by G S Johnston
Tacked to the wall was a photograph. She rose on her toes to it. Three men were seated on a mule, the animal controlled by a man with dark skin, dressed in a tight white cap with no peak and a long white shirt, like she’d seen on the young boys along the Suez Canal. In the background were canvas tents. They stood on sand. The men wore wide-brimmed hats, but the brim pulled up on one side. One man, at the rear of the beast, made as if he were falling, a large smile on his face. She looked closer. It was Fergus, as she’d never seen him, smiling and happy, overflowing with foolishness. All three were just young boys, not really men at all. But he was as Maria had described him, delight high in his eye.
A noise at the door startled her. Fergus. She coloured. She should have left straight away. Now she’d been caught prying. Fergus, his lips pulled tight, no trace of a smile, nodded.
She turned to the photograph. ‘You.’ She pointed to the man at the rear of the beast.
Fergus nodded. He was dressed as always, a shirt and his shorts cut to the knee, his dark green socks poking over the top of his working boots. In fact, he was almost dressed as he was in the photograph. What words did she have? She needed to walk past him, but he blocked the doorway. She looked away to the table, to the small chest of drawers, but when she glanced back at him his eyes were riveted to her.
‘I must go,’ she said.
And then she remembered and pointed to the parcel of food. But his dark eyes remained fixed, despite the insistence of her outstretched finger. He had no other interest or concern. She was absurd. She stepped to the door. But it would appear he read this move of escape as something else. He remained fixed and then stepped forward, met her, raised his hand to her shoulder. They stood so, connected.
Suddenly, the hut’s air was laden as if about to burst. It was a matter of metres to the door, but she didn’t want to leave. She leant forward, infinitesimally small. He reached to her. Their lips met. She felt his breath. It shuddered, cooling his lips. Tasted sweet. Honey. He moved, kissed her cheek, the nape of her neck, which sent shudders through her, and she twisted but he held her. He breathed out and she had to close her eyes.
Something rose, some tingling that she supposed to be her heart. Her hands hung limp. Should she meet this? She should run. But she raised one hand, stroked his hair with her open fingers, fine and soft and yet strong. He kissed her closed eyes. She shook, a noise caught in her throat, and he lifted her then, and she fell as she had in the fields, her head resting on the plates of his chest. She inhaled him. But she should rise and run from this flame. Instead she pulled at the buttons of her blouse, no shame in it at all, and in one motion he pulled his shirt free, hurling it to the hut’s corner. And in such frenzy, they unfurled.
Under his great weight she twisted, writhed, murmured cries she couldn’t control. She ran her hands over his back, his skin like silk. He reared from her, sitting back on his haunches between her legs. Their eyes met, his so large and dark. Where Italo was long and lithe, he was a solid, tight girth. He withdrew, slid from her, his hot mouth and tongue hungry between her thighs. His hands shook as he held her breasts. At points, the intensity was too much and she begged him to stop. But he couldn’t understand her. And she had no words for this in English, this pounding rise of pleasure. And she thanked him for that. And then begged him not to stop.
And he: a week ago he’d slumped against a pole in Brisbane, half lifeless. Now he grew to greater strength, pressed to her. And his hands, rough as they were, slid tender down her hip, tender on her thigh, tender prising apart her lips. Fire rose and fell to the waves of pleasure, his voice caught between groan and whimper, in time with his hips, in time with her rise. This was this call, this call of Eden. She couldn’t fall. Her hands clutched about his free ribs. Surely, his was the hand of God.
Fergus slept on his side, facing her, his lips slightly apart. She brushed his hair from his brow. What colour? What words to describe it? The skin on his chest, on his loins and large thighs was so white, gleaming, no hint of pink, the blue veins visible on his thigh, the rivers that they were. The fingers and palm of his right hand were stained with tobacco. His chest was hairless, as were his thighs. His forearms were tanned, browned and angry, but nowhere near as dark as Italo’s, the light hairs sun-bleached almost clear. His Irish heritage. This skin was too white, not made for this country.
