Sisters of Freedom

by Mary-Anne O'Connor

  ‘Are you all right?’ Patrick said.

  ‘I … I suppose. No-one has ever laid a … a finger on me before.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he soothed. ‘The whole thing’s over and you’re safe and sound.’ He gave her shoulder a reassuring hug. It was comforting but the awareness of earlier returned and she was glad when he dropped his arm. He touched his cheek gingerly.

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘A bit, but not too badly,’ Patrick said, moving his finger to his eye socket, which looked swollen and likely to blacken on the morrow, even in this faint light.

  ‘I’m … I’m sorry … if we hadn’t stayed to dance—’

  ‘Don’t be. It isn’t your fault.’ He cut her off. ‘You can’t help it if thugs like that prey on innocent women. I’m just glad we got away in one piece.’

  ‘Yes, but if we’d gone straight to sleep like you suggested …’

  ‘Then I would never have gained the very precious memory of you whacking a man over a head with a bottle,’ he finished for her and she had to smile.

  ‘I … I can’t believe I did that.’

  ‘I can,’ he said, chuckling. ‘Seriously though, don’t feel bad about this. You should be proud you defended yourself down there.’

  ‘But it was my fault.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault. You can’t help being a woman, Frankie.’

  Frankie wrapped her arms around herself, those words sinking in as she stared out at the silvered night. ‘No, that I can’t.’

  Patrick gave her a thoughtful glance. ‘We’d best get some rest now, I’d say.’

  ‘Yes, yes, we should,’ she said but she felt very alone once she was back in her room and he’d made sure her verandah door was well locked before saying goodnight. Very alone and very vulnerable, which was a strange feeling and an unnerving one.

  She dressed for bed, taking comfort in routine, but Patrick’s words stayed with her like a mantra, long after she’d changed and lain down, unable to sleep as she gazed out at the moon. He was right, she couldn’t help being a woman. And for the second time it was his words that made her feel the raw truth of that fact, more keenly than ever before in her life.

  Twenty-Two

  It was already heating up but Ivy was enjoying being above deck so much she didn’t complain. The fresh air was invigorating and the day so lovely that a little warm sunshine was no great price to pay. Aggie was resting downstairs in the bunk, her shift a restless one, spent on the bench. Not that she grumbled, of course, but Riley had mentioned it. Riley was on watch now and likely exhausted himself, having slept on the hard wooden floor of the deck, but she was learning that he was a man who never seemed to complain. He never seemed to stop doing things for others either, or so she’d observed and heard from Fiona. That some of that good work seemed suspiciously illegal bothered her, though, and now that it was just the two of them, sitting and having tea in the morning sun as they waited for Frankie and Patrick, she decided to delve a bit, if he’d let her.

  ‘You must have a lot of work to catch up on,’ she began.

  Riley looked up from his book and laid it aside. ‘It’s fine. I can catch up easily enough.’

  Ivy tilted her head, wondering how to go about this, and Riley raised his eyebrows.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s just … well, something’s been making me rather curious, that’s all.’

  ‘How so?’ he said, but there was a wariness there.

  ‘Well, you seem such a good and generous man, I mean, obviously you are, but I can’t help but get the feeling some of these deliveries you make aren’t quite … above board.’

  Riley sipped his tea before answering. ‘No, they’re not,’ he admitted.

  Ivy was taken aback at his honesty. ‘But that can get you into serious trouble, surely.’

  He sighed, putting his tea down too and taking out his tobacco pouch. ‘It’s hard for a girl like you to understand, I guess.’

  ‘Try me,’ she said and he raised his eyes to her challenge.

  ‘People need medicine, things for the home … booze,’ he admitted, ‘but food especially. They’d likely starve if blokes like me didn’t bring supplies up here. There are very few shops along the river, and they charge like wounded bulls anyway – people can’t afford a lot of what they need. You can see how hard it is to farm this sandy soil, too, let alone tame the bushland.’ He nodded over at Fiona’s meagre garden. ‘So if they can’t live off the land either, what else is there to do?’

