‘Not quite yet, I don’t think. My sister is sick and she…req… requires your help. You’d best get your things and come with us, if you don’t mind me insisting.’
‘I’ll do no such thing,’ the doctor said, kicking Kieran’s foot and slamming the door.
Kieran pounded hard, enraged. ‘Open up and come with us now!’
‘Get off my property before I fetch the police,’ the doctor stormed from the other side.
‘Leave it,’ Liam implored, looking nervously about. Altercations with the law would only delay them further and he needed to get home urgently now, since Eileen would just have to rely on what he’d read to help her. And what she’d taught him herself over the years.
‘You can’t just refuse to help us!’ Kieran yelled, kicking the door.
‘Kieran, come away…’ Liam said, grabbing his arm to pull him back, but Kieran shrugged him off.
‘Open it before I break it down, y’fecken’ bastard,’ Kieran yelled.
Horrified gasps and murmuring could be heard within. ‘Elizabeth, send Gerald for the constable.’
‘Come on, Kieran…’ Liam begged but his brother was lost in a rage.
‘If she dies the blood will be on your hands,’ he shouted.
‘There’s too much Irish blood pouring into this damn town as it is!’ came the answer, prompting Kieran to pick up a rock and hurl it through the man’s window, shattering the pane. A policeman’s rattle sounded and Kieran reluctantly moved away, both brothers mounting the horse and taking off down the street. And, as they passed the crowded pub, an Irishman’s voice rang out to cheers of appreciation and applause.
The sun it will shine in the harvest time
To welcome Paddy home
Twenty-One
‘Not long now, not long, my Eiles.’
Rory was holding her hand but he seemed far away, his voice becoming muffled in her ears, and she was trying to focus on him but the lamplight hurt her eyes. Eileen squeezed them shut, wishing the black would return but searing pains were keeping her wretchedly conscious and she was so hot she couldn’t seem to stop her exhausted body from thrashing about.
‘Liam,’ she managed to say. Her brother would come and bring help. He was always a smart boy, and kind too.
‘On his way,’ Rory told her, patting her face dry with a towel.
Eileen stared out the window, towards the place on the rise where her brother would come. And her other brother, eventually. One day soon. A kookaburra had tapped on the window only this morning and she’d foolishly believed it might be today. Then all thought was obliterated by agony and she clenched uselessly against it.
‘Argh,’ she grunted, and Rory returned to hold her hand tight.
‘Not long now. Not long, my Eiles.’
But the struggle was hard. Fighting for family always was.
‘Thank god,’ Rory said, clasping Liam’s hand then staring in shock past his shoulder. ‘Kieran? Oh lord, of all the days…’ Rory hugged him tight then pulled away to wipe tears from his eyes. Kieran wiped at a few as well.
‘I’m afraid I’m a poor substitute for who you really need.’
Rory looked to Liam then at the door. ‘Where’s the doctor?’
‘At Ophir treating scarlet fever, apparently.’
‘Did you try Dr Sloane?’
‘Aye.’ Liam didn’t elaborate and Kieran figured that was probably best for now. Repercussions would arrive soon enough and Rory looked shaken enough as it was.
‘How is she?’
Rory shrugged, looking more worried than Kieran had ever seen him, and a terrible knot began to twist in his stomach, churning with the alcohol from before. They walked to the bedroom and Kieran’s guts fell further as Eileen came into view. She was a pitiful version of the sister he loved, with her face drained of colour and her hair lying in damp, dark strands against the pillow. Liam bent over to place a hand on Eileen’s forehead.
‘How are you feeling, Eiles? Are the pains coming closer?’
‘Aye…they…argh…they are.’ Her expression was so tortured it hurt to watch but Kieran knew she needed his strength tonight. That realisation and the sight of Eileen’s now-empty tonic vials on the bedside table sobered him fast. The healer of the family would need everything they could give her now that her own concoctions couldn’t help and her health was in peril.
‘I’ve a present for you,’ Liam told her, moving aside, and Kieran stepped forward to take her hand.
‘Hello, my Eiles.’
Her eyes fluttered at first but then recognition lit their depths and she began to cry, squeezing his hand tight.