He opened his eyes as if he too had forgotten where he was. But then his eyes softened and ripened. He liked this moment too. She closed her eyes, to hold this, because this moment was all this could be. His breath caressed her cheek. She opened her eyes and he was still there. She looked to the window. The afternoon had turned the corner towards evening. Italo and the gang would soon be back at the house. She rose from the bed. Naked, she found her clothes. He watched her, didn’t lower his eyes from her, eyes that scorched. She dressed as quickly as able and walked to the bed and sat near him. She took his hand. They stayed so.
‘Goodbye,’ she said.
He raised himself and kissed her lips. His tasted of honey, yet again, although none had been eaten. Her desire flared, but before it took hold she stood, her hand still to his.
‘Come again,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow.’
Could he mean this?
‘No,’ she said, one of the few words they had in common.
She pulled her hand from his, turned and walked the steps to the door. She must go back to her life. Her new life. There was too much risk in this. This was a dalliance, wrong. She closed the door without looking back and made her way along the ridge. Unseen beasts thrashed in the forest – feet drummed the earth, wings beat the air, mingled cries of distress and sadness and joy. Her pace heated. She whisked across the open field. It was only five-thirty – still time to gather the evening meal.
How could she live with such intensity? How could she now live without it? Such pleasure existed. The thought caused her to skip three steps. How could this be borne?
What had she done?
No-one could know.
CHAPTER TEN
In the evening she easily avoided Italo, working in the kitchen to prepare for the following day while he too prepared. And she worked to keep her thoughts free of Fergus, but they returned and lingered – his fiery tongue, such strong sensations. And then she chastised herself. What she’d done was a sin. How could she have let herself be seduced? But that was unfair to Fergus. She’d urged it on. Should she visit a priest? The local one was Irish and spoke no Italian, and she couldn’t express what she’d done in English. So that was hopeless. But she needed penitence.
It was after eleven when she went to bed. Thankfully, Italo was exhausted and had fallen asleep. She made certain not to wake him, but she lay awake. This shouldn’t have happened. What if she became pregnant? She couldn’t ask the Madonna not to let this seed grow. How long till she’d bleed? She reckoned the dates. It would be soon.
In her half sleep, she remembered Emma’s smile, the morning after she’d first met Raffaelo Mancuso in the forest. They were at the village well. Emma wouldn’t allow her smile to beam; it remained muted, her lips held tight.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Amelia said.
Emma raised her eyes and the edges of her lips. Other women waited for the water. Emma shook her head and said, ‘Later’. But Amelia understood what had happened, at least to the extent of the little she knew of such matters. Once they’d filled their buckets, shouldered the poles, they moved away from the well.
‘It was like nothing on earth,’ Emma said.
Amelia couldn’t believe the things Emma recounted. That her whole body tingled just at the touch of his lips. That they’d taken off all their clothes. That he’d said she was the most beautiful thing in the world.
‘Then he must love you,’ Amelia said.
‘There is no question of that.’
‘And do you love him?’
Emma smiled her usual smile. ‘There’s no question of that.’
Amelia felt envious that E
mma should feel such a thing. But it was sinful, what they’d done. Yet how could joy be wrong?
‘If you love one another,’ Amelia said, ‘there can be no harm in it.’
Emma Veronesi had been so young. Amelia was older and a married woman. But she understood the joy Raffaelo Mancuso had placed in Emma.
At the first hint of the day, she rose before Italo. In the cramped kitchen she made coffee, began to heat the vat of oats. Italo came to the doorway, dark rings under his eyes, his body slumped from lack of energy, and she wondered how he’d last another ten days. But she’d had no sleep at all and wondered how she’d make it through that day. They both knew what had to be done. Without speaking, they sat together on the verandah. In the morning light, the fields were a patchwork – not unlike Maria’s bed quilt – blackened in part, some cut to the ground, some with white, ferny heads still waiting. And in truth, she appreciated the silence more than he could ever know and had no desire to challenge it. She had to forget what she’d done with Fergus. That was her intention, her only path. If not spoken of, it would recede into the past.
