by Kim Kelly
‘You’re a good girl, Francy,’ he says, lilting thickly. If I weren’t such a good girl I’d curse him for this. So much for philanthropy. What was he thinking? He shuffles back to his room, hand raised in benediction.
What to do? I don’t want to, but I’ll have to call Polly up. I have no idea where to begin. ‘Polly!’ I call down the stairs, and somehow that shakes my brain into action: I go back to my room for my basin and the cloth I was just about to wash my face with. It occurs to me that our guest might appreciate it more, sans rosewater.
When I return across the landing Polly’s already hauling herself and a mop and bucket up the stairs; evidently she heard it too. As I now realise she would have, her room being directly below at the back of the house. ‘Poor lad,’ she says as she reaches the top, and even manages to make that sound like it’s my fault.
I ignore her; she can deal with the vomit on the floor. I put the basin and cloth on the bedside table and take the lamp from the drawers and put it there too so I can see him better. I soak the cloth and wring it, then hover over him, hesitating. I’ve never washed someone’s face before.
Polly slaps the mop onto the floorboards over the other side of the bed and he opens his eyes and blinks straight into mine. Green glinting amber. It’s only then that I recognise him. The miner from the street. It shocks me more than anything else that’s happened on this very strange day. His face is fierce, not smiling now, not smudged with coal; his eyes impale me as he takes the cloth that’s dangling in my hand. He wipes his mouth and gives it back to me, then lies back again, turning away from the light. The embarrassment I felt before is nothing compared to this moment. I am suspended in it.
Polly gathers up the bucket and mop and says: ‘I’ll get a cloth to finish off.’
‘No. I’ll wipe it,’ I say. ‘You can go. Thank you.’
I sound mean, with the meanness of incompetence, and it sticks in my throat.
‘Suit yourself,’ she says and I don’t hear her leave.
I sit down on the packing cases. I won’t get a cloth right away. I am having a higher thought: shame.
And I remember his name now, Father told me during dinner. Daniel Ackerman. And that only makes it worse.
DANIEL
There’s a light rain spitting on the window, mist circling through the gums outside. If I was dry before, then I’m screaming for a drink now. Francine Connolly is sitting near the window, on a box, her head against a chest of drawers. She’s asleep, like a doll in a shop. There’s a small wooden container at her feet that’s flipped open, showing the pencils inside. When I saw her in the night I thought I was dreaming again, but I’ve worked it out now. Though why I’m here is a mystery I couldn’t be arsed thinking about. Her stomach grumbles, she makes a small mewling sound and she’s coming to. Thirsty as I am, I don’t want her to wake up yet. Lying here looking at her and the rain is keeping me blank. If I look at her I can’t see Mum’s face. I remember Evan telling me somewhere yesterday that he’d sent off word to her. He didn’t mention anything about Dad. Didn’t have to.
If I look at Francine Connolly I can feel the anger settle hard in me.
She opens her eyes and sits up with a start. She’s wondering where she is, sitting on a box in her nightdress.
‘Hm. Hm. Hello,’ she says, brushing her hair off her face, like she sleeps there every night.
‘I need to piss,’ I say.
She blushes all over her cheeks, hands me the pot and leaves. She can fuck off now. I should have asked for a drink first, though. As for the other, it’s not an easy job and I end up pissing half on the floor. What an animal I am. I’ll be able to watch her clean it up.
Hello. She’s back, all tucked into her slim skirt, with breakfast. I throw down the water, but I can’t eat. As she leaves again I want to tug the back of her hair and ask her why. Another, older woman comes in, I’ve seen her in town once or twice but I don’t know her. She smiles plainly at me and cleans up my mess and I feel like a pig.
A little while later Frank Connolly comes in. Unbelievable as it is, that’s who he is. Overfed and puffed out for it. Asking me how I am, telling me he’ll make sure my mother and I are looked after. I can still see him patting me on the chest yesterday, wanting to shove him off. I can see him driving his flash motor car. I’ll take whatever money there is, but I don’t want his sympathy. He, and everyone like him, is the reason for this. Why my father is dead. Why one brother is dead and the other one taken off. Why my mother is quiet. Why I’ve been cut or bruised or burned in some way just about every day for the last five years. Maybe from a different view I might think he was a good bloke, but his generosity squashes me like an ant here. I get lost in the tiny red lines that snake out across his nose, and say nothing.
