Sam walked briskly from the dining room. Meg unclenched her fists. There were deep red welts across her palms.

  ‘He’s a difficult one, isn’t he? No need for explanations. He’ll get used to things,’ she said amiably. ‘It’ll be difficult for him, though. Men hate reporting to women.’

  Clearly her aunt’s anger didn’t extend to Meg. ‘Harold obviously doesn’t,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure it irks him some days, but the truth of it is that Harold’s a perfectionist. That’s how he lost his own place in the early fifties. He was so busy trying to make everything perfect that he spent himself out of his only asset, his land. I don’t intend to see that happen here and Harold knows it. If an increase in expenditure doesn’t increase production, and by extension income, we don’t do it.’ Cora finished her cigarette and stubbed it out in a porcelain ashtray. ‘He didn’t want to come here, did he?’

  Meg gave a small shrug. At this moment she didn’t want to be here either.

  Chapter 14

  Mrs Bennet’s Boarding House, Chatswood, 1923

  Olive peered out the top-floor window of the boarding house. She lifted the casement window and a cool billow of wind ruffled her carefully groomed hair. She sported the latest hairstyle, known as a shingle, which finished just above the shoulders. The permanent wave suited her dark hair and she patted a stray lock back into place, noticing the small clouds on the horizon. It would storm later in the day; a Sydneysider knew such things. She craned her neck in the hope of glimpsing the street below, but a patch of lawn and a wooden paling fence were the limits of her view.

  Olive flipped the brown curtain and sat on the bed, smoothing her tubular crepe tunic across her knees. Her suitcases were packed and ready. She scanned the room that had been her virtual prison since arrival. The walls were bare and peeling, and despite being early December a chill settled about her. She thought of her buttercup-yellow bedroom with its view over the waters of Rose Bay, and glanced at her sister’s early Christmas gift, which she felt sure was more a token of approval following her revelation at the Queen’s Club. Strands of seed pearls were interspersed with beads of lapis lazuli, the bracelet quite at odds with the room she now inhabited. Her fingers plucked at the worn brown coverlet beneath her. Her fancy wristwatch with its mother-of-pearl face told her only half an hour had passed. Thomas was coming tomorrow.

  ‘One more day. One more night,’ she repeated softly.

  Olive thought of Jack; tried to recall his face. She brushed away gathering tears and recollected the slab hut pictured in a book at the State Library. There had been another image as well: of a woman behind a one-way plough. Of course there were also photographs of picket-fenced dwellings, black-skinned maids and grimacing children, but it was the toiling woman who occupied Olive’s thoughts. It wasn’t her fault. She had no photograph of Jack and, having been apart for months, her resolve was weakening. She believed she loved him, yet a growing awareness of what she was giving up ate at her. Worse, now she was at the final, irreversible stage of Jack’s plan, she was holed up in a boarding house, hiding out like a common criminal from family and friends. What would happen if Jack couldn’t make a go of things? Would they end up paupers – she with her skirts tucked up as she dragged her feet through yards of dirt, and Jack dulled by disappointment? What would she do out there? Have babies, Olive supposed. Help Jack, perhaps. Help him do what? She was about to run away to join the man she loved, yet her resolve was failing her and she realised she was giving up far too much to risk it on a dream. Why couldn’t Jack have stayed in Sydney? Why did they have to build the bridge? That great blasted bridge, Olive thought sadly. Despite the massive structure and the eventual uniting of the city, it had created a chasm that she now knew was impossible to breach.

  She wrote the letter quickly, using the thin paper supplied on the dresser, only pausing to re-read it when her tears had dried.

  My dearest Jack,


  Don’t think my affections have diminished. I write this knowing you have gone ahead to make a place for us and I admire your courage for setting off into the vastness of this country to follow your dream and carve a place in the world beyond. Sadly, I have come to realise such a place is not for me. In the months we have been apart I have found myself appreciating security, love and the familiarity of hearth and home. Both our worlds have changed, Jack, perhaps for the better. Forgive me, however I lack the courage to venture into the unknown, to live an isolated existence far away from family and friends.

  Olive

  Olive hastily folded the letter as Mrs Bennet’s footsteps sounded on the stairwell. The woman jumped visibly when Olive opened the door, her fist mid-air.