  Ivy considered that. ‘Why don’t you open your own store? Charge what they can afford to pay.’

  Riley rolled his cigarette. ‘It’s not as simple as that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because of the cost of getting the supplies in the first place and transporting them up here, the time involved, let alone how long it would take to build a store in the right location …’ He drifted off.

  ‘You’ve thought about it, though, haven’t you?’ she guessed.

  Riley lit his cigarette, watching her. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I have.’

  ‘Surely you’d have enough contacts to get supplies at a decent price and there’s so much timber and land, I can’t see why you couldn’t build a decent place.’

  ‘True,’ Riley said.

  ‘So?’ she said. ‘What’s stopping you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged.

  Ivy didn’t believe that. ‘Yes you do.’

  He studied her closely, his gaze growing intense. ‘I’ve never had someone I wanted to build a life like that with.’

  There was something in the way he said it, wistful and bare, that made her feel he was speaking directly to her heart. It took her breath and for a single insane moment she wanted to tell him she’d be that person. She’d share in that life of helping others, a life that mattered. Suddenly she was aware of him as a man not six feet away, blue eyes boring into hers. A man who thought she looked like a sea princess, seizing this last stolen opportunity to convey the rest of what he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say.

  The moment was interrupted by the sound of a flock of wood ducks taking off nearby and Ivy pulled herself back to reality. She already had her future planned out, and a man to share it with, something she had very nearly lost these past few days. The last thing she should even have been thinking about was choosing anything or anyone else.

  ‘What about you?’ Riley asked, the spell broken as he flicked his cigarette away, stood and started coiling some nearby ropes. ‘What’s your dream then?’

  Ivy shrugged. ‘Oh, you know, marriage, children.’

  ‘To Patrick?’ he asked and the question hung heavily in the air.

  Ivy hesitated, not really wanting to tell him, as silly as that was. ‘Yes, if he asks me.’

  Riley nodded, not meeting her eyes as he worked. ‘I’m sure he will.’

  Ivy wanted to ask why. Because Patrick had said as much? Because she was someone a man would be lucky to marry? Because Riley himself would marry her if he could? But such questions were impossible ones to ask and she stayed silent, confused and more than a little ashamed of where her thoughts were taking her this morning.

  ‘What about other interests? Your sisters seem very active, out there in the world.’

  He’d struck a nerve and she wondered if he knew it as she replied. ‘I’m not really sure, although I do like to draw and paint.’

  ‘An artist?’ he said, eyebrows raised.

  ‘Yes, although it doesn’t seem very important now that I … well, after everything that’s happened.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Frankie and Aggie do so much to try to better the lives of others and here I’ve been, all this time …’ She shrugged, feeling ashamed about that now too.

  ‘All this time? You can’t be more than twenty, surely.’

  ‘Eighteen the day this happened,’ she said, pointing at the bandage on her head. ‘It was my birthday.’

  ‘Born on the first day of
the year, eh? Well, I’d say that makes you an expert on new beginnings,’ he said, tossing a rope aside and grabbing another. ‘I reckon you just might find that you see things a bit differently now and you never know what that may bring about. Anything’s possible.’

  Ivy considered that as she stared out at the river, flowing in a gentle current beneath the clear blue sky. ‘I suppose I’ve always thought my sisters were the clever ones and I’m just, I don’t know, a decoration or something.’

  ‘You seem clever to me.’

  Ivy grimaced. ‘Dad said to me that it’s a form of intelligence to be able to really see the beauty in nature and appreciate it, you know, with my drawing and all, but that doesn’t seem much now. Aside from that, my existence so far has been pretty meaningless, really, but I thought all that I wanted was a beautiful life, surrounded by beautiful things.’

  ‘And now?’ he asked and she glanced back over at Fiona’s dilapidated home.

  ‘I think I just want less ugliness in the world,’ she told him, surprised at the depth of that new feeling. ‘I’ve always tried to avoid it, to pretend it isn’t there, but …’

  Riley was still watching her and she met his gaze. ‘I’m sorry you’ve had to see the things you’ve seen, that our lives are so … ugly to you.’