Then they all leave me alone. I push myself up against the back of the bed so at least I’m not lying down any more. That’s all I can do at the moment and I just sit here like my arse is drilled to the mattress. It stops raining, but the mist thickens and fills the window. I get lost there too. I’m thinking about that day I ran ahead to warn Mrs Skelton about Jimmy. I was fifteen and skinny and I flew and I didn’t really know what I was doing. I knew what to do, and why I was running, and what to say, but I didn’t know what it meant. That’s how they want you to be: to do as you’re told and not think about it too much. Everyone. Them and us. But that look on Mrs Skelton’s face … I want to see her now and tell her properly, but she moved away; don’t know where she is. It’s not even anger in me now, it’s just white, hot, and I’ve got to get out of here, and forgetting I can’t, I go to get up. And I’m biting down against it when Evan walks in.
He tells me, finally, what I already know about Dad, and the others, Fred McNally and Matt Jones who were in the stall after ours, and that Mum’ll be here in the afternoon sometime, and that I’m not to worry because Connolly’s paid the doctor’s bill and sounds good for some figure of compensation regardless of the enquiry, which Evan’ll keep me well out of, and his low smooth voice fills me so that I’m not hearing the words so much as the sounds of him talking to me, until he says, ‘How’s the leg, then, boyo,’ and I lose it like a girl. He sits down with an arm around my back as I do, for everything, and for knowing that this is the last time a man will touch me like this. My father is gone. He’s gone. And I’m still here, but I’ve gone somewhere too.
FRANCINE
Not only am I shame-filled in a dozen different ways, I am altogether irrelevant to this day, this drama, this other person’s being. How mortifying, falling asleep in the room like that; flushing, mute, idiotic. And the way he glared when I brought the tray in: he despises me. That rankles — how dare he! But then I think of the state he’s in and how he quite possibly recognised me, too, as that strange, rude girl in the street, and I can’t blame him. And I flush and flush in waves of indignant humiliation and something else I cannot name, more a feeling in the very centre of me that’s soft and waiting to be stabbed. I also have a sharp, irritating strain in my neck.
I spend the rest of the morning hiding in the empty parlour pretending to read My Brilliant Career, can’t get past: My Dear Fellow Australians, just a few lines to tell you that this story is all about myself … Father’s out and Polly’s gone to the shops for something or other. She’ll be back to fix lunch, and praise be, because there is no way I am going back into the spare room. I can’t face him. Father will take him to his own house this afternoon around three, and three can’t come around soon enough.
There’s a knock at the front door and my heart just about leaps through my ribs. My face must be fairly incandescent as I open the door. I cannot make my mouth function.
‘Francine, isn’t it?’ There’s a woman there, tall and broad and already impatient with the cretin she’s speaking to.
‘Yes,’ I manage.
‘Ada Moran,’ she says, and I’m not sure at first if it’s an introduction or an instruction. She’s holding out a bundle of neatly folded clothes that sh
e’s retrieved from a basket at her feet. ‘For Daniel. Daniel Ackerman,’ she explains, because I clearly need telling.
‘Oh. Thank you. That’s very kind of you,’ I splutter. ‘I shall see that he gets them. Very good to meet you, Mrs Moran.’ Mrs Moran, who I now remember is the stretched to the limit matron at the hospital. There’s a wrench of gallstones in my belly.
‘Must rush,’ she says after one last mystified glance and she’s already off and away to the trap waiting for her in the drive.
I look at the bundle in my arms and do as the circumstances dictate: I write Polly a note and leave it for her with the clothes on the kitchen table. Gone out, not sure when I’ll be back. Please see that Mr Ackerman gets lunch & clothes.
I can now add abject cowardice to my growing list of shortcomings.