Should she speak with Maria? No. She hardly knew her, and this was too much to speak of. No. She wouldn’t approve. And if Maria knew, she’d feel implicated if she didn’t tell Italo. Amelia had no desire for that. And there was enough to do. But she needed to speak with someone.
Once breakfast was done, the men went to the field, already scented with sweat and liniment. She and Maria and Meggsy began like madwomen. Never had she seen so much food eaten so often by so few. The women cut, stirred, swirled, baked and set. She was pleased to be busy; it took her mind away, in pieces, from Fergus.
‘I’d give my right arm for a stove,’ Amelia said.
Maria looked at her. Did she look as bedraggled as Maria? Maria looked shocked too, as if she’d looked in a mirror. They stayed so for some seconds and then began to laugh.
Meggsy came into the kitchen in some distress and said something.
‘We’ve run out of wood,’ Maria said.
Maria and Amelia looked at Meggsy and laughed again, which left Meggsy looking confused.
‘It’s true,’ Maria said. ‘We forgot to have extra wood split.’
Italo laughed when Amelia told him, when they took the morning tea to the men in the field.
‘If that’s the worst of it,’ he said, ‘you’ve done well. I’ll send Ben to find Fergus. He can split the rest of the woodpile this afternoon.’
‘No,’ she said. The word was instinctive. Perhaps abrupt. ‘I can split some.’
‘You’ve enough to do.’
‘I did some this morning.’ It was a lie. ‘I can do more each day.’
The men started back to the field. Italo walked a few paces and then waved his hand to acquiesce to her wishes.
If Fergus came near the house there was no telling what he might say. What he might do. She should never have gone to the hut. She knew that now. But now she knew what it was she’d gone for. Before it had been some feeling, some instinct, below her level of detection. The worst of it was she’d no idea what she’d do if she saw him. Once she’d returned to the house she closed the bedroom door, knelt at the side of the bed and prayed to the Madonna for guidance, forgiveness and penitence. She said ten Hail Marys but soon realised there was too much work to be done for this.
If only she could see Clara; she would understand and have some salving words. She could write to her. No. It was far too dangerous to put this on paper. No. Should she confess it to Italo? From what she’d seen of him, he was a good man. What would he think of this? What would he think of her? What would he do to Fergus? And he was too busy and stressed with the harvest to deal with anything more.
She had to endure this – no-one to share her burden. She must carry the weight. This was her penance. She knew neither man. She’d chosen between them before she’d met either. But as dangerous as it was, she must see Fergus, impress on him to never speak of this with anyone. It was a mistake. He would see that. But she couldn’t risk seeing him. Even the simplest thought of him, as she prepared the lunch for the men, and that same heat, that flame, ran to her face, across her body.
The bone-grinding toil of each day blurred into the next. Every second evening the men would burn more fields, and she would stay in the house. Each day the men came from the field for lunch. While they ate, she boiled water and made pots of tea that she took to the table. But six days into the cutting, Italo stood away from the men, looking out at the field.
‘We’re running behind,’ he said.
‘How can that be?’ she said. ‘You can’t work any harder.’
‘Each year the mill puts more pressure, tighter and tighter, shorter amounts of time to get the cane to the mill.’
‘Can’t you stop and then cut it later?’ Amelia asked.
‘We’d never get the men. They’re booked for the whole season.’
‘Then cut it at the rate you can and store it until the mill can crush it.’
‘It will rot.’ He looked out at the field. ‘We need more men.’
‘Then employ them.’
‘They work in other gangs. And the more men we have, the more we have to pay.’
