by Kim Kelly
‘You didn’t hear the whistle?’ he says.
‘No.’ Gaping yawn. Good God, this hour of the day should be banned. And if I thought it was cold yesterday …
‘I suppose it’s quieter round here, and I half listen for it in my sleep. I’d probably hear it in the grave,’ he says, pulling on trousers.
Not funny, I glare into the blackness.
‘Don’t get up, not today,’ he says. ‘I’ve eaten what was there.’ He lights my little oil lamp and kneels by the bed to kiss me. ‘I’ve put the stove on, be a bit warmer in a minute, in the kitchen at least.’ Laughing at me. Another kiss. ‘I’ll have to take the trap in too, pick up my bike at Evan’s. You don’t need anything in town, do you?’
‘No.’ I hug him: stay here, we’ve already made enough of a point.
‘Be back around five,’ he says, extricating himself, stuffing cap in back pocket.
‘Five? I thought Lithgow was a strictly eight-hours town.’
‘It is.’ Just one more kiss and big black boots stomp out into the world.
So I do lie in, languishing in very, very last grasp of former reality, and listen to the trap wheels fade back into silence, while I try to fathom how eight hours becomes twelve, and fail; even with travel time, from the furthest reaches, it seems impossible. I stare at a mouldy patch in the far corner of the ceiling, stricken with the even more impossible contemplation of my aloneness. As much as I enjoy my own company, I wonder how I’ll go at this much aloneness, this kind of aloneness. Mould goes drippy with tears as I wonder if Father is with Josie now; I wonder if they are watching me. I don’t think I believe in heaven, but I hope he’s with her, I dearly hope he is, sparkling at her. I wonder what they think of me lolling lugubrious in bed, if his Josie’s saying to him, ‘Good gracious, look at the girl you raised, Frank.’ Whimper now: Father’s voice is so fresh in me, but what did Josie sound like? How would she have said Frank? What did I call her? Mother? It doesn’t sound right. Neither does the sound of me whimpering as if I’m the only orphan in the world.
Get up, Francy.
You’ve plenty to do today. Plenty to be too busy with along the lines of general drudgery and culinary experimentation. While husband of thirty seconds has gone down that wretched, hideous, stinking, putrid coal mine when there’s absolutely naught that says he must. So get up, Francy, and just get on with it. Isn’t this what Father wanted too? And you agreed to this temporary arrangement with steely boned resolve, so you will now do a proper job of it. Learn essential skills and build character. Be a good Socialist. Be a good Wife. Without a honeymoon, without a lazy breakfast over which we should be gazing into each other’s eyes over the unopened newspaper that contains a paragraph on our swish reception and gift list, without even a door on the toot out the back. Without rolling congratulations everywhere I turn; only proof that there must have been a hundred girls in love with him if some of the sly glares I received in town on Monday were anything to go by: look at her — her father’s only dead thirty seconds and now she’s wedding Our Lad. Who does she think she is? Wife without household help is who I am today, and as much as help in principle does seem unnecessary, this morning its absence is … daunting.
Oh, enough whining.
I whip back the covers and I’m up and out, to see the small blood splotch on the sheet. Of course. Though I can attest now that there was a great deal that Sister Terrence did not tell motherless me about Marriage, she did manage to impart in a steady whisper that such an occurrence of Stain on the Wedding Night is a commonly Good Thing and not usually cause for alarm. I’m not alarmed, no, it’s just another thing I have to keep me busy today: washing.
Sarah has advised a foolproof recipe to start with, a flavoursome stovetop one-pot thingumy that’s so quick and easy you just throw everything in and stir occasionally. She even provided most of the ingredients for me. But I’m muddled after a day of sweeping and cobweb snatching and window washing and wrestling sheets through the wringer and cursing whoever decided they needed to be pressed, and having to make the fire in the stove again because I let it go out — twice. This valiant worker’s fist is pleased with all the effort, but limp. And I think I’ve left my brain inside the stove. Flavoursome is not quite the word for my thingumy. It’s bitter and tastes vaguely of a dash of borax. I don’t know how to save it, or if it can even be saved at all, and Sarah’s too far away to ask right now. Daniel will be home any minute. I check the jacket potatoes in the oven part, remembering that Sarah said to prick them with a fork before putting them in, and hope it’s not too late to do it now. None of them have exploded yet, so I chase them round with the fork and burn the back of my hand on the top of the oven, and yell out my worst word: ‘Arse!’ just as I hear the trap pull inside the gate. I run my hand under the tap and fan my face and wait for him, wondering what else we might have with the potatoes. Bread and honey? Some leftover cinnamon cake?
