A Greater World: A woman's journey

by Clare Flynn

  'I hate her.'

  'Hate away, but it won't change anything. Your father's made his choice and he seems happy with it. There's many a man in McDonald Falls wish they were in his shoes.'

  'You too no doubt.' She spat the words at him. 'So that's it? You're carrying a torch for her.'

  'Stop it, Hattie. It's all in your head. You're making up stories. I'm married to you aren't I?' He moved towards her and took her face between his palms. It was a pretty face, but the temper tantrum had mired it with frown lines and she had a petulant air that was unattractive. Michael ran his palm across her forehead as though to smooth the frown lines away, but the girl pulled back from him.

  'Leave me. You'll smudge my makeup.' She reached into her handbag and pulled out a mother-of-pearl powder compact and began to touch up her face, then snapped the compact shut.

  'We're expected at the Appletons this afternoon and I need to buy a new hat first.'

  'All right Hattie. I'll come with you to meet yer friends today and mebbe we can go to a concert, but then please let's get away out of town and enjoy ourselves. I don't want to fight.'

  'You can do what you want, but I'm not going with you. I'm staying in the city and you're not going to stop me. I'll wait for you downstairs.' She pulled on her hat, grabbed her clutch bag and left the room without a backward glance.

  After a day trailing in Harriet's wake, as she explored the treasures of David Jones and Farmer's department stores, he persuaded her to take a stroll through Hyde Park and from there down to the Domain. As they walked by the edge of the water, he wished they weren't there. The scene brought back the memory of meeting Elizabeth and the misery of the day after, when he had waited in vain for her.

  Harriet was in a good mood, buoyed up by the success of her shopping expedition. She'd bought so much it had to be sent to the hotel in a taxicab. Now she was busy planning their evening.

  'We have cocktails with Miranda and Robbie. They haven't mentioned dinner - so I want you to suggest we take them on to a restaurant afterwards. They'll refuse, of course, but they'll feel obliged to invite us to stay for dinner. I know for a fact that they entertain at home almost every night. They obviously want to check you pass muster before they extend us an invitation. It will be an excellent opportunity to meet some interesting people. For God's don't tell them you're a coal miner.'

  'Why do you feel the need to scheme so much? Can ya not let life come along and take you as it finds you? You're only eighteen – there's time enough to worry about yer social standing. Just try and enjoy yerself. Please!'

  'You don't get it, do you? Try not to let me down or embarrass me. Keep quiet and only speak if someone speaks to you. Steer clear of saying what you actually do, just say you're helping develop my father's business affairs. Have you got that? If not, it's better you stay behind at the hotel and I'll make your excuses. I don't want you showing me up by talking about coal and nasty things like that.'

  It wasn't worth answering. He wondered whether to take her up on the offer that he stay behind, but he needed to play along if there was any chance of getting her to compromise about the rest of the honeymoon. He leaned against the wooden bench and looked up at the trees. The huge fruit bats were there, densely packed, dangling upside down in the foliage. Used only to seeing the occasional tiny pipistrelle under the eaves of the cottage in England, he was amazed by the size of these, and their presence in the heart of the city. The ibises too surprised him with their exotic, long curved beaks. Everything was larger than life. Even after three years, he thought he would always feel like a stranger in Australia.

  Harriet wasn't interested in bats or ibises. She prattled on about her plans and aspirations, and Michael wondered how he was going to survive his marriage. The Little Girl Lost of the race day and the tearful daughter of their wedding night were a replaced by a social-climbing martinet. Her suggestion that she spend most of her time here without him was appealing. It would anger Jack Kidd, but did he need to know? He was planning to live out at Wilton's Creek and would only be in town occasionally. With a bit of cooperation from Harriet, they might be able to work it that she would be in McDonald Falls whenever her father was.

  He gazed at the bats, watching as the odd one broke away from its arboreal dormitory to make a lazy swoop through the air to alight on another tree.

