by Cameron Nunn
“What’d you do that for?” I asked, wiping at the warm milk.
“I didn’t mean to,” she said in her most insincere voice. “I meant to get you in the face.” With that, she turned the teat again and squirted. This time I were quicker and managed to dart to the side. Kate offered up her same bubbling laughter.
She stood up smiling with the goat separating us. Cain said there are smiles what cause the sun to rise. I like to think he were talking about Kate when he said that. It were true she’d one of those smiles that you can’t help but smile in return.
“You said you’d teach me to read,” I said, taking the opportunity.
“I thought you’d forgotten.”
“It’s what I think about all the time. I want to learn.”
“My father says that they’ll be moving half the sheep from the north run to the south in the next few days. He’s worried they’ll overgraze the north pastures.”
“That means you won’t be able to teach me.” I had a feeling she already regretted her offer.
“You won’t be out there all the time. Don’t worry. I’ll find a way.” She smiled to say I should trust her and not ask any more questions.
But my head were spinning again. When? It were hard enough to catch Kate alone. It were as dangerous for her as it were for me for us to be seen alone together. Perhaps more dangerous. She were taking a risk for me in even offering. Places like Brymedura were full of eyes and tongues. Bored men jangle like fishwives.
The goat stepped forward and kicked over the bucket what were half full. “Damn you,” she cursed and I slipped out of the shed.
It were Christmas Eve when Kate spoke to me again. Sarah were too sick to work in the kitchen. As the days grew hotter, Sarah grew paler. Even from the bottom of the hill, we could hear her loud hacking coughs throughout the night. Everyone knew she were dying. There were no point in sending for the doctor. There’d be naught he could do except charge for the courtesy of riding all the way from Bathurst. I wondered whether Sarah knew everyone already thought of her as dead. I tried to imagine what she were thinking as she lay there steadily drowning, as her lungs filled with blood. It must be a terrible thing to know you are dying, but even more terrible to die alone.
Sarah weren’t a talker. She were just a grey figure what were driven along by Mrs Smith’s broom. With her hunched shoulders and look of complete misery, she reminded me of a rainy morning in London. We probably wouldn’t have spared her a thought, except for the unending cough what announced her arrival wherever she went.
It were Christmas Eve when I’d been sent to the kitchen in Sarah’s place, to pluck a goose what had been chosen by Mr Harrison. I’d never eaten goose before, let alone plucked one. Mrs Smith were in no state to show me how, so Kate were called. The idea of moving the sheep to the south run had been put on hold with Sarah’s illness. I were needed at the homestead: the sheep would have to wait.
Mrs Smith moaned like a lost soul as she went about her business. “She were like one of me own,” she wept to anyone who’d listen. “It were as though I’d nursed her at me own breast.” She seemed to forget that Sarah weren’t dead yet.
On Christmas Day the coughing stopped. Mrs Smith couldn’t bear to go into the room where Sarah lay. She swore the girl’s ghost had come to her in a dream and told her how she’d been like a mother to her. Jack and I were sent in to gather the body and wrap it in a calico sheet, what Kate had brought.
I once seen the men on the Southbank pull a girl from the Thames. Her face were pale and bloated. Amos reckoned she’d been in the water for a week or more. She must’ve drowned a long way up river and floated down to London. I remembered her face every night for more ’n a year. I must’ve been about seven or eight. I imagined her soul bobbing on the water after the men dragged her body up onto the bank. It were floating down river, like a piece of flotsam, past Greenwich and out into the Channel towards France. I thought heaven must be somewhere beyond France.
I didn’t believe in ghosts, but I didn’t want to touch Sarah’s body. She were in the corner, stretched out on a straw mattress. There were nothing peaceful about the way she looked. Her eyes were staring straight ahead and her mouth were wide open, as though she’d fearfully coughed up her spirit. I could see her rotten teeth. Her skin had the same death-grey colour as it did in life.
