A minute later, the man bouncing back to them across the street mightn’t have been her father at all. His face tanned in spite of his hours underground. Beyond any perceived sadness in his eyes, there was something different. A gleam. Da caught them up, a grin on his face, rubbing his hands together. ‘Okay, home we go. I’ll show you a bit of the town on the way. You won’t believe it, girls, Wonthaggi’s got not one but two picture theatres. And all sorts of shops and tearooms, coffee houses and draperies. As many as in Motherwell, Nellie.’
‘Don’t go filling their heads with fancy ideas, Seamus. The roads here turn to mud just the same.’
‘Aye, but not as often.’ Da laughed. ‘We’re in drought. Have been for three years. But we’ve got running water inside the house and an indoor bath. And the electric light in every room. And it’s warm, even in winter. You won’t get chilblains on your nose here, Mary. In the summer, girls, you can even have picnics on the beach.’
Kate and Hannah squealed at such an idea.
Mary smiled, Da’s enthusiasm catching.
Walking along McBride Avenue, he pointed out a huddle of wooden churches ahead on the hill, including the brand new Roman Catholic Church of St Joseph. Maw nodded her grudging approval.
Beyond the curve in the road the land was largely vacant but Da boasted how more gaps were being filled by the week now that freehold land purchases were possible.
‘We’re lucky to have lodgings with George and Rosslyn. Some men can’t even bring their families, there’s so little housing.’
Mary missed Maw’s mutter in reply, her attention taken by a fancy display of dressmaker’s patterns in the window of Grinblat’s Drapery, most particularly one. The soft folds of the narrow, cambric skirt nipped at the waist with a satin sash. Well, a girl could dream! Away from the drear and damp, it seemed laughter and dreams, and even pretty things were possible.
‘We’re leaving you,’ Kate shouted from where the family waited further along the street.
Mary hurried to catch them up.
Mary would never forget how her mother’s step lightened when they came into Hagelthorn Street or the relief in Maw’s eyes arriving at the row of free-standing Government cottages, all with picket fences and little front porches protecting the entries, some with lace curtains dressing the windows. She squeezed Hannah’s hand in relief until the brat yanked out of her grip, but Mary didn’t care, seeing Maw almost find a smile somewhere in that pretty picture.
That is until Da pointed out George and Rosslyn Merrilees’ new fawn weatherboard cottage at the front of one block, then led them, not around to the back door and inside the five-room house, after Joe and his children, but beyond, through the weedy scrub, to stand in front of an A-frame tent, sheltered under a canvas roof and fly.
‘Seamus Patrick O’Donnell,’ Maw began quiet-like. ‘Don’t dare be telling me this is me house. You did not bring me across the world, dragging me children, leaving a perfectly good room with a range, and washhouse below, to live – in a tent!’
‘It’s got wood walls and a wood floor, ain’t it, woman? And it ain’t gonna be for long. Besides, you can go in the cottage all day long if you’ve a mind.’
‘Have you gone damn deaf, Seamus O’Donnell? I will not live in a tent.’
Mary flinched, while Da winked to reassure the younger children, shuffling in the dust and inching towards the tent. Then the sight of Maw, so short in stature, drawing herself up and crossing her arms belligerently across her ample breasts sent the pair bolting between the flaps.
Mary could’ve bolted after them, except she was no longer a child.
‘Nellie, we’ll have a fine house in short time. I promise you. They’re that crammed in the cottage with George and Rosslyn and their two weans and Joe and his four, Rosslyn’s given over the good front room. But in the worst of winter, you can sit in by the Merrilees’ fire. I expect you’ll be needing to spend a lot of time indoors helping Rosslyn with the wean, but it won’t be for long.’ Da beamed around at them all then like he had a pronouncement of special importance to add. ‘Our house won’t be one of them State-owned cottages either. We’re going to buy our own land. The O’Donnells are going to build our own bloody house.’
Mary almost expected her mother’s blustering snort to blow down the cursed tent.