  They had finally consummated the marriage. Their delayed wedding night did not augur well for the rest of their marriage. All Michael's efforts to get Harriet to relax were in vain. She lay inert under him; giving a little cry of pain when he entered her, then lay there like a human sacrifice, her face set in a frown of discomfort that killed any ardour in Michael. He had hoped that once her virginity was dispatched, she might be able to relax and enjoy what he was doing to her, but this morning when he had tried to make love again, he'd felt like a rapist. She was rigid, with fear or, more likely, distaste, her eyes screwed tight shut and her mouth set in a hard line. Afterwards, she told him he was not to expect conjugal relations more than once a month.

  She stretched her feet out in front of her as she sat beside him on the bench, admiring her new, shiny, bar shoes, tilting her ankle so she could take in the full glory of their neat little heels. 'I'll wear the pink silk tonight.' She looked at her watch. 'Time to go. I want a bath before we go out.'

  Chapter Eighteen – Another Funeral

  The Kidds moved to Wilton's Creek while the honeymooners were still away. Will had made a series of trips with a wagon to transport their packing and provisions and was waiting at the small homestead along with Mary who, Kidd had finally agreed, would accompany them to help with Mikey.

  Elizabeth had tried to convince Kidd to let Will live with them and help develop the land into a viable farming enterprise. Kidd would not relent. 'The mine will toughen Will up. He needs to grow up. I've already got a spoiled, lazy daughter and I don't need my son to turn into a bludger. He's got to learn to look after himself.'

  'He hates the mine with a passion. He loves the land and he could be such a help to you. And he's not a bludger, as you call it – he's a hardworking lad.'

  'Stop interfering. It's up to me to decide what's best for him. He'll move here soon enough, but not till I say so.'

  She knew enough to bide her time for a better moment. It was a war of attrition, but she was confident she could win it.

  They fell into a routine. Kidd rose early and was gone before she got up. One evening she looked up from her sewing and said 'I have no idea what you do all day?'

  Kidd grunted.

  'Why don't you tell me? I'm interested. You ride off on the pony with your bags behind you and I haven't a clue where you go or what you do. Then there are the days when you take the truck to go into town. What do you do there? Is it the mine?'

  'Sometimes.'

  She stabbed the needle into herself in frustration and jumped up to wipe the blood off. When she sat down again she was all the more determined to pin him down.

  'Not every time?'

  'I have meetings.'

  'Meetings?'

  Kidd swigged his beer and replied impatiently. 'I meet with grain merchants and livestock breeders. I talk to land surveyors and other farmers. I have a few beers at the Lawson. And I don't expect to have to bloody well account for my movements to my wife.'

  'I'm not asking you to account for your movements. I'd like to know more about your business. When I was a child, my father used to talk to me about the coffee business. It was interesting. I haven't a clue what you're even farming. You never talk about the mine, but I thought you might at least tell me about your work out here. I know you've bought more land, but you've never said what you intend to do with it.'

  'And you're some kind of expert on land usage are you?' He got up from the chair, kicked over his empty beer bottle, and grabbing another bottle, took himself outside to sit on the veranda in splendid isolation.

  Elizabeth sighed. Despite his surliness, she had begun to find a kind of accommodation with
him, that could almost be described as fondness. But each night, as she looked across the room at him, she marvelled that it had come to this: being married to this short, tanned, weathered man who made no conversation and showed little or no capacity for affection or emotion. He was not untypical of men in and around MacDonald Falls. They shared his impatience with talk, communicating only what was vital and preferring the hard grind of physical work, washed down at the end of the week with a few schooners of beer. It was hard to believe she was the same woman who had sat in the stalls at the Liverpool Philharmonic, impatient for the orchestra to strike up; a woman who threw her tennis racket in a bag and rushed out of the house for a game of doubles. Tennis and symphonies were now alien concepts.

  By rights she should have been bored, here in the middle of nowhere, a good hour's drive from town, deprived of company except Mary and Mikey, yet she liked the peace of the place. Time moved more slowly, as though operating by different laws.

