Mud and Gold

by Shayne Parkinson

  ‘No.’ Lizzie’s hand reached out in the darkness and clutched at the sleeve of Frank’s nightshirt. ‘It’s the baby. I think it’s started coming.’

  ‘What? But—but it can’t be. It’s not time yet. You said not for another couple of weeks.’

  ‘I know, but I think it is. You’ll have to go and get the nurse.’

  ‘Now? It’s the middle of the night, Lizzie.’

  ‘I can’t help that!’ Lizzie spoke sharply, but Frank could hear the nervousness in her voice. ‘Hurry up!’ She rolled over and pushed at him.

  ‘Hey, hey, calm down, Lizzie—don’t shove me out of bed,’ Frank said, wishing he felt calmer himself. He slipped an arm behind Lizzie’s shoulders and held it firmly in place when she tried to push it away. ‘Are you sure it’s the baby?’

  ‘Yes! Well, not sure. What else could it be, though? I felt a pain right around my back—oh, there’s another one! Ow!’ Lizzie gave a yell, followed by a long, low moan. ‘That was worse. It’s working its way around to the front now.’

  ‘Well… how long will it take?’

  ‘How should I know? I’ve never had a baby before.’

  ‘You must have some idea. Hasn’t your ma told you anything about it?’

  ‘Not that sort of thing. She just told me a bit about how it would feel, not all the ins and outs. I don’t know—wait a minute, I’m sure Amy said it took hours.’

  ‘Hours? How many? Two? Three?’

  ‘I don’t know! Stop asking stupid questions, just go and get the nurse.’

  ‘Lizzie, it’s going to take me well over an hour to get a nurse here. Maybe two hours—it’s dark out there, I won’t be able to go fast, you know. I can’t leave you alone all that time. I think I’d better go and get your ma first, then I’ll try and get into town.’

  ‘Yes! Go and get Ma—please go and get her, Frank.’

  ‘Do you think you can hang on that long?’

  ‘I… I think so. You won’t take long, will you? Please don’t take long.’

  ‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’ Frank rolled back the covers, shivering when he felt the chilly night air. He fumbled for the matches lying on the dressing table and lit the lamp. The clock beside the lamp showed three o’clock. Lizzie’s face in the lamplight was white and full of fear. Frank crossed to the bed and put his arm around her. ‘Will you be all right on your own, Lizzie?’

  ‘If it’s not for long. Please hurry, Frank.’ Lizzie bit her lip, and Frank could see the beginnings of tears in her eyes. He forced himself to turn away from the sight; he knew he would not be able to leave her if he saw her get any more upset.

  Frank dressed quickly, stopping for a few seconds when a small earthquake made the room tremble. He lit a candle from the lamp and carried it out to the kitchen. Catching sight of his face in the hall mirror, he saw that it was almost as white as Lizzie’s. He went out the back door to the porch, where his hat and coat were hanging above his boots. The noise of the rain on the roof was louder out here, and Frank gave a groan. ‘Hasn’t rained for weeks—now it’s got to start again the night Lizzie’s having the baby,’ he muttered under his breath as he shrugged on his coat.

  There was a kerosene lantern hanging in the porch. Frank lit it and placed it on the porch floor while he pulled on his boots and reached for his hat. The night was black; there must be a heavy bank of cloud feeding the rain. Just catching a horse was going to be hard, let alone making his way up the road in the pitch darkness. The horses would be in a state with all those earthquakes, too; he could hear them snorting and whinnying nervously. He wouldn’t be able to go faster than a walk; even fetching Edie was going to take close to an hour at that pace.

  Frank stood at the top of the porch steps and peered uneasily into the gloom. There was something strange about that rain. The air seemed to have a close, stuffy feel about it instead of the freshness rain usually brought; there was even a hint of sulphur. He stretched his hand out into the night air, expecting to feel cool wetness.

  How could water feel rough against his skin? His fingers felt gritty when he rubbed them together. Frank drew back his hand and saw it was covered with a coarse dust. A sick realisation came to him: it wasn’t rain at all. It was ash.

  Fear so intense that it left a bitter, metallic taste on his tongue sent a shudder through Frank, so strong that for a moment he thought it was another quake. What was going on out there? Why was the earth being convulsed while ash fell from the sky?

