by Darry Fraser
And do what, O’Rourke? And do what?
Be the man I want to be.
Thirty-Six
Echuca
Esther pushed the heavy pannikin across the table to her brother. ‘Do I understand correctly, that you did not just light one fire, not two, but three fires?’
Gareth Wilkin took a slurp of strong tea. His lip curled. ‘I love me drink of tea, but I need rum in this axle grease.’
‘You do not,’ she snapped. ‘You shouldn’t drink at all. You know that.’ She stood with her back to the kitchen fire, hands on hips. ‘And as soon as the water heats again you’ll go back for another bath.’
‘Already had one.’
‘I can still smell you.’
‘It’s me foot. A toe’s turned black. And I shouldn’t bath with all these burns. It’s bad.’ Wilkin slurped again, his chin barely off the table. As he shifted his scrawny white shoulders, tufts of stringy long hair gathered at odd places along his collarbone. Instead of falling into the strange hairless concave of his chest, they grew over and down his back.
‘Some have healed. Some were stuck to your filthy clothes.’ Esther pulled out a chair and sat opposite him. ‘Some have infection. They must be poulticed.’
Gareth pulled the bed sheet more closely around his middle. ‘An’ where are me clothes?’ he demanded.
‘Burned. And much of the stink with them,’ said Esther. ‘They’re gone.’
He started to rise. ‘I need clothes.’
‘Then you’ll wear something of Mr Bailey’s.’
‘Not wearin’ no dead man’s clothes.’
‘And take that look off your face, brother. You’ll not live here stinking. You’ll get yourself to a doctor, because it’s obvious there’s some sort of affliction in that foot.’ She sat back, drumming her fingers on the table between them. ‘Why did you come here?’
He waved a limp hand at the pink and weepy burns under her salve on his chest. ‘I knew you could fix this.’
‘Which brings me back to your three fires.’ She leaned towards him then thought better of it. ‘I thought you learned a long time ago that you and matches are not good companions.’
Gareth gripped the pannikin with two hands, the backs of which wrinkled with new skin growing out from under the drying dead skin. ‘I got money coming to me.’
Esther blinked. ‘Have you, now? And how has that got anything to do with your affection for fires?’
He sniffed, hawked, then took one look at his sister’s face and swallowed it down. ‘I married. There’s an inheritance.’
Esther felt her eyes pop. ‘Married?’
‘Yair, me. I married. And she’s dead, so the money comin’ is mine.’
She pressed an open hand over her heart. ‘You were never good with women either, Gareth.’ He was good with his fists, and that was all, just like their father. ‘You married, and now your wife is dead?’
He glared at her. ‘Not my fault.’
Spoken just like their father all over again. Esther felt a weight in her chest, and her breath lagged behind her heartbeat.
He sputtered on. ‘And the wife’s old aunt died and left a fortune to her.’ His gaze shifted about the small kitchen room, then back to her face. ‘So now, it’s mine.’
Esther watched his lip curl again and a frisson of fear rolled down her back. Not for herself. She would never let Gareth make her afraid again. She closed her hands into fists around the switch, rested it on the table and let the silence grow between them. Her brother shifted, adjusted the sheet again, and rubbed a hand into his hair. His head jerked a little, like he had a sudden twitch.
‘How did she die?’
‘Old age, I reckon. She musta been a hunnerd and fifty.’
Esther’s hands unclenched. ‘You know exactly who I mean.’
‘And there’s a brat.’ His gaze riveted back on the tabletop. ‘I have to get the brat.’
Shock hit her hard. ‘You have a child? You?’ Her mouth fell open but then her voice was lost. She closed it again and shook her head, pressing her two hands against a racing heart.
Gareth didn’t confirm or deny. And that raised her suspicions. She looked past him out the window to the fading light of the day. The pile of burning rags smoked and spat sparks in the middle of the yard, away from where she pegged her laundry to dry.
She looked back at him and wondered again about the infirmity he suffered, this sickness in his head that would roar louder than God spoke in his heart … Though she doubted he thought of God at all these days.
