As if to underline this thought, Shadow was barking as he ran towards Finch.
‘Hey, what is it, boy?’ he asked.
The Kelpie swiftly changed direction and bounded up the track that led to the hill of churches. At the crest of the hill Finch saw a blur of bright pink flash between the screen of olive green eucalypts. Clytie! Who am I to argue with a Kelpie?
Finch had an uneasy feeling as he passed through the lych gate to the cemetery. The sun was shining brightly yet something was not quite right. He gave an involuntary shiver. There was Clytie kneeling before little Robert Hart’s grave, placing fresh flowers in the jam jar. She pulled out a stray weed that had obscured the words carved on his tombstone.
She looked up at him with barely concealed distrust. ‘If it isn’t a rude question, where are you off to, Finch? If you come across my dodgy fiancé, tell him to have the guts to face me, right?’
Finch could do no more than stare at her.
Clytie frowned, suddenly concerned. ‘What’s wrong, Finch. You’re as white as a ghost. You should see Doc. You might be going down with a fever.’
‘It’s nothing. I’ve got to be going.’
He stumbled blindly at a half run down the hill.
Where the hell can I go? Doc . . . Doc . . .
• • •
The last patient had left the surgery and Doc was packing up his medical bag when Finch knocked on the door. Doc took one look at him and drew him to a chair, divesting him of his swag.
He held a brandy to Finch’s lips. ‘Get this into you, lad. I take it you’ve had a shock of some kind?’
Finch took his time to find the words he needed. ‘Do you reckon I’m crazy, Doc? I don’t know if I’m sound enough of mind to tell the difference between being awake and being trapped in a nightmare.’
‘You’re as sane as I am – if that counts as any recommendation,’ Doc said, with a smile hovering at the edge of his mouth. ‘Why do you ask, lad?’
‘Something’s not right about the way I see the world. Maybe I can see things other people can’t. Maybe the war is to blame.’
‘We can blame war for many things, lad. Go on, I’m listening.’
‘I’m beginning to wonder if some of us get trapped at the moment of death – unable to move forward.’
‘What makes you say that?
Finch could not answer. Doc watched him in silence before asking, ‘Did this come to you in one of your nightmares?’
‘No. It’s been at the back of my mind for some time.’
Fragments of memory rushed back in haphazard sequence . . . Rom waving at the bow of the hospital ship . . . in the bar of Young and Jackson’s Hotel . . . being cut dead by the nursemaids in Bitternbird Park . . . the chatty farmer who gave him a lift yet ignored Rom.
‘I travelled with Rom for months, Doc. Got drunk with him once, argued with him – even fought him fist to fist. Yet I noticed how some people snubbed him. Rom used to laugh it off, saying “We’re heroes one day, invisible the next.” I thought it must be the war playing tricks with my head until last night I saw him enter Clytie’s house. Then, just now in the cemetery, I saw Clytie.’
Doc nodded and waited for him to continue.
‘She was kneeling beside her baby’s grave. She said something like, “Tell my dodgy fiancé to have the guts to face me.”’ Finch’s mouth dried. ‘The point is, Doc, Rom was standing beside Clytie all the time – and she couldn’t see him!’
Finch’s whole body began to shake violently. He hugged himself in an attempt to control the embarrassing sign of weakness.
He forced out the words. ‘Am I crazy, Doc? I think the truth is Rom doesn’t know – he never really came home . . .’
The silence lay between them.
‘If you’re crazy, Finch, then you are in good company. Rom Delaney came to see me a few nights ago. He was deeply troubled about his son’s death.’
Finch leaned forward, eager for reassurance. ‘You’re a doctor – did he appear totally real to you? Alive? Solid?’
‘Normal, except for one thing that was rather out of character for Rom. As you know, I don’t drink alcohol, but I poured him a brandy. He said he never knocked back a grog. Yet when he left some time later his glass was untouched.’
Finch nodded in relief. ‘So what do we do now? I can’t bear to tell Clytie.’
‘Indeed we must not! The girl tries to give the impression she’s in full control of her life. That’s far from the truth. She is grieving deeply for her baby and clinging desperately to her belief that Rom will return to her.’
‘I know. She’s angry with him, but she’ll never give up on him.’
