A Woman of Courage

by J. H. Fletcher

  She wanted to know everything, see everything, and the questions never stopped. ‘Why do you need it at all?’

  ‘To get rid of parasites: liver flukes, things like that.’

  She came across a tangle of toothed traps in a corner of the shed. ‘What are these?’

  ‘Old rabbit traps.’

  ‘You got rabbits here?’

  ‘They’re everywhere.’

  ‘I thought that disease with the long name was killing them off.’

  ‘Myxomatosis? It hasn’t reached here yet.’

  They stood on the high ground with the river glinting silver below them and watched Sid Brackett using a chainsaw to clear willows along the river banks.

  ‘Why’s he doing that?’

  ‘Otherwise they’ll choke the channel.’ Tim grinned at her, shoving his Akubra to the back of his head. ‘You ever stop?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Asking questions.’

  ‘I want to know. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong with it. Planning on being a farmer, are you?’

  ‘Not planning on anything. If I’m gunna live here it makes sense to know.’

  ‘Ma won’t like it.’

  Ma can take a jump. But kept the thought to herself; she didn’t know Tim well enough to risk saying it yet.

  He stood beside her and looked out at the open country below them, the black shapes of the crossbred Aberdeen Angus cattle moving slowly across the flatland paddocks as they grazed, the sheep scattered on the hillside. There were rabbits too, an army of them.

  ‘I love this land,’ Tim said. ‘The bunnies are a problem but I doubt I’ll ever leave.’

  With an elder brother at agricultural college that might prove tricky.

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘Brett? OK, I guess.’ But didn’t sound as though he meant it. ‘You’ll meet him when he comes home for Christmas.’

  Hilary heard what he hadn’t said. ‘And?’

  ‘You’ll find out.’

  Hmm.

  They heard the furious bugling of a bull, frustrated and solitary, penned in its paddock.

  ‘What’s his problem?’

  ‘He wants to get at the cows and can’t.’

  He grinned again and she knew he was eyeing her, breasts firm beneath the plaid shirt, backside smooth and tight in her jeans. Hilary was untroubled. She knew he fancied her but he wasn’t the sort to try anything unless he sensed she was willing. She liked him a lot but was not ready for anything more; not now, maybe never, so she never teased him, never flaunted herself, but didn’t hide from him either. She was as she was, four weeks short of her sixteenth birthday and on the verge of womanhood, and if she ever felt differently about him she would certainly tell him. In the meantime she didn’t think too much about it but was comfortable with the feeling. It was strange, all the same, to know she was desired by a man.

  Life was unfolding like a flower and she was eager for whatever it might bring, and for the big world out there waiting. But Pattinsons’ would do for the time being; not that she had any choice. Captain Barnstable’s last words before she left the home had been to warn her to work hard and cause no trouble.

  ‘And don’t even think of running away,’ he’d said. ‘Do that and they’ll be down on you like a ton of bricks, so watch it.’

  Who they were Hilary did not know, nor need to know. In one form or another, they and their tons of bricks had been down on her all her life, and she had no plans to let them get at her again. So she worked in the house when she must, on the farm when she could, and today, after Jasmine Pattinson had taken her sour face off to a CWA meeting, Hilary had grabbed the chance to accompany Tim to the stock sale.

  A strange world it was, a frenzy of movement with men shouting, cattle bellowing, the singsong patter of the auctioneers nagging the dusty air. There was life here yet Hilary already knew this would never be her world.

  2

  Brett came home at the beginning of December. Hilary looked at him as he clumped up the steps to the farmhouse veranda, a fleshy youth with a round head and belligerent mouth, rosy with sweat on this hot day, and sensed that with his arrival her life on the farm was about to change.

  Not that she had the chance to exchange a word with him at first, Jasmine Pattinson shooing her away like a troublesome border collie before flinging her arms around her firstborn son. For whom, it quickly became apparent, nothing could be too good. And who, Hilary saw, was watching her over his mother’s possessive shoulder.

  Later that day he came looking for her, as she had guessed he would.

  ‘Who are you?’

  She told him.