Daniel looks like thunder when he finally walks round to the back door, and I’m sure it’s not just because he’s covered in coal. Perhaps he smelled dinner while he was stabling Hayseed. My God: I remember I haven’t put the hot water on! Mad scramble with big heavy pot and tap, and abject apology for idiocy. He laughs as he kicks off his boots on the back verandah and says, ‘Don’t worry about it,’ grabs the tub from against the wall, fills it and starts stripping off right here by the stove.
It’s not hard to smile as I watch him wash, with relief and delight in watching him; he should never be allowed to be clothed; and of course he’s not going to be fussed on my first day on the job. He flicks the wet flannel at me in fun to make that clear.
‘You looked so fierce just now,’ I say, ‘I thought you were angry.’
‘No.’ Splash, splash, the water turns grey, but there is something the matter in the surly way he’s scraping his arms clean; he just doesn’t want to say it. ‘I’m knackered is all. And starving. What’s for tea?’ He looks up and grins and that does me in. Tears sting, but I’m not going to cry. Too late, he’s seen. ‘What’s wrong?’
Blather: ‘I’m tired too, and I’ve mucked up dinner, and I burned my hand — see?’
He really belts out a laugh then, but pretends to inspect my hand seriously. It’s such a tiny mark, not even a blister. He kisses it and says: ‘You’ll live. And whatever you’ve cooked, don’t worry I’ll eat it, as long as it’s food. It can’t be that bad.’
Oh but it is. I hold my breath as he stands, wraps the towel around his waist and tastes a mouthful of my bubbling disaster.
‘Nothing wrong with that, it’s just like Mum’s, nearly,’ he says: you’re a lunatic.
‘Really?’ He’s just being lovely about it. ‘It seems a bit bitter to me,’ I fish but don’t mention the borax, just in case I accidentally did put some in.
‘Maybe you put in too much tarragon,’ he says, around another mouthful. ‘Add some cream to smooth it out — that’s what Mum does. Stop worrying. It’s good.’
Must be. I blob in a dash of cream and there’s nothing left in the end. I’ve never seen someone eat so much; we’ll need the profits from the mine just to feed him, I’ll have to cultivate potatoes. It doesn’t hurt to eat a bit of borax, does it, I tell myself. Or maybe I’m simply not used to tarragon, whatever that is — the little jar of dried dust-coloured leafy stuff Sarah gave me along with the rest. But there’s still something wrong here: moody, broody hand on fist as he looks at me above the carnage. What do I ask him? How was the coal today, dear? Hmn. Maybe it’s not so hilarious being married to The Boss after all, and he’s got a ribbing now it’s done. Or maybe Drummond has done something insulting already. Or maybe he really is just tired. As if he wouldn’t be. I’d really rather contemplate the circumference of his forearm, the shape of the bone there at the wrist, and ignore the fresh graze that runs across the top of his knuckles.
‘Your father was right,’ he says, sardonic. ‘Australia’s declared war on Germany too.’
War? That’s right, th
ere’s a war on. In Europe. Germany’s invaded Belgium or something. I didn’t get a paper today, obviously; barely glanced at yesterday’s Mercury, naturally.
I say: ‘Yes. Of course. Well, we would, wouldn’t we.’
DANIEL
‘Doesn’t matter that it was inevitable,’ I tell her; everyone knows that; doesn’t make me any less shitted about it. It’s the point-proving matter of arse-end Australia trying to be large as it feels. ‘We’re Mother England’s best little kid, aren’t we. But it’s, I don’t know, embarrassing.’
‘Because you’re German?’ she says, and she’s woken herself up out of her dippy-headed fuss over tea to join me at last.
‘No. And I’m not. It’s because this shouldn’t be anything to do with us; we shouldn’t be tagging along. We’re supposed to be an independent country, but tagging along is a forgone conclusion. Worse, when I came out today, Robby was in a lather for empire about it, and so were a dozen others, like Britannia cares what they think.’