‘And where would the likes of us be getting the money to buy a house, Seamus O’Donnell? Has this hellish sun fried your brain?’ Without waiting on an answer, Maw gathered up her skirts and stormed down the block to the wooden privy house on the boundary fence, abuzz under a cloud of black flying beasties. Maw’s sobs loud enough to set every dog in the road to barking.
Da turned on his heel. ‘Tell her ladyship, I’ve gone to the Workmen’s Club for a pint. I’ll be back by tea-time, if she doesn’t drown in her tears first.’
Mary had never seen her placid father’s eyes so afire, or heard him speak of Maw in such a tone. It chilled her to think maybe absence didn’t make some hearts grow fonder, or plans made apart bound to mesh. No. Da was offended and Maw disappointed, was all. They’d be right as rubies once they got together for a proper talk.
Besides, she had other things on her mind, like Liam nipping along the side of the house still dressed in his Sunday suit. Without so much as good day.
Why? Didn’t he want to talk to her, tell her all about his new job? The new job that kept him so busy, he couldn’t write to her in all these months.
Her every instinct was to run after him, make him stop and talk to her, but she could go nowhere – her sisters’ grizzling and Maw’s sobs echoing up the block. Maw needed the cry. Thank the Lord at last. Even if it were a bloody tent setting her off.
Da would expect her to stay put – mind her sisters and Maw. Why was she always too young or too old to do what she wanted? Why did her age never work in her favour?
Why was Liam avoiding her?
Well, you won’t for long, Liam Merrilees. Next time, I see you, I’ll make you stand still and I’ll tell you how I feel, and how much I’ve missed you. How I miss your maw too. And then you can tell me all the things bleeding in your own heart.
Together, they could cry and she would hug away his hurt. She pushed away any whispers of doubt.
Inside the tent her sisters began to sook. ‘What’s to be our tea then, Mary?’
‘Oh, you’re both plumper than colliery cats as it is. Won’t hurt neither of you to go hungry for once. Come on, I’ll read you a fairy story instead.’ Six whole months she’d waited to see Liam. Six months of wondering and worrying how he was getting on. And after all that time, he never even came home for his tea.
Mary sat at the scrubbed wood table in the crowded, noisy living room, pushing her food around her plate, eyeing Joe Merrilees doing the same.
The man chewed on his lips more than his food, not talking to anyone either. Even when his children tried to tell him about the ship and the albatross following them in the sky over Africa, he merely nodded and bid them eat before Aunt Rosslyn’s dinner cooled.
How different this night would be if only his darling, Julia, sat opposite, sharing news of her journey and suckling a newborn. Mary blinked hard and stared around at the half timber-panelled living room walls, topped with red dado and white plaster above and pretty matching panelled doors. So different from the drab dirty white paintwork of the Pailis. What a pity Mrs Merrilees never got to see it.
‘Where is that Liam tonight?’ Maw asked no-one in particular. ‘I’d’ve thought he’d be here to meet his new wee brother properly.’
The same question had been teasing on Mary’s tongue all evening too, but she knew herself wise to have held it when Joe flashed Maw a dark look before returning his glare to his plate.
Da, George and Rosslyn all launched into talking at once, asking questions about the steamship and the journey, and when none could hear for the yabbering, all fell silent again.
Only later, under the clatter of washing up in the cast-iron sink in the k
itchen did Rosslyn answer Maw’s persistent question. ‘Where is Liam then? He should be here for his father. Not gadding about, his mother dead. God rest her dear, sweet soul.’
‘The lad’s in mourning, right enough,’ said Rosslyn. ‘Been mourning since the day he got here. Joseph won’t tell you, but my nephew insisted on being left behind in the city, determined to seek a position to keep him out of the mine. But they’re not taking any but domestics and farmers down there, even now. The poor laddie turned up five weeks later, dropping from fatigue, the bottom of his feet skun like a baby rabbit before stewing. After walking almost the whole eighty-five miles.’ Rosslyn shook her head, glancing distractedly at the living room door as if expecting Joe to appear. ‘The laddie only had to ask, I’d’ve wired him the ticket money.’
‘Wash a dish, girl.’