They sat in troubled silence for some moments until Doc spoke quietly.
‘I seem to remember a number of classical philosophers’ theories. That perhaps a ghost is a lost soul who is unable to leave his past life behind and returns for a specific purpose. If you believe in God, Finch, then perhaps Rom has been granted an extension of time to resolve something.’
Finch nodded agreement. ‘Rom keeps saying he needs to put things right with Clytie – sort out the mess he made of their lives.’
‘Then if what we suspect is true, Rom is living on borrowed time. You and I need to help him understand whatever is preventing him from moving on.’
‘No chance, Doc. He’s in total denial about the existence of God, ghosts or an after-life. He doesn’t believe in anything – except his boast that, like the proverbial cat, he has nine lives.’’
Doc gave a sigh. ‘I am reminded of Oscar Wilde’s lines in The Ballad of Reading Gaol: “For he who lives more lives than one, more deaths than one must die.”’
They sat together in a silence finally broken by Doc.
‘You and I are Rom’s friends. We must find out whatever is preventing him from finding peace – the key to his life, or death.’
Finch’s voice broke. ‘Thanks, Doc. I thought I’d not only lost my memory, but my sanity as well.’
Doc held out his hand. ‘You are not alone, Finch. Whatever we discover, we are in this thing together.’
Chapter 32
The track through the bush between Rom’s cabin and the priest’s house seemed to grow longer with every step Finch took. Since the night last week following his extraordinary talk with Doc about Rom, Finch had enjoyed the gift of several nights of unbroken sleep, free from surreal nightmares for the first time since he woke up in hospital in Johannesburg.
Today he saw the bush with fresh eyes. It was lush, caught with the fever of new life. Yet it seemed alien to him. He could not marry it to the fragments of memories of his childhood that had begun to surface, as if rising between the cracks of an ice-covered lake beginning to thaw after a long winter. He felt sure there was a reason for these memories of very different scenes, climates, people. Although he felt reasonably certain English was his mother tongue, he suspected his knowledge of French and German went far beyond learning from rote in school primers.
He kept hearing the kindly voice of a man he hoped was his father, and the words being said to him: ‘Son, we must always respect the languages of the people who gave our ancestors refuge during the Desert Years.’
The Desert Years – an evocative phrase, but was it to be taken literally? He saw a vivid flash of himself as a child drawing a map charting the travels of a persecuted people who fled from one country to another. Finch closed his eyes, determined to retrieve the details of that fragment of memory. It began on the map of France, in Normandy, the blue line of the Loire Valley . . . he saw his childish hand print the word ‘Danger’.
Danger – the word that seems to light up wherever I read it. Why?
He fought to retain the elusive memory, to follow that map with its dotted lines. Other places of refuge were marked in Languedoc, Flanders, the outskirts of Paris. Then here was a geographical leap to Hamburg and Hanover, then to a nearby village on which he wrote the name ‘Altona’. Beside it was drawn the symbol of a silk weaver
’s loom. Some centuries later the line of dots crossed to Holland then across the sea to England. In London, the weaver’s loom was again drawn beside the word ‘Spitalfields’. A crude, child-like sailing ship showed the voyage to Australia. Above the map was printed in childlike letters, ‘THE DANGER TREE’.
Finch was sweating, desperate to retain the memory. He heard the man’s voice say, ‘Very good, lad. But you’ve forgotten the apostrophe and the “S”.’
An apostrophe? What the hell does that mean?
He didn’t know who he was, but he now knew who his ancestors were. The revelation drew a guttural cry of joy.
‘I’ve found them! They were Huguenots!’
All the pieces fell rapidly into place. He stopped short and with a sense of excitement stumbled through what he remembered of the historical mantra his father had taught him.
‘1523, the first French Protestant martyr burnt at the stake. 1534, our people and John Calvin forced to flee France. 1562, the Wars of Religion began. August 23rd 1572, the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of French Protestants began in Paris and caused the streets of Paris to run red with blood . . . it spread throughout France . . . the “Desert Years” were the centuries that Protestants went out into the wilderness, literally or figuratively, to the only places it was safe to practise their faith . . . to say their prayers.’
Finch stretched out his arms in triumph.