I laid down the sheet beside her. Jack were nowhere to be seen. That weren’t surprising. I felt I needed to say a prayer or something religious, just in case her ghost were actually watching from somewhere, so I bowed my head in the hope it might look like I were in prayer.
It were while I had my head bowed that Jack strolled in. “Bloody hell, what are you doing?”
I jumped, as though Sarah’s ghost had suddenly entered in the form of Jack’s voice. “I were just saying a prayer.”
“Bloody parson as well, are you?”
“No, I . . .”
“Well, let’s move the little slattern then. I ain’t doing the whole thing myself. Shit, she stinks.”
We laid her down in the cloth and wrapped it around her. Jack tied a knot around his end and I followed. One of the men had brought a cart from the shed to place the body on before taking her to the edge of the clearing where Cain had dug the grave.
When we lowered Sarah into the hole everyone, even Jack, stood silently. Mr Harrison read from the Bible. “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believeth in me shall live even though he dies.” Mrs Smith wept. There were few other words. Nothing much could be said for Sarah other than she’d lived for some fifteen or sixteen years and had left this world in much the same forgettable way she’d entered. Only Mrs Smith wept for her and no one would remember her. Tomorrow it’d be as though Sarah had never existed. I didn’t even know her last name.
Mr Harrison said some prayers and asked if anyone else wanted to say something. Mrs Smith shook her head and began to sob again.
He clapped his hands together with unusual enthusiasm. “As it’s Christmas, it seems a shame for a good goose to go to waste. And I’m pretty sure that there is an extra measure of rum for everyone who’d care to join me.” The mood suddenly lifted. “The boy can fill in the hole.”
“Would you like a hand?” Cain offered as soon as the others had left.
“It’s fine. I can do it,” I replied, eager to be alone.
When Cain left, I began to mechanically shovel dirt; not on Sarah, not even on a servant what had lived. Mr Harrison had told them all, I were just filling a hole.
Will and Rosie had been at Brymedura about two weeks when the police car arrived. They were all in the kitchen when they heard the knock. Gran rose quickly from her chair. “Just wait there a moment, kids.” She partly pulled the kitchen door behind her.
“Excuse me, are you Mrs Richards?” The voice at the door was soft and awkwardly polite. “I’m Senior Constable Grainger and this is Constable Rolls. Do you mind if we come in?”
They heard the flyscreen door whine softly and then close itself. Gran came back into the kitchen and smiled unconvincingly. “Do you mind if I close this door, kids. I’ve just got some visitors, and I need a moment of privacy. I won’t be too long.”
Will could sense that something was very wrong and his mind immediately jumped to the memory of his mum lying on the floor, paramedics working frantically over the top of her.
“Will?” Rosie called him back. “Why are the police here? Is Gran in trouble?” She was looking out the window at the car and then began walking over to the door.
“Don’t go there,” he said a little too loudly and Rosie startled. Then more calmly he added, “You heard what Gran said. She needs some privacy.”
Rosie seemed to accept it and came back to the table. A feeling of sick rose in Will’s stomach and it was all he could do to keep it down, to keep calm. He knew Rosie was watching him now but he couldn’t bring himself to meet her gaze, to answer with his eyes what he knew in his heart.
Gran reappeared at the doo
r, her face ashen. She held on to the door as though it was the only thing holding her up.
“What did they want?” Rosie asked.
Gran walked over and eased herself down slowly into a chair next to Rosie.
“It’s Mum, isn’t it?” Will’s question was more of a statement. He stood up. He couldn’t bear to sit anymore.
For a few seconds Gran sat there, not saying anything. Will watched her chest rise and fall several times. Then she gave a soft nod.
“Is Mum okay?” asked Rosie, sensing the situation. Her voice had an edge of panic.
“No. No, she’s not okay, Rosie. I’m so sorry.” Will watched Gran’s face crumble.
“What’s wrong?” Rosie’s voice was rising in a panic. “What’s wrong with her?” She was looking at Gran and then Will, her mouth opening and closing as though she was about to say something.