  Now that there was electricity and more space at Wilton's Creek, life was easier than in those first weeks of marriage. Mary now undertook the weekly washing ritual, her strong Irish muscles being well-fitted to the task of carrying the water to fill the wash tub and making light work of wrestling the clean sheets through the mangle and onto the washing line.

  Kidd came home unexpectedly one morning, when Elizabeth was sitting on the porch with Mikey. She had a large volume on the birds of Australia and was listing them in a notebook as Mikey identified them. So absorbed were they, that she didn't hear Kidd approach.

  'What's the one with the bright red head and tummy, Mikey?'

  'Honey birdie.

  'That's right, my love. The scarlet honeyeater. Do you remember what scarlet means?'

  'Red!' He shrieked his response in delight.

  'Are you sure? Don't you mean green?'

  'No, Mummy – red!'

  'Ooh, I thought it was yellow.'

  'Silly Mummy – it's red!'

  'You're just too clever for me aren't you, my little chap?'

  'Look, Mummy – over there – my best birdies.'

  A flock of rainbow lorikeets flew up in a bright, multi-coloured display.

  The little boy cried out in excitement. 'Lollykeets – they's lollykeets!'

  Kidd stepped forward and shouted to the distant Mary, who was pegging out sheets.

  'Mary, come and take the boy and do something with him. He's under his mother's feet. That's what I pay you for.' He picked up the heavy volume of Birds of Australia and threw it carelessly onto a chair.

  As the child was led away by Mary, Elizabeth turned on her husband.

  'For heaven's sake. Am I not allowed to spend any time at all with Mikey? What's wrong with you?'

  'He's hanging off your apron strings. It's not good for the lad. He'll grow up soft.'

  'And why shouldn't he? I love him. It would do no harm if you showed him a bit of affection too.'

  'He's not my child.'

  'Keep your voice down. He must never know that. How could you?'

  Kidd sighed and laying the book on the floor, lowered himself into the chair. 'Maybe I'll feel different when we have one I can really call my own.'

  'What? Like Will? I don't see you showering Will with affection. You keep biting his head off. When the baby comes why is it going to be any different?'

  'Leave Will out of it.' He kicked the book towards her then got up and went inside for a beer.

  She followed him into the house and took him by the arm.

  'Listen to me, Jack. When the baby comes I don't want you treating it differently from Mikey.'

  'It'll be mine.'

  'No it won't be yours. Children aren't possessions. He or she will be its own person. Just as Mikey is. I want you to love the child when it comes, but I want you to love Mikey too. Or at least put up a pretence of doing so and treat him fairly. He adores you. Even though you have no time for him. He's a little scared of you, but he worships the ground you walk on. He's always asking where Dadda is. He's desperate for your approval and affection.'

  She saw surprise in Kidd's eyes, as though he was absorbing what she had said and finding it not unpleasing, but he turned away with a shrug of his shoulders.

  She knew expressing his feelings was well nigh impossible for Kidd. He'd spent the years since his first wife died suppressing them. When, just before Harriet's wedding, Elizabeth had told him she was expecting his child, he'd made no comment, other than a nod and a grunt, but she took this to be of satisfaction. And that night in bed he'd made love to her with an unusual tenderness and afterwards, instead of turning away from her towards the wall, he had curled his body around hers and fallen asleep with his arm circling her waist.

  Her words of reproach must have hit home as the following morning, Kidd spoke directly to Mikey, asking him what he planned to do for the day, then said, 'You're old enough to come fishing. You can help me catch a few trout. Maybe I'll let you hold the net. What do you think?'

  Mikey's eyes were like saucers. He laughed his gurgling laugh.

  'Yes please, Dadda!'

  'He may be a bit small for that, Jack. He can barely walk.' Elizabeth said.

  'I'll give him a piggyback if he gets tired. It's not far to the creek.'

  Elizabeth laid her hand on his. 'Thank you.'

  He shrugged her hand away and got up from the table and left the room without another word.

  That night, Elizabeth felt as though she were part of a real family for the first time, as the three of them and Mary tucked into a supper of freshly caught trout and vegetables from the plot. She was incredulous that Kidd had spent a whole day with Mikey, ignoring the demands of the mine or whatever else it was that usually occupied him.