  ‘Where from?’

  She told him.

  ‘Nice to have someone to pretty the place up for a change. God knows it could do with it.’

  Hilary saw that Brett was the sort to lay claim to the land and everything on it, herself included. No worries, she thought. At twenty-one Brett was five years older than she was but she foresaw no problem handling him, if the need arose. If she wanted to handle him; because it was flattering, wasn’t it, to have a grown man looking at her the way Brett did?

  He’d been back a week when there was an evening barbecue to which just about the whole district came, proceeds to several charities.

  ‘We have it every year,’ Tim said.

  Oil drums had been cut in half lengthways and mounted on metal legs. Now they were filled with glowing charcoal and the night air was rich with the smell of grilling lamb and pork and beef. Andrew Flanagan, who had political ambitions, had donated a piglet which was being spit roasted, the fat sizzling as it dripped into the coals. There were potatoes in their jackets and sweet corn and pumpkin. There were desserts for those who wanted them and most people did. There was the falling-down wreck of an old shed where a bar had been set up. Beer in kegs; brandy; whisky. And rum, plenty of rum. Plenty of customers too. Because it was all for a good cause, wasn’t it? Although by the time the evening was half over not everyone could have told you the names of the charities or their own names either.

  Laughter and cursing and the odd scuffle and a hint of couples up to their own business in the shadows of the gum trees, and Brett Pattinson, eyes glowing with booze, came looking for Hilary and found her, his intentions plain.

  HUNTER GATHERER

  1

  Brett was smiling. His lips were moist and his mouth full of teeth, large and white. ‘How you doing?’

  ‘Great.’ But she watched him cautiously. She had no experience with drunks or alcohol but instinct told her he’d been drinking. Told her too that when some men were liquored up they could be dangerous. She had told herself Tim’s brother would be easy to handle but now, seeing the glaze in eyes small and set too close together above the big nose, she was less certain.

  ‘You eaten?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Come and have a drink.’

  They strolled over to the ramshackle hut. Hilary saw how men moved away as he walked past but he ignored them.

  ‘What’ll it be?’

  She hadn’t a clue about such things, had never tasted any of them. She pulled words out of the air. ‘Beer,’ she said. ‘Or rum. Whatever.’

  ‘Rum,’ Brett said to the bloke behind the bar. ‘Two shots.’

  ‘Water with it?’

  She saw a look pass between the two men.

  ‘No water,’ Brett said. He handed her a glass. ‘There you go.’

  Its smell reminded her of sugar when it had been left on the stove too long but there was a sharpness to it too that made her eyes smart.

  ‘Is it strong?’

  ‘Drink it and you’ll find out.’

  She sniffed it doubtfully and its fumes were as hot as fire. ‘Maybe I should have said beer,’ she said.

  ‘Toss it back,’ Brett said. ‘That’s the way to drink it. Then I’ll buy you a beer if you want one.’

  She knew he was watching the swell of her breasts b
eneath her dress as she lifted the glass to her lips. She took the teeniest of sips and was at once overcome with a coughing fit, her eyes filling with tears. Brett laughed and slapped her on the back.

  ‘Tip it in. I told you. That’s the only way. Otherwise you’re bound to cough when you’re not used to it.’

  But Hilary sniffed it again even more cautiously than before and shook her head. ‘No more for me.’

  ‘But you’ve hardly touched it,’ Brett protested.

  ‘You finish it for me. I’ve had enough.’ Apart from its harshness the rawness of the liquor had made her giddy. How can anyone drink the stuff, she thought, if it does that to you?

  Brett was no longer smiling. ‘You said you wanted rum,’ he said. ‘I bought it for you. So you’ll drink it if you don’t want me to ram it down your bloody throat.’

  Her coughing fit was over, her tears gone, and she would not let him intimidate her. She lifted her chin. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Thank you all the same.’

  ‘It’s an insult to refuse a drink when it’s been bought for you.’

  ‘No insult intended. But I’d be crazy to drink something I don’t want.’

  ‘Let me get you a beer, then.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  Brett scowled. ‘Mum said you were awkward. I’m beginning to see how right she was.’