  ‘And, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair.… And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth.’ Words half-remembered from a lesson in church crept unbidden into Frank’s mind. Was this the end of the world?

  ‘Frank?’ Lizzie’s voice came in a wail down the passage. ‘Where are you? It hurts, Frank.’

  The sound brought Frank back from the edge of panic to a sense of his responsibilities. He had to look after Lizzie. He couldn’t go out into whatever was happening in the world; if ash was falling, maybe fire would soon shower from the sky. If that happened he had no way of being sure the house would protect them, but he knew it would mean certain death to anyone caught outside. That included his stock, but he could not risk himself to try and get the animals into shelter, even if he had had the barns to hold them. If he was injured there would be no one to look after Lizzie.

  He pulled his boots off and left them lying in the porch with his hat and coat dropped heedlessly on top of them, stopping only to put out the lantern. Another quake struck when he was barely inside the kitchen door, and he stumbled against one wall as he hurried up the passage to the bedroom.

  Frank rushed into the room and crouched beside the bed. He reached out and stroked Lizzie’s face, not speaking until he was sure he could make his voice sound calm. She must not know how frightened he was. ‘I can’t get out, Lizzie. Not till daylight, anyway.’

  ‘Why not? You’ve got to go out—you’ve got to get the nurse for me.’

  ‘I can’t. There’s something really funny going on. That’s not rain you can hear on the roof—it’s ash.’

  ‘Ash? How can it be ash?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s like all the hills are on fire, except it’s pitch black out there. Don’t worry, Lizzie,’ he said quickly, seeing a new fear grow in her face. ‘It won’t hurt us here. We’ll be safe inside the house.’ He silently prayed he was telling the truth. ‘But I can’t go out in that—I’d never get the horse to move, it’d just go mad and throw me. And if that ash turns hot… well, it’d burn me up where I stood.’

  ‘I want Ma. I want Ma!’ Tears spilled out of Lizzie’s eyes. Frank sat on the bed and held her close until her sobs quietened. ‘You mustn’t go out. I can see that. But I’m scared, Frank.’

  Frank had never seen Lizzie frightened of anything. Now she needed him to be strong, and the knowledge made him brave. ‘Don’t be scared. I’ll look after you.’

  ‘What about the baby?’

  ‘Maybe nothing’ll happen for hours and hours. The minute it’s light I’ll go out—the horses won’t be so frightened in daylight, and I’ll be able to see if it’s safe or not.’ He did not voice his fear that there might not be any daylight under that thick pall of ash, or any morning at all if it really was the end of the world. Or perhaps they would both be dead, burned alive by whatever unnatural flame was producing that ash. But there was no sense letting himself think like that. Whatever was going on outside was beyond his control; within this room he could still do some good.

  ‘What say it does? What if the baby comes before you can get out?’

  ‘Then we’ll just have to manage by ourselves.’

  ‘How can we? We don’t know anything about it. Frank, I don’t really know what happens. Ma just said the nurse would tell me what to do, and it was nothing to be frightened of. She said the nurse would give me something to stop it hurting before it got too bad. I don’t know how they get babies out.’

  Unlike Lizzie, Frank had often
had occasion to put his hand up the back end of a cow, helping reluctant calves into the world. ‘I think I do. I can figure it out if I have to.’

  ‘How do you know? You’re not even a woman.’

  ‘It can’t be that different from cows—’

  ‘I’m not a cow!’ Lizzie flung at him.

  ‘Of course you’re not. You’re my wife. You’re the most important thing in the world to me, and I’m not going to let anything happen to you.’

  ‘Am I really the most important thing in the world to you?’ Lizzie had forgotten her fear for the moment. She rested her head on Frank’s shoulder.

  ‘Yes, you are.’ He held her close in silence, his mind racing. He had seen cows die in calving. And from time to time he had heard of women dying, sometimes leaving tiny babies behind. He had a vague idea from something his mother had once said that Amy’s mother had died that way. If anything happened to Lizzie… he could not bear to think of it. Losing Lizzie seemed a far worse disaster than anything else the world could do to him. ‘We can manage if we have to, Lizzie, but it’ll be better if we can wait for the nurse.’ He disentangled himself and tucked the covers in on her side of the bed. ‘I think you should lie still and try to stay calm—that might slow things down.’