‘I remember now! We always paid tribute to their memory – the first Sunday in September. Father took us into the countryside in every country we lived in to pray in our French ancestral tongue!’
He felt jubilant at this dramatic breakthrough in his lost memory, almost lightheaded to recall the centuries of persecution that led his people to flee to The Netherlands, Switzerland, the German lands of Brandenberg-Prussia and Hessen-Kassel where they worked hard and were respected. Thousands had fled to welcoming countries in Europe, England and America until Napoleon Bonaparte restored the Huguenots’ rights to religious freedom in France, as he did for French Jews.
Finally we ended up in Australia. Finch saw in his mind the lovely South Australian township of Hahndorf, the wine-growing settlement where German was spoken alongside English, dual mother tongues.
South Africa! A total black veil descended to seal off his memories from that point. As frustrating as that was, Finch was grateful that he had at least retrieved the foundation stones to his identity. No name yet – but a glimpse of the rich tapestry of life that his ancestors had woven. Survivors!
He smiled, remembering the old Huguenot motto, ‘The more one strikes me, the more hammers he wears out!’
As if by sleight of hand, the beauty of the bush was transformed in his eyes, with a life force that was almost palpable, a palette of subtle greens and golden hues, pierced by touches of ochre-tipped leaves. He was struck by the balance between feminine and masculine: delicate wild flowers alongside the strong textures of the bark of the tree trunks – silver, dark, mottled, no two trees alike.
This corner of the Gold Triangle had a strange beauty all its own. The guttural cries of an elusive Bitternbird hidden somewhere in marshland was a sharp reminder of the miniature bird, the South African Finch, that was the key to his temporary name. To Sister Macqueen’s ears his feverish, slurred word had sounded like ‘Finch’, the name she recorded on his chart – the name that triggered his dawning realisation that he might be, as Rom had hinted, a deserter. Desperate to escape punishment, he had known that if this were true one slip of the tongue could land him in an Imperial prisoner-of-war camp – at worst before a firing squad. For the moment he pushed all thought of South Africa and the war behind him. His confidence had leap-frogged in bounds with the discovery of his link to his ancestors.
Finch was relieved to find the priest’s house was empty. No doubt Shadow would be guarding Clytie wherever she was. It was the perfect time to make his move.
Removing the axe from the little toolshed he had constructed for her, he stripped off his khaki shirt and headed off into the depths of the bush. The ringing sounds of his axe echoed around him as he began dismembering the straight slender trunks of the saplings that would be good burning wood for Clytie’s fuel stove.
I promised Rom I’d see her right. But if I’m going to stay here I must gain steady work. Let’s hope Doc’s reference to Sonny Jantzen will lead to something. At war’s end there won’t be enough work for returning heroes.
After stacking a large pile of logs in the formation of a dry-stone wall at the back of the cottage, Finch returned to the heart of the bush to attack enough trees to keep Clytie in fuel for a week. The barking of a dog shunted him sharply back to the present. Through the sunlight that filtered through the olive green and gold tracery of the bush he glimpsed Shadow jauntily bounding ahead to lead Clytie Hart home.
Safely unobserved, Finch rested on his axe, enjoying the sight of her, the way the hem of her skirt danced around her ankles, the demure Gibson Girl blouse that failed to conceal the ripe curve of her breasts, the improvised scarf tied over the hole in the straw boater caused by her impromptu knife-throwing act.
He half smiled at the memory. Her independence, her cheeky smile, her ready wit and her voice – one minute like honey, the next sharp under attack. She both attracted and irritated him. If Clytie Hart was a typical example of the coming Modern Woman, he would enjoy sparring with her.
The faces of soft, blonde women and the soulful Indian eyes of a Cape Coloured girl passed before his eyes to be replaced by the endearing Celtic redhead, Sister Macqueen . . . and yet . . .
The back door of the cottage opened and Clytie emerged with a dog’s bowl which she placed on the ground. She stood, hands on hips, eyeing Shadow and daring him to move. He remained obediently still. She clapped her hands.
‘Good boy! Yes, Shadow, dinner is served. You may eat – and enjoy.’
She squatted on the steps like a schoolgirl, her skirts carelessly hitched up in the belief no one was watching. Reading her mail, she eyed Shadow with affection.