Her brother seemed about to wreak havoc on her life once again, but this time she would not stand for it. Mr Bailey had shown her kindness, was a stern man, but loving and fair. She’d seen nothing of her father and her brother in him. He’d passed away, God rest his soul, and she would use what he had taught her to thwart her brother’s behaviour.
Her brother had a child. She would take it and bring it up as hers, with love. Not with beatings and unspeakable violence. Esther willed herself to remain calm. ‘Where is the child, Gareth?’
‘Dunno. That’s it, you see. I have to have the kid to get the inheritance.’
Esther frowned. ‘How did your wife die?’
He didn’t hesitate. ‘After birthing.’ The darting glance was more furtive if that could be so, and his chin rested on the table, the pannikin thrust away from him.
Esther sat back. As usual, he was not telling the truth, or not all of it. She had to glean more information. ‘I am sorry to hear that.’ Conciliatory. With sympathy.
He grunted. Seemed hardly bothered by the bereavement.
‘How long ago was this?’ With compassion.
His mouth was downturned, his shoulders hunched. ‘Two months. Three months.’
Which was it? Could he not remember when his wife died? ‘So, where is your child?’
His palm came down on the table, and the spittle flew from his mouth as he snarled, ‘I dunno. I dunno, I told yer, woman. Yer don’t think I know what yer doin’?’
Esther thrust her chair back and shot to her feet. The switch came up and slammed down on the tabletop so close to his shaking fingers that he snatched them away. He stared up at her, gaping.
‘You will not raise your voice in this house. Not to me, nor in front of me.’ Her body shook with a sudden rage. The switch cracked on the table again and she watched as he flinched. ‘Our father got away with it, beat our poor mother, and me, but you will not follow his footsteps.’
Gareth tried to shove the chair out from under him but the tea spilled, his arm fell off the table and he nearly lost the chair altogether. ‘Too late,’ he rasped. He tried to hang on but slid in a crumpled heap to the floor.
Esther’s skirt rustled as she came around the table to him, the switch tapping against her side. She leaned down close to him. ‘Not while you are in this house or you will be sorry.’ She stared him down until his eyes shifted. He crawled over to the hutch to haul himself upright.
‘Where is your child, Gareth?’ She followed him. ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’
‘Dunno. Boy.’ He gathered the sheet around him and edged back to the table, sitting with a wince.
Esther spread her hands. ‘How can you not know where your child is?’
‘She gave it to a guardian, a stuck-up woman to bring it up in Bendigo.’
Esther took to her own seat once more. ‘This is bewildering.’
‘I have to get a birth registration paper.’
‘You what?’
Gareth wiped his nose on his forearm. ‘He’s not registered yet. I have to have me name on the paper. I have to have the kid with me …’ He looked up at her puzzled face. ‘To claim the money from the old aunt. You can get me that paper, can’t yer? You and your churchy friends?’
‘I don’t understand this. If your son is in Bendigo, you must get back there and—’
‘I have to get the paper first and get it to the government registrar.’
She laid t
he switch on the table between them, tapping her fingers. ‘There is much you are not telling me, Gareth Wilkin.’
‘Aye. There is.’
Thirty-Seven
The morning sun bathed James Anderson’s back as he stood on the front steps of the house Mrs Cooke and Mrs Rutherford occupied. He looked across the road, beyond his horse and cart.
‘You mean that house there?’ he asked of Mrs Cooke. He nodded towards the shuttered weatherboard, the front windows darkened by heavy curtains.
Millie Cooke stood just inside the doorway. ‘Haven’t heard any wild screaming, so I doubt there’s a problem. Maybe the old biddy has a secret gentleman caller?’ She stopped and glanced at James. ‘If you’ll pardon me, Mr Anderson.’
He gave a laugh. ‘Well, until we hear screaming, we’ll leave them to it.’ He stepped inside. ‘Now for that cup of tea, if you will.’
‘Annie should be done with young Toby’s feed by now. We was firing up the billy for Missus CeeCee so tea won’t be too long.’ She led the way down the tiny hall.