  ‘All right,’ Lizzie said meekly. That small, frightened voice did not sound like his wife.

  ‘Are you warm enough?’

  ‘No. I want a cuddle.’

  Frank unbuttoned his trousers and stepped out of them before climbing into bed beside Lizzie; keeping the rest of his clothes on would save a valuable minute or two when daylight finally came. If it came. He put an arm under Lizzie’s shoulders and guided her head on to his chest, then stroked her hair with his other hand. ‘Is that better?’

  ‘Much better. Keep holding me like this.’

  ‘I’ll hold you all night if you want me to.’

  Lizzie’s body jerked. By the lamplight Frank saw her face twisted with the strain of holding back a cry. He kissed away a tear that had escaped from under her tightly closed eyelids, and waited until he felt the tension slip away from her. Lizzie had not made a sound.

  ‘Are the pains really bad, Lizzie?’

  ‘Not really bad—I’m just being a big baby. It’s because I’m scared of what’s going to happen later when it starts hurting a lot.’

  ‘You’re not a baby. You’re brave. You didn’t even yell out with that last one.’

  Lizzie took hold of his hand and raised it to her mouth to kiss. ‘I feel a lot braver with you cuddling me.’

  As the long night dragged on Frank held Lizzie close, murmuring comforting noises and kissing her softly when she tensed in pain. Sometimes Lizzie dozed off for a few minutes between contractions, but Frank remained wakeful, trying to decide just what he would do if he had to deliver the baby himself. He wondered if he should look to see if there was any sign of it trying to make its way out, but he suspected that would distress Lizzie, and perhaps even hurt her. Although he knew his way well enough by feel he had never seen what Lizzie looked like down there, and this was probably not the right time to force that on her. No, it was safer to make do with trying to give her comfort by holding her, and hope desperately that he would be able to get help for her in the morning.

  The lonely hours of silence gave him time to think about what might be going on outside. As he thought it over he was able to view things more calmly, especially when the earthquakes became less frequent and then stopped altogether. Ash in the sky: what could that mean? In his mind Frank pictured the view from the front verandah, down the valley and out to sea. White Island on the horizon, with its permanent cloud hovering above, sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller, but always there, even when the island itself was invisible. White Island was a volcano, he knew that, and he remembered that Miss Evans had said the cloud above it was ash, because the island was always on fire. Erupting, they called it in the newspapers.

  That must be it, he decided. White Island was having a huge eruption, far bigger than any within living memory. The island was thirty miles off the coast; it couldn’t possibly burn them up from there. The worst it could do was make a terrible mess, and perhaps keep the sky dark when the sun rose. Frank let out a deep sigh of relief. Now all he had to worry about was whether he would have to deliver the baby or could leave it to someone who knew what they were doing.

  At first Frank thought it was wishful thinking when the darkness of the room seemed to lessen, but when the outline of the window took shape he knew morning had come at last, and had brought daylight with it. He disentangled himself from the sleeping Lizzie, trying not to disturb her, but she woke as soon as he moved and grasped his sleeve, trying to keep hold of him.

  ‘Let go, Lizzie,’ he said softly. ‘It’s light outside. I’m going out to get your ma now. I won’t be long.’

  Lizzie rubbed her eyes and sat up to watch Frank pulling on his trousers. He gently pushed her down against the pillows. ‘Lie still till I get back.’ He tucked her in and planted a kiss on her forehead before he left the room.

  His coat and hat were still lying in an untidy heap in the porch on top of his boots. Frank reached for the coat, then stopped to stare in amazement at the scene below the steps. Everything around him was the same dull grey colour, as if an artist with only one hue in his palette had slashed it carelessly over the landscape. Trees, hedges, grass, all had the same soft-edged hazy appearance, and although there was no longer any ash falling a lowering sky closed the world in with a darker grey pall. Frank put on his coat and hat then pulled his boots on before stepping down into the greyness. An inch of his boots disappeared into the ash as he walked, and small clouds of dust rose around him.