  ‘I was just letting you know that you’re late for breakfast. Again.’

  Olive handed the older woman the letter and enough coins for postage. ‘Mrs Bennet, I will be leaving today. Can you arrange transport to the city?’

  The widow looked at her suspiciously. ‘Transport to the city? I thought you were . . .’ She paused to examine the letter before slipping it into her apron. ‘Never mind. You’ll be telling me it’s none of my business.’

  ‘I believe I owe you monies for my stay.’ Olive counted out the coins required. Each movement she made, every thought, seemed to be that of another person. In her mind she was walking towards the Milsons Point terminus, her arm linked through Jack’s. Then they were sitting eating a banana split . . .

  Mrs Bennet cleared her throat. ‘My gardener’s off on an errand this afternoon. If you like he could take you to the train station then.’

  ‘That would be fine. Thank you.’ The train, ferry and cab ride home would give her time to contemplate her arrival at Rose Bay. After two nights’ absence, Olive’s excuse for her disappearance – a pre-Christmas house party with the Gees – would soon be revealed as a sham. Mrs Gee and her mother spoke weekly and Olive knew she must return home and face punishment. Her parents would be horrified by the truth, yet what else could she do? As Olive closed the bedroom door she rallied, straightening her shoulders and firming a smile. What had she been thinking? A woman such as herself, a settler’s wife! Why, she had not the first idea about the country.

  Olive changed into a pink silk dress and grey overcoat with matching silk lining. It was a little overdone for travelling, but she was determined to return to Rose Bay with her head high. Adjusting her grey clouche hat so that it sat low over her forehead, she assessed herself in the mirror. She dusted powder across her nose and applied a coral pink lipstick. When the knock came on the bedroom door she was quite ready to leave.

  ‘The weather’s turned,’ Mrs Bennet warned, letting Olive struggle with the two suitcases down the stairs. ‘I’ve no spare umbrella for you. It’ll take some twenty minutes to get to the station.’ Mrs Bennet’s sturdy lace-ups echoed down the stairs and along the hallway. ‘I’d be suggesting you wait till morning.’ The hall table bulged with picture frames and knick-knacks, all highlighted by a weak light emanating from the tasselled lampshade.

  Olive lifted her chin a touch higher and walked down the gravel path to where a dray waited. She looked left and right, expecting an automobile, but instead Mrs Bennet’s gardener, a rough-looking individual with old man eyes approached her. He took hold of her suitcases and threw them into the back of the dray.

  ‘Visiting, was you?’ He manhandled her aboard. She sat squeezed tightly against him on the wooden seat.

  ‘Are you going home now, lass?’

  Olive detected a slight Irish accent in the guttural voice. ‘Yes.’ A sprinkle of rain moistened her palm. ‘For Christmas.’ Olive lifted a perfumed handkerchief to her nose, the reek of onion and sweat unavoidably strong as the horse trotted off down the road. Above her, the sky was thickening with heavy cloud. They turned from Mrs Bennet’s street and the dray rolled past a number of timber houses.

  ‘Christmas, eh?’

  ‘Yes, it’s only three weeks away.’

  ‘To be sure it is. Live on the city side, eh? I used to live there too, till the bridge, of course.’

  Olive nodded, loath to move her handkerchief from her nose and mouth. ‘The bridge development has changed many people’s lives.’

  ‘Not yours, eh?’ His eyes strayed to Olive’s pearl bracelet.

  She tucked it under her coat sleeve. ‘Is it far to the station?’

  The gardener pulled his cap down, flicked the reins and turned to the right. They were on a rutted track with fewer houses and many more trees.

  ‘Used to be a lot of orchards around here, and Chinese. Modernisation, eh?’ He spat over his shoulder.

  Olive opened her mouth to check directions, a fierce thunder clap drowning her out. The gardener flicked the reins and drove some way in the streaming rain before seeking cover beneath a large tree.

  ‘Nice watch.’ He thumbed at her wrist.

  The canopy above provided only the minimum of cover and Olive huddled into her coat, feeling the water seep through the fine cloth until the back, shoulders and skirt of her dress were soaked through.

  ‘Nice ear bobs. Pearls, is they?’

  Eventually the rain began to lessen.

  ‘I’ll be having that fancy bracelet of yours, lass.’