Mary jumped at a sudden rough poke in the ribs from Maw. But she couldn’t stop a tear dripping into the washing-up water, guessing now the reason that Liam hadn’t written. The dafty too proud to tell her the truth. Yet, even two days ago at the docks, hadn’t men sneered at them coming off the ship? Telling the male immigrants to go back where they came from, that there weren’t no jobs and any going were for Australians.
Oh, Liam. All you ever wanted was to be out of the pit.
‘Praise the Lord, they still took him on at the mine,’ Maw said, nodding.
‘Yes,’ sniffed Rosslyn, ‘and he’s been misery ever since. I don’t know how he’ll bear the loss of his maw. The pair of them always so close.’ Her concern was cut short by the frantic screams of the newborn.
Both women bustled out to the living room, leaving Mary to wipe her eyes on the tea towel. An idea forming in her mind and she determined to stay awake – at least until Liam got home.
Later, in the dark of the tent, she lay on her pallet bed, comforted by Da’s snores. She could almost believe herself back in their one room in the Pailis, except that the air smelled different with no coal-burning range or hint of damp growing in the walls. The dry night air hung warm, even so late. Outside, a cricket chirruped and a cackle from one of them strange laughing birds muffled somewhere in the distance.
Hannah squirmed beside her, kicking out her chubby legs in dreams Mary couldn’t coddle – not tonight. She shoved her sister’s leg aside with her own and rolled over.
A sudden scuff of feet outside the wall of the tent stilled her thoughts. She listened, at first afraid it was one of them kangaroos out there about to jump on top of the tent and crush them all. Then she recognised the tread of human feet, like someone was coming along from the privy house down the back yard. Was it Liam?
A moment later, the screen door squeaked open on the porch and booted feet stamped down the steps.
Joe’s whisper spat harsh in the dark. ‘I told you to stay home tonight.’
Another voice hissed back, unintelligible, but the tone Liam’s.
‘You’ll apologise to the O’Donnells in the morning.’
‘What for?’
‘For being bloody rude for a start. Tonight was hard on all of us.’
Mary strained her ears waiting on Liam’s answer. When none came, she peered into the blackness for a sign she was not the only one in the tent awake and listening. Da’s snores continued. The footsteps outside came closer.
‘Don’t you walk away from me, lad,’ Joe ordered.
‘I’m a man, Da. Let go of me. I’m doing a man’s work from morning to bloody night. I can do what I want in me own time.’
Mary jumped at a sudden jolt on the wall next to her. Were they fighting out there? Not Joe and Liam. Joe Merrilees never raised a hand to his children in his life. Never needed to. Mary knelt up on the thin mattress, hands clamped over her mouth. Across the tent her father’s snores ceased.
‘Now look what you done,’ hissed Joe. ‘Get to bed before you wake the whole damn street. I’ll talk to you in the morning.’
‘I just bet you will,’ Liam muttered.
All fell silent then, except for the cackle in the trees growing louder all of a sudden and a crunch of feet moving towards the house. The screen door slammed shut again and the next minute baby Hugh’s thin wail penetrated down the yard.
Another set of feet crunched on dried leaves heading back the other way. Mary crawled forwards on her hands and knees and prised open a gap in the tent flaps with her fingers. Up in the house, the electric light shone out the kitchen window, Joe visible on the far side of the glass. She glanced over her shoulder, into the darkness, but Da’s snores hummed again and Maw sighed in her sleep. One by one she undid the flap ties and picked up her shoes. She climbed out of the tent and into the night, it lighter outside with the benefit of a full moon and the light reflecting out the cottage window.
Pushing her feet into her shoes, she waited for her eyes to adjust. A match scratched and flared beyond the scrub and shortly tobacco smoke tickled her nostrils.
She followed the red glow pacing backwards and forwards, as if the smoker raged silently. ‘Liam.’
The glow halted. ‘Go back to bed, lass. It’s too late now to talk.’
All of a sudden conscious of wearing nothing but her nightgown, she clamped her arms across her breasts and stood rocking from her toes to her heels with a nervousness she’d not felt around him before. Made worse when she remembered her hair – sticking out and ragamuffin. She could only hope it was too dark for him to see the mess of it.