The house was almost identical to the one CeeCee and Linley now occupied. Two rooms off to one side of the hallway—bedrooms where each woman slept with her children—then the small sitting room and the kitchen room, with a new stove installed. The wash-house and the outhouse were out the back as usual.
CeeCee was sitting in a chair by the wood stove. Annie Rutherford settled Toby in a basket by her feet, and discreetly adjusted her bosom under her blouse.
‘Good of yer to give Mrs O’Rourke a little spell,’ she said. ‘He has a good set of lungs, little Toby, when he has a mind.’
CeeCee looked down at the contented baby in the basket. ‘He’s certainly got us well trained. Yes, Linley had need of a walk by herself today. She’s seen something at the wharf she’s interested in.’
‘Not sure she should be there by herself. Some of those lads can be rough.’ Millie looked from CeeCee to James.
‘She said just a short walk by the water, away from where the boats dock,’ CeeCee qualified.
Millie nodded. ‘All the same,’ she said and brushed down her skirts.
James looked outside to where three small children were playing in the dirt, the barren back yard open to the paddocks beyond. ‘We must fence this off for you soon,’ he said to no one in particular. He would pick up some rails, palings and nails as soon as he could.
‘No hurry for that, Mr Anderson.’ Annie pulled a large tin from the pantry and prised off the lid. ‘Now, we have a tea cake, fresh baked.’ She removed the small slightly risen cake and placed it onto a board to serve.
CeeCee leaned forward, holding herself across the middle. ‘What are those bits in it, Mrs Rutherford?’
‘Them? That’s some dried fruit I bought from Mrs Tippett down the road. Her son works on a farm downriver, up Mildura way.’
‘They’re raisins, Mrs Anderson,’ Millie said.
CeeCee accepted the proffered slice. She took a bite. ‘Delightful.’
Millie Cooke smiled. ‘They add to the sweetness when we can’t buy sugar. Thought of it meself.’
‘Well done.’ James took a slice and stood by the back door. ‘You’ve had no trouble lately, ladies?’
‘None, Mr Anderson.’
CeeCee accepted a pannikin of tea. ‘Very good. Perhaps some education is all that’s needed.’
‘Them churchgoing folk like Her Majesty across the road, have their own sort of “education”,’ said Millie. ‘If she doesn’t “educate” the coppers on us each time we take a breath, I dunno what.’
‘I’ll have another word with the constable.’ James leaned on the doorjamb.
Annie lugged the big kettle back to the stove, the teapot filled and brewing again. ‘She’s cranky, all right, but it seems the kids like her. Sometimes I reckon she’s blowing her bags just because she can.’ She poured herself a pannikin. ‘One time I caught her playing with my little lass, but she shooed her back over to me the moment she spied me.’
Millie chortled into her tea. ‘Her husband’s dead, so that can’t be him visiting. Though why you’d have something visiting you that stank like that, I don’t know.’
James stilled. ‘What’s that you said, Mrs Cooke?’
‘Well, I didn’t see who it was in there. He snuck in before she got home, he weren’t real tall, I saw that. When I got over the road to see if I could help her, the place smelled like the back end of a dung heap.’ Millie waved her hand in front of her face.
Annie smiled a little in apology to CeeCee, whose gaze was firmly fixed on James. Millie went on, but James didn’t hear. He returned CeeCee’s gaze.
Annie cut across Millie’s chatter. ‘What can we help you with, Mrs Anderson? We’ll do what we can for you.’
‘Er, thank you for seeing us at such short notice.’ CeeCee dragged her gaze from James. ‘Since my accident and subsequent moving here, my niece and I have found we need some help in the house. Would you both be happy to work a little while for us, until I get on my feet that is?’
‘Of course.’ Millie nodded.
‘We hope to build some extra rooms on our house, and here as well, so your help would be …’
‘Happy to,’ Millie said, still nodding.
‘And you would continue, Mrs Rutherford, to assist with baby Toby until he transfers completely to tinned milk and solids?’
‘Of course, of course,’ she answered. ‘So Mrs O’Rourke will stay here in town until Mr O’Rourke comes back?’
Lost in thought, CeeCee took a moment before replying. ‘It seems she’s happy to be by the river.’