  ‘No, no, it’s not that. You and Fiona, you’re part of the beauty in the world, the goodness. It’s the other side of things,’ she added as George emerged from the shack and slammed the door shut. They both watched as he stormed over to his boat and Ivy raised worried eyes back to Riley.

  ‘She’s promised me again he doesn’t do it,’ Riley told her quietly.

  ‘But others do,’ she said sadly. That knowledge was wedged in her mind since those drunken men had voiced their terrible sins, an ugliness she would never be able to erase now. ‘I wish I could do something to help them all. To live a life that matters, as Frankie says, like she and Aggie do.’

  ‘Anything’s possible, Ivy,’ he said again. ‘I believe you could do anything if you really wanted to. You’ve a big heart and, yes, a clever mind, more than I think you realise. Look how easily you’ve managed to worm things out of me, things I’ve never told anyone else, you know.’

  ‘Really?’ she said, surprised.

  ‘Really.’ He had that look on his face again, the wistful, bare one that did things to her heart that it really shouldn’t do. ‘I believe in you.’

  It brought tears to her eyes, hearing him say that.

  ‘But that isn’t the point, Ivy,’ he added. ‘You need to believe in yourself.’

  She nodded, knowing he was right, and looking at his earnest expression, she couldn’t help but tell him the same.

  ‘So do you, Riley,’ she said. ‘For what it’s worth, I believe in you too.’

  Twenty-Three

  ‘One, two, three, four …’

  ‘No peeking,’ Aggie called out, hiding behind the chicken coop with Tricia, who was giggling beside her.

  ‘Seventeen …’

  ‘Where’d the other numbers go?’ she whispered to Tricia, who giggled again.

  ‘She always cheats.’

  ‘A hundred. Coming, ready or not!’

  She came running on her little legs and looked around in confusion before spying them and dashing over.

  ‘You have to tag us,’ Tricia yelled, taking off with Aggie, and Annie chased them up and down the beach before Aggie ran behind Fiona, who was taking what seemed a rare break, reading the paper in the morning sun.

  ‘Help!’ Aggie yelped before being grabbed around the legs by Annie and surrendering. ‘Oh, all right. You win.’

  ‘My turn! My turn!’ Tricia declared.

  ‘I think you two should have a turn without me,’ she said, collapsing on the sand, and Annie ran off as Tricia buried her face against the shack wall and began to count.

  ‘One, two, three …’

  ‘Where do they get the energy?’ Aggie said and Fiona smiled.

  ‘It’s endless,’ she said, putting the paper aside and picking up her mending instead. ‘You’ve quite a bit yourself for someone who’s likely been up half the night.’

  ‘Oh, I slept in the chair well enough,’ Aggie said, although she was rather weary.

  ‘And there’s nothing like a good night’s chair sleep to give a person a spring in their step.’

  Aggie smiled, lying back and leaning on her elbow to watch the girls play as Fiona sewed a cotton dress. ‘Well, at least I wasn’t up worrying for the first time this year.’

  ‘Yes,’ Fiona said, staring out at Ivy as she sat on deck, talking to Riley. ‘It’s been quite a start indeed.’

  Aggie looked over at her. ‘I don’t really know how to thank you for what you’ve done, taking care of her so. I feel like you were being the big sister for me,’ she added. ‘I can’t tell you what that means.’

  ‘I know a fair bit about being a big sister,’ Fiona told her, focusing on her sewing again. ‘We never stop worrying about them is the problem. It’s like having a grown-up child sometimes. Mind you, Riley looks after me too. Looks after all of us and that’s a fact.’

  ‘Seems to me you do a lot of looking after around here. It must be hard, isolated as you are, and with another on the way.’

  Fiona paused in her mending to pat her stomach. ‘Yes, it is I suppose, but that’s a mother’s lot in life.’ She glanced over at her. ‘Have you children of your own, then?’

  Aggie felt that old empty ache return. ‘No. No, we don’t think we can, unfortunately,’ she said, finding it strange and endlessly sad to admit it.