‘Why don’t you ask …’
She stopped herself. How could she think to suggest Fergus?
Italo looked at her. ‘Who?’
‘Me.’
He smiled, placed his hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s very hard work.’
‘I’m strong.’
‘You have work here, in the house.’
She thought. ‘I can organise the meals in the early morning, some in the evening. Maria and Meggsy could take over.’
The other men began to laugh. She hadn’t realised they’d been listening.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Everything I do is so bloody easy.’
She left the verandah with haste, but Italo followed her to the kitchen.
‘Even in Australia a woman has a place and she should stick to it,’ she said.
Meggsy scuttled from the kitchen.
‘I did harvest my father’s apples,’ she said.
‘I’ve no doubt. But apples are light.’ He ran his hand over his forehead. ‘Would you be able to bundle the canes together, get them on the transports?’
‘I don’t see why not. Each cane is light.’
Italo considered the suggestion.
‘And the best thing of all,’ she said. ‘You won’t have to pay me.’
She caught Italo’s eye.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘But you’ll have to wear something else.’
He found some work clothes, his pants and a shirt. His waist was bigger, so she tied them with a belt. The work would be sweaty – she pulled her hair high, away from her neck and face, and secured it under a large hat. She went to the kitchen.
‘You look the part,’ Maria said, but her tone was curt.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll prepare things here in the evening and the morning.’
‘I’ll wager you’ll be too tired to lift a finger, but anyway, we’ll get by.’
Amelia turned to leave. ‘Leave me a list of what you want done.’
She walked with Italo to the field. The men jeered but good-naturedly, and she took a deep bow. In these clothes, a curtsy seemed inappropriate. The small engine and tray were brought as close as possible to the field on portable tracks.
The men waded into the field, drew their odd-shaped knives from the backs of their trousers, stooped to grab the cane with one hand and sliced at the base. Such was the sharpness of the blade, the strength and skill of the men, within two or three cuts the cane came away. With some poetry, they straightened their backs, swung the cane in the air, their blades countering through the air to remove any remaining tops, the stripped cane falling to the ground. She watched Dante – he forced his boot under the canes, his foot at a right angle to his leg, holding and gathering as many as a dozen canes to a bunch. Once there were enough, he leant over, forced
his hand and forearm under the canes, jostled them slightly to greater order, then slipped his other arm under to the lee of the first. Then in one great movement, the entire bunch, like a mere feather, ascended to his shoulder, and he stood, the middle of the bunch resting on the shoulderblade, and moved immediately towards the transport, wasting not one overburdened second, upending them onto the open tray.
‘Don’t lift as many,’ Dante said.
She nodded, breathed deeply, raised her boot under the canes, but they wouldn’t behave and gather on the instep. She slipped one arm under the canes she had, fewer than a half-dozen, and then the other, and lifted them to the air. In the moment, a memory took charge of her muscles. She was with Emma at the water well. She knew the subtle moves to balance the load on her shoulders to cart water.
‘Good,’ Dante said.
She stepped, staggered at first but then gained the load. But once balanced, the load lightened. With clean steps, she walked to the transport, leaning to flip the bunch over to the tray.
Dante continued. She watched him, his strength and expertise outstripping hers. But she gained fluidity with her boot and grace with the lift. Emma shared the weight. It would take her twice as long, but she would clear the canes. Once Dante was sure she knew what she was doing, he took a blade and started cutting, glad at the vital pair of extra hands.
Within a single hour, sweat stung her eyes. She hurled the canes into the air and, feeling she had no more power, gritted her teeth to find it. Her feet ached. She felt a dull pain in her lower back and belly. She’d already strained herself when she twisted, her hands blistered, despite the canvas gloves. She felt sharp cramps in her belly. These she recognised. Her period had come. She raised her eyes to the sky. A wave of relief washed over her. She couldn’t be pregnant. This part of her sin would remain secret. She excused herself and returned to the house to take care of this change.