  ‘Your mother isn’t often wrong,’ Hilary said.

  ‘Bloody right,’ Brett said. He tipped her rum into his own glass and swallowed the lot, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Come for a stroll.’

  Alarm bells. ‘I’ll give it a miss, thanks.’

  His alcoholic breath was a sickness in her face. ‘Don’t be a spoilsport.’ He took hold of her arm with hard fingers, squeezing against the muscle. ‘Are you a spoilsport, Hilary Brand?’

  She gave a small laugh. ‘That depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On the sport you got in mind.’

  She saw anger stirring behind the moist eyes, now reddened by drink. ‘You coming or not?’

  ‘Not,’ Hilary said.

  Brett tightened his grip on her arm. ‘And I say you are.’

  Her chin came up. His grip was tight enough to hurt but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of saying so. ‘You’ll have to drag me,’ she said.

  She stared into his face, flushed with booze and anger. He had expected her to be easy but she saw he wasn’t game to make a fuss in the midst of all these people.

  He flung her arm away from him. ‘I’ll catch you later.’ He turned away then looked back at her. ‘You’d better believe it, my girl. One of these nights I’ll be there. That’s what you need, I reckon. The taste of a real man.’ He walked away, shouldering his way roughly past other people, every inch of him shouting outrage.

  Hilary watched him go. The encounter had left her shaken. Onlookers would have said nothing had happened yet it was not so. One of these nights I’ll be there.

  2

  Two days after the party Hilary was helping Sid Brackett clear a blocked drainage pipe in the shed outside the kitchen when Mrs Pattinson poked her head around the door.

  ‘A word with you, missy.’

  Hilary exchanged a look with Sid and walked into the kitchen. She went to the sink and rinsed the muck off her hands. There was no towel so she wiped her palms on the back of her jeans.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Pattinson?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Pattinson…’ Jasmine Pattinson was ropeable; Hilary had no idea why but would no doubt soon find out. ‘I got my eye on you, my girl.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Pattinson.’

  The other evening, I saw the way you were buttering Brett up –’

  ‘I never –’

  ‘Don’t you lie to me. With my own eyes I saw you. Drinking at the bar with him… Drinking rum at your age? What you think you’re playing at, eh?’

  ‘He asked me! It wasn’t my idea.’

  But Mrs Pattinson was not listening. ‘You keep your dirty ways to yourself, my girl. My son ain’t for the likes of you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t take him for free!’

  The wrong thing to say; Jasmine Pattinson’s face flooded with outraged blood. ‘Don’t you dare talk to me like that. Now: get back to your work, you idle creature!’

  That evening Hilary was sitting with Tim on the crest of the ridge that overlooked the river, cool and shining in the darkening air and cleared now of willows, with the paddocks rising through the gum trees on the far slope. At this time of day, as usual, the hillside was alive with grazing rabbits.

  ‘Your mum’s really got it in for me,’ Hilary said.

  ‘She’s got it in for everyone. It’s just her way.’

  Hilary was still angry. ‘A real mean way, you ask me. I never come on to Brett like she’s saying. Never in a million years.’

  ‘Plenty of people saw you there with him.’

  She saw that Tim was uncomfortable with the subject and that alarmed her. Tim was her only friend and she didn’t want to lose him. ‘It was Brett’s idea, not mine. I was supposed to say no when he offered me a drink?’

  ‘You know what Mum’s like.’

  ‘Too bloody right I know.’ She was learning to swear, just a bit, and had found it helped ease her feelings.

  ‘She’ll wash your mouth with soap, she hears you talking like that.’

  ‘She can try. Why doesn’t your dad stand up to her?’

  ‘He’s not a fighter. Mostly he keeps out of the way.’

  ‘When is Brett going back to college, anyway?’

  ‘End of January, I suppose. Why?’

  ‘Just asking. Can’t be soon enough for me.’ Her eyes glinted sideways at him. ‘Can’t be bloody soon enough for me.’