  The sombre colour invited silence, but instead Frank heard the mournful lowing of cows as they searched fruitlessly for grass. The doleful sound coupled with the eeriness of the grey-covered landscape seemed like a portent of death, and it made Frank shudder. Then he remembered Lizzie pressing close to him; trusting him. He walked faster, then broke into a run towards the horse paddock. No sense thinking about death when he was responsible for seeing that a birth went smoothly.

  Belle let herself be caught without trying to run away; she almost seemed to want Frank’s company. But she shied and rolled her eyes when he put on her saddle, and she performed an awkward sidestepping dance when Frank mounted her. Her ears went flat against her skull and she tried to rear, but Frank held the reins firmly and dug his heels in mercilessly, forcing her into a fast trot and then a canter. The horse’s hooves threw up clouds of ash, coating both horse and rider in grey dust, but Frank ignored it as best he could. The picture of Lizzie lying alone and frightened in the big bed was far stronger than any discomfort from the rising ash. Belle’s hooves thudding in the canter’s triple time made a background to his thoughts. Lizzie waiting for him. Lizzie relying on him. Lizzie bearing his child.

  *

  The horse hung her head miserably when Frank at last took off her tack and let her out into the paddock. As soon as he had gasped out his news to Edie, and had seen her tell Alf to catch and saddle a horse for her, he had wasted no time in setting off for town to fetch Mrs Parsons. By the time he had led the way back home, with the nurse following on her own horse, Belle had been stumbling with weariness, and Frank had had to let her finish the ride at a walk.

  Mrs Parsons had thrust her horse’s reins into Frank’s hand and made her own way to the house without waiting to be shown in. Frank found Edie’s horse tied hastily to a fence by its bridle, and he saw to all three horses before following the nurse. The bedroom door was closed, but Frank opened it and went in without hesitation, only to be greeted by an indignant shout from Mrs Parsons.

  ‘Mr Kelly, what do you think you’re doing? Get out of here at once.’

  Frank only had time for a brief glimpse of Lizzie lying on the bed with the covers pulled back and her nightdress up around her waist before Mrs Parsons came up to him and pushed him towards the door.


  ‘But I want to see Lizzie,’ Frank protested, at the same time giving way before Mrs Parsons’ onslaught.

  ‘Can’t Frank stay?’ Lizzie called plaintively from the bed.

  ‘Certainly not! What a ridiculous idea.’ The nurse glared at Frank as she gave him a final shove through the doorway. ‘Keep out of the way, please. Surely you have some work you should be doing?’ She shut the door firmly on him.

  Frank sat miserably in the kitchen, wondering what to do next and listening to the faint cries he could hear from the bedroom, but it was not long before Edie came out to join him.

  ‘How is she? Is she all right?’ Frank asked, half rising from his chair.

  ‘She’s just fine,’ Edie said. ‘She was a bit frightened when I got here, but we’ve been having a nice little talk and she’s quite happy now.’

  ‘I’ve been that worried about her. I thought I mightn’t be able to get you in time, and—’

  ‘I know, Frank. Lizzie told me what you thought.’ Edie gave him an affectionate pat on the shoulder before sitting down at the table. Her serene smile contrasted with her slightly bedraggled appearance. Frank had fetched her before she had had time to pin her hair up properly, and wisps of fair hair had escaped to twine around her face. As well, she seemed to have mismatched the buttons and buttonholes of her bodice in her hurry to put on a warm dress for riding.

  ‘Frank,’ she said gently, ‘it’s natural you were worried about Lizzie, what with it being your first, and coming a bit before its time, too, and you did the right thing to rush and get me. But nothing’s going to happen before this afternoon, dear—maybe not till tonight if the little one decides to take its time.’

  ‘Tonight?’ Frank repeated. ‘You mean it’s going to be hours and hours yet?’

  Edie nodded, a soft smile playing around her lips. ‘They don’t come all in a rush as a rule. Especially not first babies.’

  ‘I’ve been pretty stupid, haven’t I?’

  ‘Of course you haven’t, dear. You didn’t know any better. The two of you are as innocent as a couple of babies yourselves.’ Edie leaned across the corner of the table and gave Frank a conspiratorial grin. ‘Anyway, if you hadn’t rushed up to our place in such a panic, yelling your head off that I’d better come right away, Arthur might have thought to tell me I had to get home in time to make his lunch.’