The Woolgrower's Companion

by Joy Rhoades

  Meg caught her eye and gave her a quick grin, her gap showing, with a gentle, curious look: Go on, then.

  Kate inhaled, and the sound broadcast her fear across the church. Her eyes went to a stripe of colour behind the last row of pews, to Luca and Vittorio in their plum POW uniforms. They stood against the wall between Captain Rook and Corporal Oil. Even Harry had come. Next to Grimes, he fidgeted, scratching a scab on his knee.

  Pale eyes found her. Luca. His presence gave her strength. Kate swallowed and unfolded her pages.

  ‘My father —’ Her voice was soft, lost in the church full of people.

  ‘Speak up,’ Jack said conversationally, as if it were just the two of them in the church.

  ‘My father,’ she said again. ‘He came to the district as a young man, a soldier settler. He worked hard. He loved his land and he took care of it. He was proud of Amiens and its wool. There was a time when he could tell you the clip for every property between here and Tamworth for this year and the year before and the year before that.

  ‘That … that was before he was sick. He was sick for a while. His wounds from the First War gave more and more trouble as he got older. Some of you – many of you – knew or guessed and you helped us in these last years and months, and even now, in all sorts of ways. I didn’t thank you. I was, I was too proud to say he was sick, but I am grateful for every kindness and understanding. I’m sorry for the way he was sometimes and I want to thank you now, thank you for your help.’

  Kate dropped her hand with the pages by her side, and her eyes followed it down. In the silent church she went back to her pew to sit between Jack and Mr Nettiford. Jack frowned.

  ‘All rise.’ The reverend’s tone was thick with disapproval too. ‘Please join me now in the Lord’s Prayer.’ The congregation stood promptly, relieved it was over. Jack, Grimes, Ted Tuite and his son Kevin moved forwards to lift the coffin onto their shoulders. The reverend followed the pallbearers, the long fingers of his hands intertwined in front of his paunch. He motioned to Mr Nettiford as he passed, and the little round church elder stood, offering Kate his arm. The aisle was much longer than she remembered, a sea of faces on both sides. She dared not look people in the eye, in case she cried.

  On the steps outside, Kate loosened her arm from Mr Nettiford’s and watched, in a fog, as the pallbearers moved the coffin into the back of the Tuites’ ute and tied it down. Ted Tuite and Kevin rocked the coffin gently, making sure it was secure.

  The trip through town was mercifully slow, Jack driving the truck behind the Tuites’ ute and then the funeral procession making its way behind them to Amiens.

  Jack glanced across at her and shook his head. ‘What happened to no apologies, like I said?’

  Kate looked down at her hands, and inhaled, too tired to explain. ‘Sorry,’ she said. Jack was an odd mix. Their name was important to him and he was proud of Amiens. But he didn’t see that to the good families her father would always be a soldier settler. Even Jack himself was a ring-in. He’d only been in the district five minutes. And he caroused with the likes of Tony Biggs, a publican, someone the good families would never have anything to do with.

  ‘And them bloody Eye-ties in the congregation? I was surprised you didn’t get Johnno and Spinks and all the blacks in there too, eh? Jesus, Kate. Lucky we’re bloody getting out of town.’ Jack shook his head again, frowning. They stayed in that unhappy silence.

  It was the Amiens dogs that woke her, barking as they ran about the truck. Kate sat up and Jack pulled the truck to a stop by the house gate. As she reached for her car door, it swung open. Luca. He smiled at her, and she drank him in, so glad he was with her. Jack muttered something, shaking his head.

  ‘Can you show people the track to the cemetery?’ Kate asked Luca, wanting to get him away from Jack. She realised she was protective. ‘Run on ahead?’

  ‘Aw, he can run orright. Eye-ties are bloody good at running.’

  His face set, head back, Luca stopped and turned to Jack. But he’d slammed the truck door and was gone. The first of the mourners’ cars and trucks came up out of the gully and Kate searched to find the gumption to welcome them.

  Only Kate, Jack and Reverend Popliss fitted inside the little cemetery. The mourners fanned out beyond the iron fence, where the pasture had been mowed. The smell of cut grass in her nostrils, Kate glanced at the visitors. Perhaps much is forgiven in death, she thought, looking at Mr Babbin, the stock and station agent. But Mr Babbin was a businessman. He’d still want to be paid.