‘Kieran…you came home. You came.’
‘Aye, love. I’m here. Everything’s going to be just fine.’
She smiled briefly and he took a cloth to wipe her tears. ‘The kookie was right.’
Kieran frowned. ‘What the hell is a kookie?’ But then another wave of pain distorted her face and he held on with her.
‘How far along, Rory?’ Liam asked, moving closer.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, shaking his head. The midwives had always taken care of the women giving birth back in Killaloe. None of them had ever seen someone going through this before.
‘Eiles? Eiles, stay with us now,’ Kieran urged as his sister turned paler, looking set to faint.
‘Has she passed out at all?’ Liam asked, obviously thinking the same.
‘Aye, several times,’ Rory confirmed. ‘What does it mean?’
‘It means she’s weak from the fever. We have to get it down so she’s strong enough to push,’ Liam said, walking over to wash his hands in a bowl and dry them. ‘Kieran, fetch more towels and put the kettle on.’
Kieran jumped to do so, glad to be able to do something to help and more grateful for his brother’s clever brain than he’d ever been in his life.
‘Is there anyone else we can fetch to help?’ Rory asked, sounding desperate.
Liam’s tone was gentle as Kieran listened from the kitchen. ‘There’s no time for that now, but, look, she’s done this before and she can do it again; we’ve just got to make sure everything is clean, or so I remember the women always saying back home. Fetch me some fresh sheets and a new pillow, alright?’
‘Aye,’ Rory said and Kieran heard some relief in his voice too now, feeling some of what he’d been carrying alone these past few hours.
By the time they’d completed the tasks assigned, Liam had positioned himself to see how far along Eileen was, which was extremely brave, in Kieran’s opinion. Nursing your sister through childbirth was no small undertaking but Liam faced it calmly, talking in reassuring tones as he went.
‘I can see the head, Eiles. It won’t be long, just a few big pushes now.’
Kieran wondered what he was basing that prediction on then he recalled that Liam had helped quite a few of the Moileds give birth back in Ireland. He sincerely hoped his brother’s knowledge on the subject extended further than cows.
‘How’s her temperature, Rory?’ Liam asked, looking up at Eileen’s face.
‘I’d say it’s come down some,’ Rory reported after feeling both her arms.
‘Good. Time for a big push now, Eiles, that’s the girl.’
‘I…can’t…’ she moaned, thrashing her head from side to side.
‘You have to do it, Eiles. Push for me now.’
‘Come on, me love. For our baby’s sake,’ Rory said, kissing her hands.
Eileen focused on his face and Kieran watched as she somehow found enough strength to push although it didn’t last long. Liam coaxed her for the next few minutes before a darker fear passed over his countenance, almost imperceptible to most but Kieran saw it straight away.
‘What is it?’ Rory asked and Kieran held his breath.
‘I can’t be sure but the baby isn’t progressing, which could mean several things but I think…well, I’m guessing it has the cord wrapped around its neck,’ Liam told them and Rory slumped to a chair.
> ‘Can you…can she…’
‘I’m going to have to help her deliver it.’
Rory nodded, ashen now. ‘Alright.’
Kieran watched his brother wash his hands once more, preparing himself, and a swell of rage returned towards Dr Sloane who should be here. Saving Irish blood.
Rory and Kieran each took one of Eileen’s hands and Liam prepared her.
‘I know you’re exhausted, I know you think you can’t do this, but you can and you will. Just one more push, Eiles. On the count of three, alright? One, two…’
Eileen’s face contorted and her arms shook from the exertion but somehow she pushed and Liam pulled and in an agony of pitiful screaming she delivered at last. Liam held the baby gently but his eyes were filled with tears as he brought her to her mother.
‘I’m so sorry, Eiles. I…couldn’t…’ His voice broke then as the baby was lowered into Eileen’s arms and she looked over its tiny, perfect form, heartbreak in her eyes.
‘It was a girl,’ she said before dissolving into devastated sobs, holding the little child tight against her chest.
‘Aye, my love,’ Rory said, breaking down and kneeling alongside to wrap his arms around them both.