  The problem was her so-called bedroom. It wasn’t in the main house and wasn’t a real bedroom either: what had been a tack store in one of the sheds had been made over, with a bed and a broken dressing table with a brick under the busted leg. She hadn’t thought much of it when she first saw it but at least it was away from Mrs Pattinson’s nagging voice. She had got used to it but now had another reason for not liking it much because the door wouldn’t lock. It was strong enough but with Brett on the prowl she didn’t like the thought that he could force his way in whenever he wanted. He’d not come near her since the party but any day he might try to change that. She found a heavy baulk of timber and used it to jam the door at night.

  Just as well. Two days later she woke to hear the door handle turning. She listened, mouth dry, heart pounding. She sat up, bedding clutched to her chest, eyes wide in the darkness. The door rattled but did not give.

  ‘Go away!’ Hilary said.

  Silence. She waited, palms wet, but nothing happened and eventually she lay down again. It made for uneasy sleeping, though.

  Two days later it happened again.

  ‘I told you,’ Hilary said. ‘Go away. Leave me alone.’

  Again nothing happened but Hilary’s nerves were as ragged as a swagman’s shirt by the time Brett headed back to college.

  Jasmine Pattinson liked to take Hilary with her when she went into town, to give her a hand carrying the shopping to the car. Hilary didn’t mind. The bags were usually heavy but she was strong and the trips gave her the opportunity to slip away by herself for half an hour or so while Jasmine was looking at dresses or having a cup of tea with a friend.

  One day she came back from town and went looking for Tim. ‘I thought of a way to make us some money,’ she said.

  ‘Rob the bank?’

  ‘Rabbits. We got the traps and the rabbits and now I’ve found someone who’ll buy them off us.’

  ‘What they offering? Penny a pair?’

  ‘Wilkins the butcher said he’ll give us a shilling a brace, provided there’s no bruising. And that dealer in Warburton Street said he’ll pay a shilling each for good skins.’

  ‘You got it all worked out, haven’t you?’

  ‘No point doing it if we can’t make money out of it.’
<
br />   ‘So how many you reckon we’d catch?’

  ‘A dozen a day, easy. That adds up, Tim.’

  ‘I’ll work it out,’ Tim said.

  ‘I done it already. A dozen bunnies in good nick will bring us six bob for the meat and twelve for the skins. Eighteen shillings a day, Tim! Maybe a quid some days. That’s real money, boy!’

  ‘I never would have thought of it,’ Tim said.

  ‘Dragged up the way I was, you’d have thought of it all right.’

  Although she thought probably not. Tim was a good boy but not much for thinking things out. No worries, she thought. I’ll do the thinking for both of us.

  ‘Better not tell Mum,’ he said. ‘She knows we’re making that sort of dough she’ll want it for herself.’

  ‘How many rabbit traps we got?’ Hilary asked.

  ‘Maybe twenty.’

  ‘Do they work?’

  ‘Most of them.’

  ‘You know how to use them?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You can show me.’

  They heard Jasmine shrieking like a galah from the house. ‘Hilareee!’

  ‘I’d best be going,’ she said. ‘Catch you later, OK?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘After tea. Say seven o’clock?’

  ‘OK.’

  That evening Tim showed her what she had to do.

  ‘The trick is knowing where to put the trap,’ Tim said. ‘And making sure they don’t suspect it.’

  But first you had to set the trap and with the strong spring that was hard yakka. Hilary tried to do it with her hands, forcing down the top of the trap and latching the plate that held the jaws open, but she wasn’t strong enough to manage it. ‘How do I do it?’

  ‘Stand on the spring leaf until the jaws are wide enough to latch the plate. But make sure you don’t let it snap back.’

  ‘And if it does?’

  ‘Bye bye ankle,’ Tim said.

  She was a bit nervous the first time but soon got the hang of it. ‘Now what?’

  ‘Now we find a place to put it.’

  He taught her how to recognise rabbit runs and how to conceal the traps with a square of paper over them that was covered in dirt and leaves to hide them. There was a length of chain with a spike on the end that was driven into the ground so that a snared rabbit couldn’t drag the trap down its burrow.