Her stomach pitched ill at his frustrated sigh, but she was grateful for the distraction all the same. ‘What’s wrong with you, Liam? I’ve not seen you in six months and here you are telling me it’s too late to talk.’
‘I’m sorry, lass. It ain’t nothing to do with you. Things are different here, but then I guess you knew they would be.’ He gave a bitter laugh.
She didn’t know how to answer; she’d never heard him sound so distant. Not to her. ‘I’m sorry about your maw, Liam. You must be hurting dreadful. We all are.’
‘Don’t talk about me maw while I’m angry with Da. I can’t speak her name in a cross mood.’
‘Why are you angry with your da?’
‘I told you, things are different here.’
‘Ain’t that what you wanted when you left Scotland? Things to be different?’ She cringed at her clumsiness, but could not take back the words.
Liam’s mouth creased into an ugly grimace. ‘Yeah, but not me mother dead and me da a stubborn bastard who won’t change his mind on anything. He’s been riding me since the day I got here. He never lets up a minute.’
Despite the warmth of the evening, Mary shivered. The air around her darkened as a band of cloud crossed the moon. A flap of wings close overhead made her duck for cover.
‘You should get inside, lass, before your da comes looking for you.’
‘Oh,’ she whispered, glancing back to the pale shape of the tent under the moonlight. ‘I don’t know what to say to you, Liam. I’m sorry for your loss. I don’t know how any of us will be going on without your dear maw.’ She reached out and patted his bare arm, the hairs coarser than she remembered.
His hand closed over hers, holding it still.
She wanted to fling her arms about him then, hold him, comfort him, but the tension evident in his corded muscles held her back. She dared not upset him further. Instead her mind travelled to another night, the two of them sitting out in the dark. Four years ago it’d been a lark – a game to her, goo-goo eyed on the sweetest lad in the village, him pouring his heart out to her, his despair at starting down the pit. Her desperate for him to believe her worthy of their shared pledge. That she wanted a better life too. Only she’d stopped believing after Maw told her, ‘No scholarship for you, my girl.’ No pleas had made the difference.
She shook away the sudden thought that she and Liam had never been as pally since. The memory burned how when she’d got up the courage to tell Liam about the scholarship, disgust had raged on his face. Now, for the first time, she wondered, had it not been aimed at her
mother.
‘You know I’m down the pit again, don’t you?’ he said, taking back his hand.
She nodded. ‘But it’s only temporary. You just got to be patient awhile longer, Liam.’
‘Is it, Mary? Temporary?’ he scowled.
‘Can you not go on the brace, ’stead of wheeling?’ The idea burning on her brain all evening shot out of her mouth instead. ‘Da says there’s jobs to be had on the surface, if you want.’
Liam’s answering pause stretched overlong and at first she didn’t think an answer coming. It seemed obvious to her. All ages worked the brace. It weren’t a crime.
‘Yeah, I could go on the brace.’ The contempt in his voice silenced any argument, even without seeing it on his face. ‘Excepting a man’s expected to go down the pit. Ask Da. I’d be even less in his eyes. Any lower and I’ll be sitting under the bloody tea table instead of at it. Besides, the extra shillings’ll get me out of this place faster.’
She reached out to touch his arm again, but he tugged out his tobacco pouch and gave the makings all his concentration.
‘I’m sorry your plans in Melbourne didn’t work out for you, Liam. You just got to give it time, is all. No-one’s getting any jobs down there. At least you got one here. And you don’t have to go underground, if you don’t want to.’ She drew back at the angry jerk of his head.
‘You think I should give up me plans too. Work me shift grateful like Da says.’
It stung her to hear him acting crankier than a pit pony sent back underground the very first time she’d had a chance to talk to him in months. But even those animals knew, as much as they might kick and bite and raise hell with their handlers, yearning for the sunlight and fresh air, no choice did they have in the matter. No more than Liam or any of their like.
The night sky brightened with clouds scudding away from the face of the moon. Liam’s hand reached up and ran through the raggy curls beginning to bounce back on her head.
‘You might be a faerie with that hair, lass. Though less a child than I remember … ’ His hand dropped away. ‘You best get in, it’s past your bedtime.’
No Small Shame Page 5