  He laid down his knife and fork after the meal and belched in contentment. Elizabeth fought the urge to wince.

  'We'll drive into town tomorrow for the doc to give you the once over again. I want him to keep an eye on you.'

  'Everything was fine the last time. There's no reason why it shouldn't be this time.'

  Mary interjected, 'Second babbies are always easier. The more you have the more they just slip out like butter – at least that's what my mammie used to say. It was true in her case and she should know as she had twelve of them!'

  Kidd ignored the Irish girl. 'We'll stop in town after you've seen the doc. I need to go to the mine and see what Mick's been up to. You can find out Hattie's news – let's hope it'll not be long before she's having a bub too. It'll make her think about someone other than herself.'

  She lay awake in the dark, thinking of seeing Michael and Harriet for the first time since their marriage. Beside her, Kidd slipped quickly into a deep, snoring sleep, oblivious to her anxiety. She still carried Michael's handkerchief with her every day. She pretended there was no significance to this, but several times a day she slipped her hand into her pocket and touched the coarse cotton, rubbing the fabric between her fingers like a talisman. She did it to reassure herself that what had happened between them at Sydney Harbour did indeed happen, hard as it was to imagine now. She clutched it tightly in her hand, falling at last into a deep sleep.

  Doctor Reilly assured her all was in order. She was relieved that this time she'd be giving birth in the winter. She left the doctor's and, keen to postpone seeing Harriet, asked Oates to drop her at the schoolhouse and collect her later. Kidd would be annoyed, but that was preferable to sitting around while Harriet ignored her.

  Verity was overjoyed to see her. She regaled her with stories of the school and her pupils and Elizabeth shared anecdotes about Mikey and his more charming expressions. Her biggest challenge, she told her friend, was preventing the impressionable little boy from picking up Jack Kidd's choicest language.

  When they'd exhausted their news, Elizabeth went over to the fireplace and leaning back against it, said 'There's something else, Verity. I've been meaning to tell you but haven't seen you for so long. I'm expecting another child.'

  The older wo
man clapped her hands in delight and quizzed Elizabeth about dates and her plans for the future. 'Won't you move back into town? I fear for you with a little baby and a small child out there in the bush. And selfishly I wish I could see you more often.'

  'That's out of the question, I'm afraid. Mr Kidd is very occupied with the land. Today's the first time in ages he's been to check on the colliery. Anyway, we've nowhere to live in town now that Harriet and her husband are in Kinross House. I couldn't live like a guest in what was once my own home. Apart from the odd night like tonight. Although, to be honest, I'd rather have gone back tonight to the Creek, but you know Mr Kidd when his mind is made up. Anyway, I like it there. It's peaceful and safe and Mikey loves it. He's become quite an expert birdwatcher. And his father is teaching him to fish.'

  Verity clasped her hands with delight. 'How wonderful. I do wish we could see each other more often though. Have you seen Harriet yet?'

  'Not yet. To be honest I'm dreading it. I hope marriage might have mellowed her but I fear it won't have done.'

  'You don't know?'

  'Know what?'

  'She's hardly ever here.' The schoolmistress dropped her eyes. 'She spends most of her time in Sydney.'

  'How can she do that when...' she hesitated to use his name, 'her husband has to be here at the mine?'

  'He's here. Rattling round that big house on his own. Such a pity! I tried to talk to Harriet when she was here last week. It was just a couple of days for a function at the country club. Elizabeth, it doesn't seem right! She should be with her husband. She seems to have fallen in with a bad set of people and can't see past the fact that they're all rich and well connected. She was never invited to the country club before and it upset her. Now she's like the cat that got the cream.'

  'I had no idea. I don't believe Mr Kidd has either.'

  'He'll find out tonight. Hattie went back to Sydney a few days ago and won't return until the end of the month.'

  'They're both adults, so how they choose to run their domestic arrangements is up to them, but I think my husband is going to be very angry.'