  She stood back, watching the men lay the coffin next to her mother’s grave.

  ‘Move closer, dear,’ Reverend Popliss instructed and Kate did as she was told, stepping forwards to stand by Jack, only a foot or so from the edge. She couldn’t look down into that hole, keeping her eyes instead on the coffin.

  A gust stroked her back, and she hoped there might be a few drops in the scuddy clouds. She even thought she could smell rain, which would be a proper send-off for her father. Her dear father. The men lowered the coffin into the ground. It would take some time for the earth to do its work, to rot the box and have it collapse about him and embrace his remains. He loved that country. From there, you could see most of Amiens, its paddocks all the way to the State Forest and Mount Perseverance. He’d always be there. Even if she lost the place.

  She felt Jack touch her arm.

  ‘The dirt. He needs a bit of dirt,’ Jack said softly. Kate stepped round the hole to take up a handful from the pile by the grave, throwing it in towards the side, not wanting it to land on the coffin itself. Some raindrops spattered the mourners, but only for a second. Kate stepped back and Jack offered her his arm again. The Tuites would begin the long task of enclosing her father’s body in the earth.

  CHAPTER 34

  A flock is averse to movement towards dogs or men, so judicious attention to placement of hands will greatly benefit the prudent woolgrower.

  THE WOOLGROWER’S COMPANION, 1906

  After the burial, the mourners spread into the homestead garden and Kate went towards the house. The food – scones, pikelets, sponges and sandwiches – was laid out on tables on the verandah. Vittorio had been up at first light, making the sandwiches at the quarters on the quiet. He’d made the scones, too, with Daisy’s recipe. Daisy’s mother’s recipe, she corrected herself with a pang. Vittorio was off now with the other POWs, out by the trucks. Kate had help, though, with the tea things, volunteered by the Yorkes, and some other ladies. She heard voices in the kitchen as she went up the verandah steps.

  ‘John can’t see how she can carry on now,’ Elizabeth Fleming was saying.

  ‘None of our damn —’ Meg stopped when she saw Kate through the gauze. ‘Hullo, Kate darling. I was just telling Elizabeth …’ She paused, her face set. The other woman froze, eyes wide, and Mary Yorke, washing up at the sink, paused too.

  ‘I was just telling Elizabeth we should get you a cup of tea. Yes?’

  Kate shook her head, grateful to Meg for sticking up for her.

  ‘Afternoon, Mrs D.’ Tony Biggs banged on the gauze door, a cigarette in his lips. He didn’t take it out to speak. ‘Where’d you want the keg?’

  ‘Could you ask Jack?’

  He grinned. ‘I reckon between us we’ll know where to put some beer.’

  Mary and Meg replaced Biggs at the door, carrying plates of patty cakes. Meg looked at Kate intently, perhaps afraid she might cry. But it was odd: close as Kate was to crying, she couldn’t, not really, not yet. She hoped she didn’t see Luca for a bit. She might cry then.

  By the middle of the afternoon, the wake was going well, as if it mattered. Her father didn’t give two hoots for this sort of thing. They’re just here for the keg, he’d have said.

  With Meg and Mary in the kitchen, Kate took a plate of Vittorio’s sandwiches to the garden. As luck would have it, Mr Addison had just arrived and was walking across the lawn alone. She intercepted him. She had to; she might not get another chance. ‘Curried egg?
Peppery though. It has shallots in it.’ She didn’t tell him who’d made the sandwiches.

  Addison took one. ‘I’m sorry about your father.’

  ‘Thank you, Alwyn. I’m so grateful for your help. The district is lucky to have you.’

  ‘I do what I can,’ he said, uncomfortable.

  ‘It’s a difficult time.’ She reached out to rest her spare hand on his arm, forcing herself to make it stay there. ‘But we shear in late November and the wool cheque will come in December.’

  ‘What’s that?’ He seemed surprised.

  Kate hated it, but made herself leave her hand on his arm. It felt bony through the shirt cloth. ‘If you … If the bank could hold off until then. I mean hold off until December …’

  He took her hand in his, to any onlooker simply a kindly bank manager consoling a grieving customer. But then he put his other hand on top of hers, capturing her fingers within his, and she felt the pressure of his fingers stroking her palm, cold on her skin. His voice was low. ‘I can help you, you know, Kate. If you’d allow me.’