  Olive started at the gardener’s voice. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Give it here.’ He reached for her arm.

  Olive struck out with both hands, slapping at the man wildly. She twisted in the wooden seat and aimed at him with her feet.

  ‘You’re a bloody holy terror.’ He slapped her once across the face and succeeded in wrenching the pearl bracelet free. Dazed, Olive drew back and fell from the dray onto the muddy ground. She landed heavily.

  ‘All I wanted was the bracelet.’ The gardener sounded quite annoyed. He propped her against a tree, taking a step back to look at her closely. ‘Watch and ear bobs.’

  Olive threw the jewellery on the muddy ground and, with shaking hands, tugged at her dress, which had ridden up to reveal the tops of her stockings. The man was searching her handbag, whistling when he found her clutch of pound notes.

  ‘How we gonna get you to the station now, eh lass? You look a right fright to me. Pretty silly just for the sake of a bracelet.’ He tilted her chin.

  The sound of a horse clip-clopping down the muddy road carried on the slight breeze. A dirty hand quickly silenced her. They remained in that position for some minutes until the splatters of raindrops showered them from above. Olive struggled beneath the man’s weight. His breathing was laboured and the heat of him through the wet material of her dress seemed to scorch her. When she cried out again she was rewarded with a stinging slap. The gardener glanced over his shoulder.

  ‘The thing is, if you’d given me the bracelet, lovey, you could have been on your way. But looking the way you do now, with your hair all mussed, your clothing muddy and ripped, well, if you do put me in – which you will – the coppers will assume the worst when you’ve only got yourself to blame.’

  Olive turned her head from him. ‘Just go, please. Let me be.’

  ‘So it’s a bit of a wasted exercise, if you know what I mean, leaving you looking like you do, with no violation even been attempted.’ He grinned happily. ‘Besides, toffs like you, well, you’ve had no experience, and me father always said a little training never went astray.’ He put his hand over her mouth and, dragging Olive sideways, fell upon her. ‘If it’s any consolation, you’ll be my first under these circumstances.’

  Chapter 15

  The New England Tablelands, 1965

  Lifting the homemade swag, Scrubber scooped out a shallow hole in the dirt, sat the leather pouch inside and lay on top of it. There were still some hours to endure before sunrise, and if sleep did come to him he figured it was best to be prepared – a failure due to lack of attention couldn’t be risked. He didn’t want anyone to feel tempted. After all, a fella might think anything was in that pouch. Scrubber burrowed his bony spine further into th
e dirt and said a few words he thought passable prayer-wise.

  Through the dark of the bush night Scrubber listened as the horses ambled across fallen leaves. Their hoofs crushed branches, and soft whickering floated through the air. Scrubber turned towards the smoking fire, flinging his arm across Dog. With a full belly and a drowsy mind it was real easy to wallow in memories of times past. And tonight in particular his mind kept meandering, as he recalled the man who once saved him, who in turn couldn’t see that he needed saving from himself . . .

  Matt Hamilton was tall and built like a red brick out-house. He had a face women loved and the poorest ability when it came to judging a person’s character. Of course from Scrubber’s viewpoint that was the most positive attribute Matt could have had. If his pa were around he would have told Scrubber that meeting Matt Hamilton that day was akin to finding a four-leaf clover. Unfortunately the reverse couldn’t be said of Matt’s association with Scrubber.

  It was late December 1923, and Scrubber just twenty-two years old, when he arrived on the slopes. Worn out and hungry he was about ready to turn himself in. The day before, a group of Aborigines had accosted him on a dirt track. It was some altercation. Having discovered there was nothing worth stealing, they spat on him, following a good rubbing down in the dirt. That was near it for Scrubber. With busted ribs and his water bag stolen, he figured he was done for. Then providence led him to gaze across the paddock to where two men on horseback came into view. They were a good mile away, riding into a dipping sun, and in spite of exhaustion Scrubber slipped through the fence in a bid to follow them. The rocky ground tested his knees and feet. By the time Scrubber reached the camp it was dark, his mind numb with tiredness. He could barely move for the pain of his ribs. Grasping the trunk of a silver-barked tree, he slid to the ground, his calf muscles quivering. Scrubber couldn’t remember his last meal. He peered out from behind the tree.