“She’s dead, isn’t she? She’s dead.” Will’s voice was flat and disconnected from his emotions, as though someone was speaking through him. There was a horrible emptiness in everything around him.
“Oh kids! I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. The policeman said that she died in hospital last night.” Gran looked at both of them. Will could see that her expression was pleading for some sort of helpless understanding. She held Rosie in her eyes.
“But they said that she was getting better. The doctors said she was getting better and that she’d come home and everything would be good.” Rosie was nearly shouting.
Gran pushed herself quickly from the chair and took hold of Rosie, her small frame wrapping around the sobbing girl. “Sometimes it doesn’t happen the way the doctors think it will. Sometimes our bodies are just too hurt to get better.” Gran was sobbing now as she squeezed Rosie in her arms. Will stood there unable to move. The vomit pushed hard up from his stomach. He knew he should be crushed by the terrible weight of the news but instead he just felt hard and cold and sick. This is what his mum had wanted. This was why she’d taken the pills, so she didn’t have to come home. His dad had left them too. He hated them both. He hated everyone. He looked down at Gran stroking Rosie’s head and telling her it’d be okay, their bodies linked in grief and comfort. He wanted to weep but he couldn’t. He wanted someone to hold him and tell him everything would be alright, but it wasn’t.
“Fuck them all,” he thought as he turned. He heard Gran calling after him as the flyscreen door banged behind.
I t was Dot who found Will sitting down by the creek again. He was throwing pebbles as far as he could along the creek bed.
“Your gran’s worried about you.”
Will shrugged and picked up another stone.
“I’m so sorry, Will. I wish I could say something that’d make this whole stupid mess better but I can’t.”
Will flung the stone and watched a small puff of dust rise from the side of the bank further downstream.
“Gran called your dad from my place. She’s taking Rosie back to Sydney. She wants you to come.” Will looked up. Dot was sitting on the edge of the bank above him.
“Why? Why does she want me to come?”
“Oh for Pete’s sake, Will. I don’t know what’s happened with you and your parents, but she’s your mum, Will. Your gran is aching for you and Rosie needs you more than ever.”
“Did she say if we’re going back to live with Dad?” Will turned away and stared along the creek, through the boulders and branches. He picked up a handful of dirt and stones and flung them wildly. “He’s an arsehole. It’s his fault. He didn’t say when we’re coming back did he?” When Dot said nothing, Will turned up to her again. His face was red and twisted with rage and grief but there were no tears.
“I don’t know, Will. I only know that there are two people who need you right now. Can you be there for them?”
The journey back to Sydney was in near silence. Rosie had begged to sit next to Gran and so Will sat alone in the back. That suited him now. He stared out the window as farms appeared and disappeared behind them. Even when they stopped for dinner, they chewed in silence.
It was late when they arrived back at their old house. Will’s dad came out to meet the car. Will was surprised to see how old his father had become in the two weeks they’d been with Gran. His body seemed to have shrunk as though someone had taken out some of his bones. He offered a hollow smile as they got out of the car and gave Rosie a hug. He walked around the car to Will.
“How are you?” he asked softly.
Will shrugged. He didn’t want to have this conversation. His dad reached out and put a hand on Will’s shoulder. Will felt sick. What was he supposed to do? He left it there until it became awkward and his father pulled it back.
“I guess we’d all better go inside.”
Gran had gone to his father’s side. “Are you okay?” she asked as they walked into the house, Rosie still sticking tightly to Gran and Will following up behind.
When they opened the door, the place was messier than Will had ever seen. Will’s dad had always been the neat one. Now everything seemed to have spilled out of cupboards. Will could see in the kitchen where plates were jumbled haphazardly in the sink and the place stank of sourness and sadness.
“I’ve been a bit busy, trying to visit Gail and keep the shop running and what have you,” he offered. “I didn’t think you’d want to stay here.” He tried moving things off chairs so they could sit down. Will came and stood near Gran. She was the rock onto which both of them were holding.