‘Father’s been known for a poor punt — it probably won’t amount to much,’ she says, unconvincingly. I haven’t even thought about it properly yet, been otherwise occupied over the last little while, but it’s taken five seconds to work out that this isn’t going to be any old stoush over some scrap of land that’s not happy with colonisation, like that one in Africa when I was a little kid. This is a war between empires: Britain, France and Russia are going to crush Prussia and Austria, out of existence according to Robby, like that’s something to yahoo about. All I know is that sounds like a lot of empires. Like she’s picked up my thought, Francine adds: ‘Or maybe they’ll all decide it’s far too unwieldy to manage and call it off.’
She’s a lark … if only everyone thought like her.
‘They’re already going for it,’ I tell her. ‘Some idiots started firing a cannon at a German freighter out of Melbourne the second they called it on yesterday and the ship’s been impounded. If you can believe that, then you can believe this is fairly serious. It’s some big skite that we’ve fired the first British shot of the war, and Cook’s already promised to send Mother twenty thousand troops.’
‘Twenty thousand?’
‘Yep. While the Mercury’s saying we should all keep calm and prepare to be invaded shortly. Make sense of that, if they’re going to send away defences that we don’t have now.’ Unless they’ll look to compulsory school cadets, which I missed out on by a couple of years — they haven’t started shaving yet. ‘So where do you think Cook’ll get his twenty thousand?’
Not hard to work out either. He’ll get them from blokes like Robby. He’s talking of joining up already. Evan says it’s all a load of imperialist rubbish that we should keep well out of. Too right. But tell Robby that; I’m sure it’s crossed his mind that the army might give him something better than the mine, too; soldier’s pay might not be a fortune, but it’s regular and all expenses paid. I’m not sure about the conditions, though. Whatever, there’ll be no solidarity on this issue.
‘Ah.’ She can see why I’m so dark about it now. I’m sure Connolly was right that there’ll be money made out of all this, but it’s the working class that’ll pay, with the ultimate if all the carry-on is anything to go by. She says: ‘But maybe the election will change things? Cook can’t hold on, all the papers have been saying so for months, couldn’t run a raffle at a church fete, let alone a government. Good heavens …’ She stops to think some more: ‘How could he make such an enormous promise knowing he’s on the way out? That’s … that’s … Well, Mr Fisher will be returned and there’ll be a Labor Government again soon. Perhaps that will calm things down.’
‘That’s not going to make a blind bit of difference, France,’ I say, but you’ve got to wonder how many girls out there talk like she does. ‘The Labor Party’s not going to turn around and tell Mother they’ve changed their mind and rediscovered socialism. Or worked out what an independent country is. Fisher’s already been careful to say that if the worst came to the worst then we’d be in it. And here we are. There won’t be a vote on the war.’ I’m parroting the The Worker with this, but it’s true. Not that France and I could do anything about it: neither of us are old enough to vote. And what am I doing letting this rubbish into our house? We’ve only been married a day — there are more important issues we should be attending to.
But France is serious now. ‘If it does really blow up, where will that leave you?’
I know what she’s referring to: ‘I’m not German. I was born at Mount Kembla.’ I say that sharper than I mean to, but I have a flash of memory, of Kembla, after it blew, and the funerals, endless. Wollongong, going in to buy my first pair of boots, catch the train. I must have been about seven or so. That’s where the other Daniel is buried too. And Dad is buried here, under the ridge below the paddock. ‘I’m more Australian than the jokers that have put us up to this.’
But I haven’t answered her question, because it doesn’t have an answer, yet.
‘Anyway,’ I say to get a smile, ‘I’m just German enough to be able to give the Kaiser directions straight to parliament if they do invade.’
That does the trick. ‘You never told me you speak German,’ she says to me, like it’s a scandal.
‘I don’t. Not really. Just bits and pieces.’
‘Say something to me in German,’ she says, and I could grab her right now the way she’s looking at me. She’s got a little streak of soot on her forehead and she’s still wearing her filthy apron; no idea and she’s perfect.