‘You’re a quick learner, Shadow. I could train you to leap through hoops of fire. When our money dries up we could run away from home and join a circus.’ Her finger drew the imaginary words in the air. ‘I’ll bill us as Little Clytie and her Shadow – the World’s Cleverest Kelpie. How does that sound?’
She giggled at the idea, and Finch caught himself smiling in response.
Returning to read a fresh letter, she suddenly gave an unladylike whoop of joy. Leaping to her feet with arms stretched above her head, she spun her body into a series of perfect Catherine wheels, petticoats and skirts flying like a black and white rose blown by the wind.
Her piled up hair was now tumbling down, wild tendrils escaping like a disturbed bird’s nest. As if suddenly sobered by a guilty thought, she sat down and hugged her knees to unburden her conscience to her trusted companion.
‘I shouldn’t really celebrate a man’s downfall, Shadow. But Vlad was cruel to my mother, and a rotten stepfather to me. Pedro’s news is welcome on both counts. Vlad was caught drunk before his act and sacked from the circus. That’s poetic justice – even though I wouldn’t wish an arthritic hand on any man. He stole Mother’s money. All we have to show for a lifetime in the circus is this!’
She gestured ironically to the peeling paint of the illustration of Daring Dolores and Little Clytie, the stationary wagon’s wheels now embedded in the mud.
Clytie rose to her feet, startled by the sight of the wood pile.
‘It seems that trickster Finch has gone behind my back, Shadow. I made it clear I don’t need his help. He claims he promised Rom he’d look out for us. So I guess I’m stuck with these logs. I can hardly turn them back into trees, can I?’
She stacked an armful of logs to carry inside and told the dog to follow her.
Finch nodded approval and retraced his steps to Rom’s cabin. In his mind’s eye he kept seeing the graceful arch of Clytie’s body spinning in the Catherine wheel.
/> Time may unmask me as a scoundrel. But at least I now know my ancestors were brave men. That’s something. Whoever I am, from this day forward I’ll do my darnedest to prove to Clytie Hart I’m a man she can trust.
After bathing in the creek and changing into his other shirt, he went to the Mechanics Institute where writing materials were available. He composed a notice under the heading of ‘Work Wanted’. He had trouble defining himself and his only known attributes but finally settled on the wording.
‘Returned V.M.R. soldier from South Africa seeks employment. Strong, healthy, capable, literate, rides well. Willing to tackle anything. Reference available.’
He signed it then crossed to the Post Office. The problem was what contact address could he give? He did not wish to impose on either Clytie or Doc.
I can hardly state my address as ‘c/o Derelict Miner’s Right cabin’.
He handed it to the Post Mistress and asked for permission to place it on the noticeboard.
Marj Hornery read it carefully. ‘You can use the P.O. as a contact point if you wish.’
‘That’s a good idea. Thank you.’
She flashed him her most winning smile. ‘Sounds like you intend to put down roots in Hoffnung. It’s a friendly town for the right kind of people.’
‘I’ll go wherever the work takes me, Miss Hornery,’ Finch said politely. Doffing his hat to her, he vacated the shop and pinned the notice on the board.
It immediately drew curious eyes.
Let’s hope Sonny Jantzen offers me something. I can’t live on tea and damper and the odd day’s labouring forever.
Chapter 33
Her decision made, Clytie hastily made a light tea to fortify herself to brave the traditionally all-male domain of the library in the Mechanics Institute. It was not that women were exactly forbidden, but no female who valued her reputation would risk being seen sitting alone among a group of men poring over apprentice’s manuals and the week’s newspapers.
Taking her seat at one of the long trestle tables in the upstairs gallery, she studiously averted her eyes from the men reading the leading Melbourne newspapers, The Age, The Argus and The Herald, plus respected rural newspapers such as The Ballarat Star, The Bendigo Advertiser and The Bacchus Marsh Express. From the shape of the newspaper columns, Clytie realised some were comparing the latest gold yields from the prosperous Ballarat, Castlemaine and Bendigo mines with the poor returns said to come out of the Golden Hope – a figure she had heard old Boss Jantzen was unwilling to name.
Golden Hope Page 35