  Involuntarily, she snatched her hand away, horror on her face.

  He flushed red, and flicked his eyes about to see if anyone had witnessed his humiliation. When he spoke, it was with such intensity, she was afraid. ‘You will regret that,’ he said.

  ‘No, no. I didn’t mean … But I know what Dad spent the money on … the overdraft money.’ The words tumbled out, disjointed, overwrought, as she tried to regain his trust. ‘I’ve found a receipt … for a sapphire my father bought. I’m – I’m sure I’ll find the stone itself soon too. It’s very valuable. It’s —’

  ‘Forget it, Mrs Dowd, I shall do you no more favours.’ They were interrupted by the Rileys, Bill trailing his wife. The big woman took a sandwich from Kate, and smiled at their frozen faces. ‘Do you think there might be some rain in that?’ She looked towards a small bank of cloud on the horizon to the west. ‘Let’s hope so,’ she said, answering her own question. ‘Some other good news instead. You know we’re sponsoring our POW, Giacomo, Mr Addison? To come back, after the war. He’ll work for us for two years, but we hope he’ll stay for good. He’s like family, now. Will yours come back, Kate?’

  Kate’s head was pounding from Addison’s venom, and she knew Luca would never return to Australia. She left the Rileys with Addison and went to Captain Rook and Corporal Oil on the far side of the lawn.

  ‘Mrs Dowd, the POWs are off soon,’ the captain said. ‘Being repatriated. Not the one serving time for fraternisation, of course, but all the rest. You’ll hear officially, shortly.’

  It took Kate a second to realise that her mouth was open. She closed it, and felt her pulse banging in her head. Luca. She would lose Luca. What could she do to stop it? She caught herself. This was ridiculous, crazy thinking. Still, she wanted him to stay.

  ‘October. The 15th for this district, they reckon,’ he said.

  She left Oil and went back to the kitchen, confused by her fear of losing Luca.

  ‘Hullo.’

  Kate looked up, startled from her thoughts.

  Emma Wright, alone in the kitchen, was drying up. ‘Meg says she’ll take that tray out to the Italians.’ She pointed with the tea towel at a small tray of buttered scones.

  ‘I’ll go. Thanks for coming today, Emma. And, well.’ She looked out through the gauze door towards Addison, still with the Rileys on the lawn. ‘Thanks for everything.’

  ‘No worries. But I need to speak to you on the quiet about the will. Your father’s will.’

  Kate shook her head. ‘I’m stupid. I hadn’t even thought about a will.’

  ‘We have it at the bank.’

  ‘Does everything go to Jack and me?’

  ‘No,’ Emma said. ‘Your dad must have done it not long before you got married. He was clever. Joint tenants for everything.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means you owned the lot as soon as your dad died.’

  ‘You mean now?’

  ‘Right now. No need for paper or forms or transfers.’

  Kate heaved a sigh of relief. At least Jack wasn’t an owner with her, yet. ‘But that really means I own a whole lot of mortgage?’

  Emma smiled. ‘Yes. And you know what? The galah Addison’s locked the drawer, the one with the Amiens file in it, so I can’t see it now. And I see he’s mad as a hornet with you today, looking daggers across the lawn. What happened when you talked to him?’

  ‘He stroked my hand. So I flicked him off, like it was a spider.’

  ‘Ooof,’ Emma said. She set a dried cup down on the table and picked up the next from the sink. ‘So it’ll be the 12th of October for sure, if not sooner. Don’t go away, will you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If you leave the district, even for a few days, he’ll enforce – take possession – before the notices. He’ll argue you’ve abandoned Amiens. So be sure you’re out and about in plain sight. No hiding away either.’

  Kate smiled sadly. ‘Dad used to say that was the best place to hide. In plain sight.’

  ‘Well, no hiding now. We want to see lots of you – but not with me! Addison doesn’t want me talking to you. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. You’re a treasure, you are.’

  ‘Just be prepared. You’ll get a special notice now – notice of default proceedings and so on. It’ll come in the post. And then there’ll be another one. Addison will deliver that one in person with Wingnut as bailiff.’