“And where were you expecting us to stay, Robert?” Gran sat down and Rosie crawled onto her lap.
“I thought you and the kids would want to stay away from where . . . I just thought you’d prefer to stay somewhere else.” He ran his hands though his hair forcefully.
“I’m really sorry, Robert, but you’re not the only one grieving.” She was rocking Rosie as she spoke but her voice had a determined edge. “The kids have been beside themselves. They needed you, Robert.”
“I know, I know, I know. I just needed some space to sort things out.”
Gran took Rosie to her room to put her to bed and Will headed to his bedroom as well. He didn’t want to be left with his dad. Everything was as he’d left it. His life had been turned upside down but everything still looked exactly the same; his desk covered with homework that no longer mattered; his cricket trophies. He sat on the bed; loneliness made him feel even emptier. More than anything he just wanted to wind back time. He texted Jeff and Marty asking if he could see them. He wasn’t sure why but he needed something of his old self back; the one before his mum and dad had flushed everyone’s life down the toilet. He sat staring at the screen on his phone. There was no reply. Finally he messaged, Mum’s dead. He was met with an eternity of blue silence. It was like a punch in the guts. No one gave a shit.
He curled himself into a ball and the anguish and loneliness shook every part of him.
Joy was the only other person at the funeral. She sat on one side of the chapel; rigid, upright, staring straight ahead. Will’s family sat on the other side. The coffin lay clinically on a silver trolley at the front. Will thought about his mother, lying by herself in the coffin. Was she smiling or sad? Will knew it was a stupid thing to think about but the only other picture that he could summon was the night when the ambulance had come. Rosie had become inseparable from Gran and Will sat next to Rosie. It’d been his job to look after Rosie, and now even that’d been taken from him.
A priest came and stood by the coffin and read words from a folder that he carried. They were just words and Will could scarcely hear them above his own thoughts. Then the priest came to a part where family could come up and say a few words. He paused, looking at Will’s family and then at Joy. Gran leaned across Rosie and whispered, “Do you want to say something Will? It’d be good if you could say how much your mum meant to you.”
Will shook his head. There was nothing to say except his mum had left him and Rosie. Will looked across at his dad, who was sitting, bent over, his hands co
vering his face. It was crap that no one was going to say anything about his mum. No one. Suddenly he felt he needed to say that she was a kind person or that she loved the colour pink or she used to sing John Denver songs to them when they were little but his body betrayed him and he couldn’t move. The priest began again and the moment was lost. Why hadn’t his dad said something or Joy? No wonder his mum wanted to get away from them all. He felt like a complete shit.
As the service ended, Gran got up and gently raised Rosie with her. She leaned over to Will’s dad, who was still sitting, his hands buried in his face. Gran whispered something to him and Will saw him nod without ever looking up. “Your dad just needs some time alone with your mum,” Gran said softly to Will and she began to walk back down the aisle of the chapel. Will tried to feel some sense of pity but there was nothing.
Outside, in the sunshine, Joy was already standing there, spider-like, waiting for Gran. Will moved closer to Gran as she approached. “Hello, Joy,” said Gran. “It’s been a long time.”
Joy put a hand on Gran’s arm that was holding Rosie close to her hip. She smiled in what Will assumed was what she thought was her most sympathetic pose. “I’m so glad you were able to get down here and bring the kids. It’s so sad. And for the children to not have been here.”
“But they are here,” Gran responded.
“I mean to have not been here in the past couple of weeks.” She paused and glanced around as if there might be someone else lurking. “It’s just so kind of you to look after the children, Mrs Richards,” Joy said. “It’s been such a terrible time. I can only imagine how hard it’s been on the children, being away from home, I mean. Has Robert said how long he intends for you to shoulder this responsibility? Not that I’m sure you mind, but I understand that it can’t be easy. I think you’re a saint, Mrs Richards.”
Gran wasn’t going to be so easily manipulated by Joy. “It’s kind of you to say so, but we’re getting by.”