Hayseed makes no comment as we ride up into the hills, but I’m sure he looks askance at me a few times. The air is wonderful, though, once we’re out of town. Damp from the rain and the mist that’s now been burned away by the sun, which is warm on my skin one moment and cooled by the breeze the next. A perfect May day. Even the scrub looks more appealing, brighter, greener, and at last I can feel myself settling to the rhythm of Hayseed’s gait.
From up here I can look down on it all, the smudges of smoke and the scars on the land. I try to imagine how it might look if there were no people here; how it would have been to the native Aborigines and the first explorers, long since passed through, inexorable Progress on their tail. The shape of the valley itself is really quite beautiful: it looks like two ancient women lying down around a campfire. Their rounded breasts and thighs encircle devastation as if caressing it; they are melancholy and serene at once. More melancholy today, I think. There is still a tightness in my chest but I’m made tranquil looking at them. Beyond are hills and more hills, their steep crags and boulders plain brown now in the high sun. Beyond them are the mountains, which are indeed very Blue, dark and hazy shapes that from this vantage seem to encircle too, folding and rolling away forever. Like the sea. And I am homesick again for the home I no longer have.
I’m also not wearing a hat and I can feel the sun searing the skin off my nose. What else can I manage to make a debacle of today?
We ride slowly, very slowly, back, and I try to shade my face with my hand as we go. Hopeless. Still, I take the long way round the edge of town before turning up again to our eyrie by the slagheap. My dull but insistent hysteria returns as we near the house. But it’s all right. I’m only halfway up the road when I see the Austin pull out of the drive and putter down the other side of the hill. He’s gone, then.
When I go inside I tell Polly I’m not feeling well and there’s no fib in it this time. I flop down on my bed and fall straight to sleep.
Father wakes me, gently rubbing my shoulder, asking me if I want dinner. He thinks I’m exhausted from tending the sick last night. And the rest, I think blearily as he’s smiling at me. I tell him that I’m famished and he says,’ Good girl.’ He winces as he stands; he’s done his back in, poor thing, and I’m not surprised. I stretch and stare into the dusky gloom as he leaves and I tell him I’ll be down in a minute.
I am famished too; I realise I haven’t eaten all day, and I’m at the table in a blink, devouring plates and bowls without drawing breath. When Polly has deigned to clear the carnage, Father pours himself a port and leans back in his chair, regarding me thoughtfully. He’s been unusually quiet and conservative tonight; I imagine he’s exhausted by his benevolence. Then as he lights his pipe he says to me: ‘There’s something I want you to do tomorrow, Francy.’
Joy brims: something to do! What?
‘It’s time, I think, you took more of a part in things …’
Yes?
‘You’ve not been out in the world much and …’
He’s sending me abroad?
‘God knows the world is a tangle of a place. You must know something of its realities, Francy, and it’s my fault that I’ve let you run a bit wild, follow your own mind, without better guidance …’
Where is this going? He doesn’t seem soused, either. His eyes are bright and serious as he puffs on the pipe.
‘I suppose I thought as long as you were safe and happy then there was no need. But there is a need. I can’t have you stay my little girl forever. One day you’ll marry …’
What? Oh … he’s got someone in mind? He sees the confusion on my face and puts up a gentling hand.
‘But more important, one day you’ll inherit whatever I have at the end, and that may be considerable. May not be!’ He laughs, then resumes the sombre tone: ‘I want you to be wise enough to know what to do with it, whether you marry or not.’
‘That’s very modern of you, Father,’ I interrupt, intrigue turning to caution. ‘But what is it exactly you want me to do tomorrow?’
‘Oh yes,’ he says, smiling, as if come back into himself, and I must say that although Father is peculiar, this solemnity is more peculiar than anything. And then: ‘I want you to go to the Ackermans’ tomorrow and give them the compensation payment I’ve drawn for them.’
I feel in turn the muscles of my face range through naked surprise, perplexity and suspicion. Father really has gone mad. Where is Mr Drummond to back me up?