‘I’ll do better than that,’ I say, getting up. She follows me out to the front room, where her piano is, and I flip the lid. I can’t see the stool anywhere for the packing cases so I stand and sing her ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’, which in Deutsch is too hilarious to ever forget:
Funkel, funkel kleiner Stern,
Was du bist, das wüßt ich gern.
Stehst hoch über aller Welt,
Ein Diamant am Himmelszelt.
Funkel, funkel kleiner Stern,
Was du bist, das wufit ich gern.
Those bells of hers bounce round the room at that and we’re the only two people on earth again as I kiss her and hold her to me.
But it’s then I remember the present I made her weeks ago; I picked it up from Mum’s at sparrow’s this morning when I was heading in, seems like a hundred years ago. It’s still sitting in the bottom of the trap wrapped in an old tea towel; can’t believe I just left it there.
‘Wait here,’ I tell her, pulling away, ‘and close your eyes.’
I’ve gone out and grabbed it and I go to unwrap the tea towel on my way back in, then think, no, she’ll like it better just as it is.
‘You can open them now.’
She is priceless the way she looks at it, frowning then excited like a kid. She makes that sound like a kitten as she unwraps it and sees what it is: it’s her. Just her face, about to blink, framed by her hair, which was dead easy since it’s so straight. Even I was impressed when I finished it; she’s let out another little squeak as she turns it around in her hands. She sets it down on top of the piano, then she folds around me and the shape of her fits against me everywhere.
All through the day I’m thinking about her so much I’m dangerous. We should have gone away somewhere, or at least stayed at home for a few days. Any kind of honeymoon or celebration didn’t seem appropriate a week ago, but today … I reckon they should give you a month off after a wedding to give you time to get over it. Paid leave, if such a thing existed, for your contribution to the country’s general state of happiness.
‘Danny!’ Evan yells at me. I’ve knocked my belt sideways getting up from packing under the cut and I’m spilling shot all down the front of myself without noticing, about to blow apart my happiness. ‘You’re having a good time, then,’ he says as I’m cleaning myself up. Like you wouldn’t believe, though he looks like he knows very well.
Later on, as we’re walking back up the drift at the end of shift, he say
s: ‘Thought about what you’re going to do? You’ve had your laugh now, and you can’t stay down here indefinitely. You’re not union any more, strictly speaking.’
Here: I let the way he says that word hang about in my head for a bit; he says it yur.
‘Daniel?’ he says, laughing at me like he knows what I’m thinking about.
‘I heard you,’ I say.
‘It would be good if you were managing the place, don’t you think?’ He’s out with it.
I’ve thought about it, obviously. But there are two things against it. First, the place already has a manager in Stevens, useless arse that he is; for all his School of Mines and Industries Certificate on the wall, he’s more paymaster than manager, and Drummond’s not going to want to replace him with me for any reason. Second, I’m not sure I want the responsibility; a manager should be responsible for answering concerns from the pit, and making decisions about safety and such. Despite the seniority of the work I already do, I’m still the youngest at the face; I’m younger than most of the wheelers; it doesn’t seem right.
Evan says: ‘You wouldn’t be on your own, boyo; we’d work in together. You’d only be in a position to do what your dad always did anyway on fixing and such, except officially, and without breaking your own back; you might even teach the Premier something about it while you’re there.’ Gives me a nudge; the Premier is Holman who for us is not the poncy fat-headed State Labor leader, but the manager’s deputy, and for all that he’s a nice bloke and spends all day underground, no one’s quite sure what it is he does apart from headcounts; gives me a laugh as he says: ‘It makes sense, don’t you think?’
It does, but: ‘Drummond’s not likely to agree.’ And I’m not likely to push the issue. I don’t know how to deal with him; never had to, don’t want to. Evan’s aware of that.
‘We’ll agitate for Stevens to be sacked — and there’s your vacancy.’ Just like that. ‘Well, he’s not exactly competent, is he. He can’t think without Drummond’s say-so. Wouldn’t listen to me a few weeks back with the ventilation, told me to have the men keep on till he came down to check the air himself — meaning that the boss wasn’t about so he could ask him. I wasn’t going to wait for a few more to give way to the lack of it while he was dithering, was I, so I had to ignore him and bring everyone up. What’s the point in him? He’s got no idea. I don’t have to tell you that.’