Liam stayed to help while needed but Kieran left the parents to mourn their baby’s loss in private, with heavy steps and a heavy heart. He walked outside, gripping the rail and weeping too. The sun was crowning on the horizon as the dawn arrived and a strange-looking bird sat on the branch of a tree, watching him. It let out a chorus of sounds unlike any he’d ever heard, almost like a laugh, as the beauty of the sunrise mocked the tragedy of the day.
Kieran watched the scene with the realisation that he was looking at his very own land for the first time in his life. The place he had longed for, worked for, dreamed of and now found. Clancy land. Clancy owned. But blood had been spilt now and the oppression they thought they’d left behind in Ireland had managed to find them here, after all.
They still weren’t really free.
Hatred welled within, and even though he knew logically Dr Sloane may not have been able to have saved Eileen’s baby, he blamed the Englishman just the same.
The man had taken something from them all today, even if he couldn’t quite be held accountable for the death, for he’d stolen the joy from the land they’d call home. A place that would forever be marked by the grave of a tiny life whose blood was considered ‘only Irish’, even here, in their own far-flung corner of the world.
The sound of an approaching wagon disturbed his thoughts and, as he looked over to see Dave arriving, he knew immediately he would be leaving this longed-for place the same day he’d arrived. There was no cheerful whistle or wave, which meant word had got around and the law would soon be on their way, looking for an Irishman who’d dared to cast a stone.
Liam came out to stand beside him, his eyes bloodshot and red- rimmed, and Kieran put his arm around his brother’s shoulders, knowing no words would ever suffice to bring comfort to this day but trying anyway.
‘You did everything you could.’
Liam nodded, fresh tears forming but he wiped them away. ‘Friend of yours?’ he said, changing the subject and nodding over at Dave who was taking out his pipe from his green waistcoat.
‘Aye.’
There was a pause as the inevitable sat between them. ‘Where will you go?’
Kieran shrugged. ‘Somewhere far away, just for a while until things calm down, although I hate to leave you to carry this.’
Liam sighed. ‘Aye, but you’re no use to us in gaol, Kier. Go. We’ll manage until you come home.’
The word hung in the morning air and Kieran looked out across the farm, committing it to mind before he left. ‘I’ll write when I get there, wherever that may be.’
‘I get the feeling you know where that is already.’
‘What makes you say that?’ Kieran said, although he knew Liam was right.
‘Just something in your expression I’ve seen before,’ Liam said with a shrug. ‘You always follow your heart.’
Eureka
Twenty-Two
Sovereign Hill, Ballarat, Victoria, February 1854
There was a stiff breeze and flags fluttered outside the rows of tents; Union Jacks, Irish tricolours, Scottish thistles, French Tricolores and even Texas Stars vied for prominence. Kieran ducked his head beneath their own flag above their tent flap, the green corner whipping his cheek as he stooped through and threw his bag down on the table. It was strewn with the usual paraphernalia he and Dave had amassed: tobacco, eating utensils, paper bags filled with flour and salt, a hammer, the local gazette and a few empty beer bottles they had yet to return to the pub.
‘Any luck?’ Dave asked.
Usually they worked their claim together but today Kieran had spent a bit of time panning further up the creek with some newcomers, teaching them the ropes, just to make a change.
‘Not really, enough for supper I suppose,’ he told him, patting his pocket where the gold of the day lay in its leather pouch. ‘Yourself?’
‘Enough for me grog,’ Dave told him with a grin and a shrug. His teeth were almost obscured by the long beard he’d grown since they’d arrived and he would look every bit the rough goldminer if not for that amiable expression he usually wore poking through. Most miners, or ‘diggers’ as they termed themselves, weren’t quite so cheerful. Tensions were high since the government brought in the unpopular thirty-shilling gold licence law, and pushing through the daily grind of hard labour for even smaller rewards left many disgruntled. Not to mention the lack of fresh food and water and the corrupt police force. Hungry, thirsty, poor and bullied made a strong recipe for unrest and Dave and Kieran had been lucky not to have been drawn into the many scuffles that took place.
Kieran scratched at his own beard, deciding to shave it off before they headed to Melbourne in the morning for a much- needed break.