  Fiona studied her, her expression one of pity. ‘That’s a terrible shame,’ she said, nodding over at the twins. ‘You would make a wonderful mother.’

  Aggie looked at them too, wondering how it ever came to be that something as natural as having a child should be denied her. Even Fiona, for all her hardships, had this blessing at least, but Aggie could hardly begrudge her that. It seemed it was all she had.

  The sound of an approaching boat echoed along the river, ending such thoughts, and Aggie stood to see Barney’s vessel round the corner. He’d been employed by the Merriweathers as an escort for the day and was ferrying Frankie and Patrick back from the inn. Aggie turned to Fiona.

  ‘Coming over to hear about their adventures?’

  ‘No, I think I’ll rest here a while longer,’ Fiona said, stretching out her back and wincing. ‘Anyway, what makes you think there’s been adventures?’

  ‘It’s Frankie,’ Aggie said with a sigh. ‘There always is.’

  ‘Dear God, what happened to you?’ Ivy exclaimed as the others arrived.

  ‘Bloody Donovan, Deano and Petey up to no good again,’ Barney said, helping his passengers swap boats. ‘Got locked up for their trouble though.’

  ‘They attacked you?’ Ivy said, horrified as she studied Patrick’s injuries, which included a black eye and swollen lip.

  ‘Tried to but we managed to beat them off,’ he said, coming over to sit by her side where she lay propped up on the deck. He smiled at her reassuringly but it made him grimace. ‘Ouch,’ he said, touching his sore lip.

  ‘What do you mean “we” …?’ Ivy said. ‘Don’t tell me Frankie was involved?’

  ‘I’m fine, don’t worry,’ Frankie said but Ivy had begun to cry.

  ‘Oh no, oh, what happened?’

  ‘Hush, I’m fine, Ivy,’ Frankie soothed, sitting on her other side and giving her a hug. ‘See? Not a scratch.’

  ‘But what did they do?’ she said, sniffing back tears.

  ‘One of them grabbed me, then another, but Patrick punched the other one square in the jaw …’

  ‘Beard,’ Patrick corrected, trying to make light of things.

  ‘Petey,’ Riley said quietly, his anger evident.

  ‘Then the other one took a swing but he fell headfirst down the stairs.’

  ‘Locals are calling the spot Deano’s Leap after him this morning,’ Patrick said, still attemptin
g levity but Ivy couldn’t stop crying.

  ‘But Frankie must have been so frightened …’

  ‘Well, yes, but by then she’d smashed a bottle over the other man’s head and he’d fallen to the ground so we got away.’

  ‘You … you smashed a bottle over a man’s head?’ Aggie said, eyes wide.

  ‘Donovan,’ Barney confirmed with a grin now. ‘How’s that for a bit of justice, eh?’

  ‘That’s the same men, isn’t it?’ Ivy said, swiping at tears. ‘The ones that were near the cave that day?’

  ‘Yes,’ Riley said. ‘That’s them.’

  ‘Oh Frankie, I’m so sorry.’ Ivy wept. ‘And Patrick, your poor face.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Patrick told her. ‘They were too drunk to be a serious threat. Besides, Frankie wields a bottle like she wields a cricket bat. They never stood a chance.’

  Frankie smiled at her, adding, ‘I think I may have to play for the university, maybe dress as a man. Patrick could smuggle me in.’

  But Ivy gripped at both their hands and it took some time to calm her down, as Barney and Riley muttered together over on his boat. It worried Ivy, that conversation, and she hoped they wouldn’t retaliate against such dangerous men, but as much as she cared about Riley and his family, she also realised that this was his world, and a man’s domain. It was no real place for a woman and certainly no place for her. Whatever startling thoughts had run through her mind earlier that day, she could never share in the life of Riley. It seemed a madness it had even occurred to her.

  Barney and Riley agreed they could leave after lunch if Ivy was up to it and she readily said she was, desperate now to get home to her parents and her safe life on Rosemead Road, although she’d meant what she’d said to Riley earlier. She’d no longer be sitting idly by and inasmuch as she couldn’t even consider a life up here, she’d be doing what she could to address the ugliness that scarred such worlds.