‘There’s reason here,’ he holds up his hand again. ‘You’ve met the lad, and he’s not in a good way, in his spirits. I don’t think he’d appreciate me turning up, one of the bosses, you know … no, you don’t know, and that’s the point … But you, in your blessed innocence, won’t offend him or his mother as I might; you might soften the exchange, and at the same time see what it means.’
‘What what means?’ I ask, beside myself. I cannot imagine The Lad is very likely to think me a softening agent, but I can’t gather my thoughts swiftly enough to express that right now.
‘I know what it means to be poor, Francy, very, very poor; you don’t. I’ve spent the last twenty years denying it. I have been blessed, in so many ways, with you, your mother … and most times more money than I needed. I wouldn’t take a minute of any of my good fortune back — nor any of my indulgences, wise and unwise. But I’ve climbed over the backs of others to have the means for it all, pretending all the while that I’m only playing with the pennies and the rest has little to do with me, and you can’t remove yourself from that kind of hypocrisy indefinitely. It comes back to bite those that leave themselves open to it, and I’d rather you never get bitten.’
I have no idea what he’s talking about, and plead into his ramble: ‘But what if they don’t appreciate the boss’s daughter either?’
‘Well, that will be worth your understanding too. It’ll be all right, Francy. Trust me. It might not make too much sense to you now, but it will, in time. I want the best for you, but having it, really having it, requires knowing the score. I’ll be plain: you’re too naive, too sheltered, and that makes you vulnerable; it’s also a waste on a girl as clever as you are. I never want you to know poverty, of course, but I want you to know what it means to work, and what it means to be good. To be decent. The things the sisters couldn’t teach you, because they must be learned in themselves. I’m afraid, on balance, I’ve not been a good example, my darling girl.’
His eyes moisten, and he hasn’t even touched the port. He has that heartbroken look that makes me spring to his defence. ‘Of course you’re good! Silly thing. You’re overtired, that’s what you are,’ I say, although what I really want to ask is what this is all about. But I don’t and I won’t, because I know he’s going to change the subject as he always does when he’s said as much as he’s going to say.
‘You got some sun today,’ He nods with the pipe, and winks. Sparkling at me.
I put my hand to my face. It’s broiled. At least The Lad won’t be able to tell whether or not I’m blushing when I make my preposterous errand tomorrow. This is too bizarre for contemplation. I go off to bed with Mr Drummond’s Oh whispering to me again, and a nagging expectation of failure. Father ha
s, as he said, let me be, and letting me follow my own mind has apparently not been for the best thus far.
DANIEL
Mim’s had another girl. Isobella. She already had that name pegged. She came before Mum even got there and for a second I want to ask Mum what time she came, to know if it was before or after. Like me and the other Daniel. But I don’t believe in all that rubbish anyway and doubt that Dad would agree to come back as a girl. Mum tells me about Isobella down to the way her hair sticks up on her head and I know what she means. We’ve all got that hair, like Mum’s — dark and straight as paint bristles; you don’t want to cut it too short. There are tears coming from the corners of her eyes as she speaks, but you wouldn’t know she was crying unless you were watching them fall. I don’t know why I was so angry this morning, why I didn’t want to see Mum’s face. She’s so small sitting on the bed next to me, but bigger than everything. I touch her hand, but she only lets it stay there for a second. I know. And I don’t know anything.
‘It’s cold tonight. You’re going to need another blanket,’ she says, and when she leaves to get it I am black again.
Dad was going to die from the dust anyway, eventually. He would have been grateful to go not knowing about it. Out like a light. Having a laugh at the Methodists who’ll bury him at the bottom of the ridge below the paddock at the Wattle tomorrow, as he wished, knowing that he was an atheist through and through, but praying for him anyway. That’s the way Mum’s telling it. But I just see filthy animals sweating and grunting in the bottom of a cave. No, I’m not angry now. I’m nothing.
She will bury him tomorrow, without me there; Mrs Moran came round earlier and told me to stay in bed, which I am unlikely to do. But I don’t want to go to the burial anyway, even if I could get down the ridge without being winched. Mum says she’ll be all right going alone; but she won’t be alone at all. It’s not Dad I can’t face, it’s the others. Evan, Robby, everyone. The whole bloody lot of them.