‘Have you packed the wagon?’
‘Aye, not that we’re taking much,’ Dave told him, brushing off his boots. Most of the furniture and supplies they’d brought from Sydney to Orange had been left at the Clancy farm and they lived simply down here, their needs few.
‘Just the important stuff, I see,’ Kieran said, nodding over at a barrel of rum Dave had placed in the corner, ‘or is that staying here with Jock?’ Dave’s old mate Jock McCock was down in the goldfields seeking his fortune too and would mind their claim while they travelled.
‘He hasn’t the self-control to care for this girl properly,’ Dave said, picking it up and hugging it tight. ‘You have to court her properly, show her a little respect.’
‘She might roll about and break her pretty waist,’ Kieran said, tapping the iron ring around the barrel’s middle.
‘No fear o’ that. She’ll sit up front with me in style, won’t you, me love?’
Dave went as far as to kiss it and Kieran chuckled. He hadn’t felt much like laughing these past months but this latest trip was buoying him up, especially as they would traverse through quite a few new towns. That meant he could continue his search for the gold he sought most in Victoria. A white kind of gold, framing a face so beautiful it was imprinted on his brain, keeping him company through the long, lonely nights in this muddy, male-dominated hellhole.
‘Have you weighed up?’ he asked Dave.
‘Aye, and I’ve eaten besides. A full pouch and a full stomach, my friend,’ Dave said, patting his belly. Dave was one of the few men here who never seemed to tire of the daily fare of damper and mutton. Personally, after over a year of the stuff Kieran would be happy never to taste either again.
‘I think I might do mine first thing before we go,’ Kieran said, looking down the road towards the bank shed where a bunch of miners stood in line to have their gold weighed and exchanged for coin. It wasn’t that important anyway. There was enough money still left from their dealings at the docks to finance them for a while yet and the amount of gold they mined at their claim was more than most. Enou
gh time had passed for it to even be possible to go home by now, Kieran supposed, but somewhere along the line he’d caught the fever too. There was a sizeable vein to be found at their stake on the creek beds, he was sure of it, and besides, there was the matter of the other gold to consider, however illogical that pursuit may be.
‘Pub then?’ Dave suggested, hiding the rum barrel under the table. Liquor was expensive and illegal sales were rife, despite the strict punishments inflicted if hawkers were found out. The government seemed intent on inflicting sobriety on the miners on top of everything else. Dave had been careful this time though, ordering the barrel through the general store to avoid any trouble.
‘Why not,’ Kieran said. Tomorrow was a holiday, after all.
They made their way past the other tents where most of the miners were now cleaning up for Friday night and the scent of soap made a nice change from the usual stench of sweat in the air. Mining equipment was piled up near most dwellings, along with water barrels, timber, and stores. They lived simply on Sovereign Hill, their needs met well enough if the pan glinted in the sun, doing without if not. It was a life of hard work, base fare, dirt, grime and grog, and when he looked back on it one day Kieran knew he would consider this time spent on the goldfields the most masculine existence he ever knew.
Everything here seemed manly, from the beards to the brawls to the constant betting. They competed with each other over the smallest things, perhaps from boredom, perhaps from the frustration of waiting for the ‘big find’ or perhaps, quite simply, because they missed female company so they challenged one another instead. In some ways Kieran found it easier than being in society. Here at the diggings he could just be his essential self, raw and uncensored, comfortable in his own, dust-covered skin. But in other ways Kieran found it oppressive and he missed the comforts of a real home, the nurturing and love of a family. Or of a woman.
There wouldn’t be any of the fairer sex around tonight, or if there were they’d be painted, cheaply perfumed yet expensive company, and far more likely to frequent the better hotels in town than the miners’ pub he and Dave favoured. A few Aboriginal miners sat around outside, unable to go in, and Kieran and Dave nodded and said hello. The injustice of the fact that these men worked just as hard as the rest of them, and were likely just as thirsty, but were refused entry to the pubs just seemed to be accepted by most. But that, coupled with the fact that their land was being mined or sold off without consultation, let alone permission, weighed on Kieran’s conscience.
In a Great Southern Land Page 16