‘Gets in your blood, the river. I know some who’d die to be away from it.’ Millie pushed a hank of ginger hair back into a pin at the side of her head. ‘Though to me it looks like it’s dying itself. Level’s gettin’ low.’
‘Drought again, they say.’ CeeCee nodded, a frown on her face.
‘So more men out of work, more trouble on the way,’ Annie said. ‘Nowt to do about it.’
A tinny wail reached them from the other room.
‘That sounds like my William needing his feed now. I’ll take myself off and see to him.’ She nodded to James and CeeCee as she left the kitchen. ‘Good day.’
‘Of course. Good day,’ CeeCee replied.
James set his pannikin down on the kitchen bench. ‘Doom and gloom—it might be a few years off yet. We should hope for that.’
‘When do you need us, Mrs Anderson?’ Millie asked. ‘I could start tomorrow, work in with Annie and Master Toby.’
CeeCee smiled. ‘Tomorrow would be wonderful. Mr Anderson has to return to Melbourne on business, so your help would be greatly appreciated.’
‘Yes, that’s so,’ James confirmed. ‘We will have another two women to get to the house here from Melbourne. Thankfully only one who has a child. There’s no consumption or pox in either and we will try to accommodate them directly. Perhaps in the extra rooms here in due course.’ He glanced at Millie. ‘One of them has a violent husband who hides in the night and follows her every movement. There is much work to be done to ensure her safety. And having said as much,’ he said, going to CeeCee’s chair and holding her arm while she stood, ‘we should be along, my dear. You still need rest. Just a little venturing out is enough for one day.’ He steadied her, then bent to pick up Toby in his basket.
‘Where are these women now, Mr Anderson?’ Millie asked.
He smiled. ‘The same house we had you safe. But I am afraid it might have been compromised now, so our haste is all important. Thank you for your hospitality. Good day.’
James stepped outside and clamped his hat on hard. He doubted it would disguise him much. At the cart, he placed the baby’s basket in the middle of the seat and helped CeeCee up to sit beside it. She pinned her hat on her head and lowered the rim as James walked around the horse. He stared a moment at the house opposite.
The drapes barely moved. Nothing gave away the identity of those behind the darkened windows. No
thing stirred but the branches of the trees nearby, and the leaves of the shrubs at the front of the house. It was as still as if no one lived there.
James climbed onto the seat, picked up the reins and gee-upped the horse. They drove in silence out of the street, turning into another that led back to their house.
‘It might not be him, James.’ CeeCee held onto the basket between them.
‘Perhaps a coincidence,’ he replied, his tone flat. ‘A great big coincidence.’
‘You have to get that registration paper mailed so it can be lodged as soon as possible. Then we have to let Mr Campbell know it’s done.’ CeeCee reached over and placed her hand on his arm. ‘You have no time to go after—’
‘I know it.’ He felt her fingers grip him, understood her urgency for Linley and the baby. ‘But if it is him, you are in danger. All of you. How can I leave without knowing for certain that it is not him?’ He looked across at her. ‘How do we know if he’s seen us here already? He could have.’ His voice was low. ‘What are you thinking?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m not sure they’re thoughts.’ She rubbed her arms, then adjusted her hat. ‘Just feelings.’ She looked down at the sleeping baby. ‘I don’t want you to do anything, James. The violence must stop. You know it doesn’t change anything, instead it perpetuates. Please just stay with us … get us home.’
He grunted and flicked the reins.
Thirty-Eight
Ard found the smithy’s shop without looking for it.
He walked the street from the railway station towards the river in the midday heat. His shirt stuck to his back under the swag and he tucked a thumb under its rope to keep it from rubbing his shoulder raw. The rap and clang of hammer on hardened steel, on anvil, signalled a smithy’s shop nearby. The thud of molten metal being coaxed and belted into shape, the bellows pumping, and the smell and burn and sizzle of the coals beckoned him. There, around the corner, on a dusty patch of road stood an open shop, stone-built and solid. A soot-blackened figure pounded the thick mallet onto a shape on top of his bench.