  Kate exhaled. ‘I’d better get these scones to the Italians.’ She shut the mortgage out of her head, locked it away, just as Addison had done with the file drawer. There was only so much she could cope with that day. Then she pushed the gauze door open with her back and manoeuvred the tray of scones around it to go out towards the POWs. She could see Harry was with them. Luca was yarning with the Riley POW, his mate Giacomo. Both northerners, apparently.

  Luca walked to the fence to swing the gate open for her, nodding in greeting at her. She smiled her thanks, glad just to be near him and that he’d been at the funeral when she spoke. She took the tray on to the three POWs, all smoking, by the trucks. Vittorio let out a masculine laugh, the kind that only comes at the end of a dirty joke. Kate frowned. Harry was hearing whatever that was. He came to her and snatched a scone.

  ‘Thank you,’ Kate said for him. She held out the plate of scones to the POWs.

  ‘Condoglianze a lei, Signora,’ Vittorio said, taking a scone with one hand. ‘Sorry for you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Kate said and looked away. Off beyond the meat shed, a dog barked. It sounded like Puck, unhappy to be tied up.

  Giacomo took a scone and held it up to Kate. ‘Grazie, Signora.’

  ‘Prego,’ she said.

  ‘Prego? Signora! Prego? Brava!’ Vittorio applauded, smiling round the cigarette held in his lips. Kate was glad he seemed on the up-and-up. He might already know. ‘Have you heard? You’re to leave, start the journey home,’ she said to the POWs, her eyes on Luca.

  But it was Giacomo who replied. ‘Me, I come back, Missus.’ He grinned proudly. ‘Mrs Riley she do for this. Sì. I work then. Here.’ He pointed to the ground.

  ‘We all need the hands, that’s for sure.’

  ‘They come back? These boys, eh?’ Giacomo grinned, slapping Luca hard on the back.

  Both Luca and Vittorio shook their heads, Vittorio with a stream of Italian which Kate took from the tone to mean that he would rather burn in hell. Kate avoided Luca’s eye and went back to the house, trying not to think of the three weeks she had left with him. And that assumed the bank had not forced her off Amiens even before then.

  By five o’clock that evening, all the visitors were gone and Ed had long since chivvied Luca and Vittorio back to the paddocks for lambing. Kate had changed and was in the vegetable garden, more to occupy herself than anything, waiting for Jack. As she weeded, the men’s voices floated down from the verandah. Only Tony Biggs remained. Untroubled that Jack had so l
ittle time left at home, he had taken up residence in one of the squatter’s chairs on the front verandah. Jack was in the other. Kate could see their legs and booted feet extended on the long footrests, and the smell of their cigarettes carried to her from time to time.

  She worked her way along the trellis of beans, trying not to resent Tony Biggs, but failing, and hoped she couldn’t be seen by the men. Be seen, Emma said. Hide, said her head. Plain sight, said her father. It all jumbled together in a whirl of grief and weariness. And there was no Luca today in the garden – out of respect for her grief, no doubt. It was probably just as well; he and Jack were combustible.

  A movement just outside the garden fence caught her eye. It was the bowerbird, active now that the sun was low. He picked along, a small pebble in his beak. As he turned, the sun caught the stone and reflected with a glint.

  Kate jumped into the garden bed so fast she frightened the bird. It fluttered into the air and hopped away as she fell on her knees by the bower. Oblivious to spiders and snakes, Kate rifled through the jumble of pebbles, rocks, shells and bits of glass.

  She stopped, very still, then leaned forwards, brushing dirt and dead leaves away from a creamy stone in the middle of the bower. She picked it up, her eyes fixed on it: a rounded yellowish stone, like a piece of glass smoothed by the sea. She gasped as the sun lit it up, even through the dirt and dust.

  ‘You orright, Kate? You in the garden?’ Jack’s voice came down from the verandah.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, but her voice was strangled. ‘Yes,’ she called, more clearly. Breathless, she ran from the trees to Jack and Biggs on the verandah.

  Biggs nodded at Kate and climbed out of the squatter’s chair. ‘Goin to splash me boots,’ he said.

  ‘Jack —’ Kate started.