by Joy Rhoades
The woman pulled Daisy down into a squat and had Kate kneel in front of her and take her arms, closing her fingers round the girl’s elbows. Daisy leaned a little forwards, her eyes and weight on Kate for support, as Aunty Nance clucked and cajoled.
‘Push em, Daisy! Don’t stop!’ Aunty Nance said and Daisy wailed with effort.
‘Agin, eh. Push liddle bit!’ Aunty Nance coaxed and the girl yelled, Kate knowing the fire of the pain as Daisy’s grip tightened on her hands. At the end of the fourth hour, Kate sensed a change in Aunty Nance, an excitement. With one last groan, Daisy clamped hard on Kate’s arms and clenched her teeth, pushing, a sheen of sweat shiny across her face. Daisy yelled with relief, panting and there was a short wet sound as she pushed the baby free into Aunty Nance’s waiting arms.
Aunty Nance motioned with her head for Kate to lower Daisy onto the ground, while she looked hard at the baby, clucking. Even as Kate worried it was dead a tiny wail emerged, growing stronger. Aunty Nance smiled broadly and she gave the baby, a girl, to Daisy. She lay back, panting, the mewling baby pale in her arms, flickering wet in the firelight.
Aunty Nance rattled about in her dilly bag and produced a piece of sharpened rock, and cut the umbilical cord. She used the same blade to cut Daisy’s dress, two vertical slits in the bodice, then levered each of the breasts through. She massaged the nipples, large and dark, until clear fluid came. Then she motioned to Kate to take the baby from Daisy.
Kate cradled the tiny wet thing, wanting to warm it against the night air. She ran her fingers over its body and to its tiny perfect feet, the soles paler still. Kate had never seen a real newborn. It was much paler than Daisy, but then Daisy was only part Aboriginal, and Ed even less. With Daisy moved nearer the fire, the old woman took the baby from Kate, placing her back in Daisy’s arms, and coaxing the baby to take her mother’s nipple.
Kate sat on the sand by the fire, a few feet from them, awash with relief. The baby was born and Daisy was all right. Daisy had done it the way she herself was born, on country.
As she watched them in the peace of their sleep, Kate wondered what would become of Daisy and her baby. She got up to find another branch to put on the fire. As she pulled it into the coals, a gust rattled the canopy of leaves above her and Kate looked up at a thousand stars planted across the blackness, each perfect and in its rightful place. She felt a sudden physical longing for that rightness, to be like Daisy, connected to the land and the generations before her. She stood and made a tiny wave with her hand – I’m going – but Aunty Nance motioned her over. Smiling, she took Kate’s hands and placed them on the baby. The infant’s skin was warm and damp to her touch.
Kate stroked the tiny thing, patted Daisy’s arm and then gathered her things. As she came over the top of the bank, she heard a voice a few feet ahead of her. She could see little, her eyes used to the light of the fire.
‘Signora.’
Luca. He’d been waiting. His hand found hers. ‘OK?’ he asked.
She swallowed to speak. ‘It’s a girl.’
‘Molto bene. Very good.’ She could see enough now – the truck was ahead of them – but still Luca didn’t let go. He stopped next to the truck and looked at her, turning her arm over in his hand. He ran his fingers from the inside of her elbow to her palm. Then he squeezed her hand and let it go.
After a pause, Kate was able to speak. ‘Where’s Ed?’ She had to tell him he had a daughter.
‘To the town.’
Of course, his baby is born, and he disappears, Kate thought. ‘Vittorio?’
‘He sleep.’ He took her round. Vittorio lay in the back in the truck tray. Luca waggled one of the sleeping man’s boots.
Vittorio stirred and pushed himself up onto his elbows to look at them blearily. ‘Bambino?’
‘Sì, bambino,’ Kate said.
‘Una bambina,’ Luca corrected her. ‘Girl.’
Vittorio laughed and began to chatter. ‘Una bambina. Daisy ha una bellissima bambina.’
Luca fired up the truck engine, the noise loud in the stillness of the night. He moved the truck off slowly, driving up past the camp towards the single men’s quarters and the homestead. Driving at night was like diving into an inkwell, her father had said. She felt entirely at peace with Luca in the darkness.
‘All right, Daisy?’ he asked.
‘I think so.’
He stopped outside the single men’s quarters to drop Vittorio. Kate was grateful Luca would take her home alone. ‘Can you warn him? He can’t tell anyone about the baby. The police will take it if they find out.’
‘Non dire a nessuno di questo bambina,’ Luca said out of the truck window to Vittorio. ‘Se lo scoprono i poliziotti prendono la bambina.’
‘Sì, sì.’ Vittorio disappeared with a yawn into the quarters.
Luca put the vehicle into gear again. ‘Police take the babies?’
‘The baby might be in danger.’
‘Daisy is danger?’ He looked incredulous.
Kate shrugged. ‘That’s what they think.’
‘The Romani,’ Luca said. ‘In Italia, they do with the Gypsies. Take children. Me? I think babies, they stay better, you know?’
Kate looked down at her hands, ashamed. She agreed. No one else seemed to.
Luca pulled the truck up to a stop by the homestead gate. When he switched off the engine, she felt her stomach jump. They sat in silence for a time. Kate was conscious of her hand on the bench seat between them. She wanted him to move his hand to hers.
A spate of raindrops pinged the truck cabin roof. ‘I’d best go in,’ she said. She wanted him to come with her. Still, she said nothing, just pushed open the truck door and climbed down. She walked to the house, neither hurrying nor dawdling, hoping. There was no sound behind her. Inside, she stood against the closed door with her hand on the doorknob, and waited, listening.
CHAPTER 43
The measure of a good woolgrower may best be found in the character of his flock, in the strength of line.
THE WOOLGROWER’S COMPANION, 1906
The next morning when Kate woke, her body ached as if she’d been lambing. She opened her eyes, surprised by the amount of light in her room, and sat up.
Her head was fuzzy with tiredness. She’d had trouble getting to sleep, her thoughts full of Luca. She’d waited for him in the dark of the kitchen until finally she’d heard the truck’s ignition. She wondered how Daisy was, and her beautiful baby.
Mid-morning, she saw the Amiens truck trundle by, empty but for Ed at the wheel. She ran into the garden and flagged him down, to congratulate him.
She went out the gate and looked up at him in the driver’s seat, as he leaned on the window, the engine idling.
‘You should be so proud, Ed! Of your baby.’
Ed’s surprise shook Kate.
‘You didn’t know?’
He looked perplexed.
‘She’s beautiful. And Daisy was tough as nails.’
Ed swallowed hard. He turned the ignition off, and opened the truck door to climb down next to her.
‘I think we better go in, Mrs D,’ he said.
‘What?’
He went ahead, and she could not understand it. Was he mad? Going into the homestead? But she followed into the kitchen.
‘What’s all this, Ed? Babies are born every day. You’ll be all right.’
He seemed to have something unpalatable to say. He inhaled and looked at his boots. ‘It’s not mine, Mrs D, that baby.’
‘What?’ The kitchen grew small. Ed shook his head, pulled out a chair and motioned her to sit. He cleared his throat. ‘The baby’s not my kin. It’s yours.’
Kate felt a physical pain in her chest. Somewhere off by the shed, a dog barked, and she heard her own shallow breaths, loud in the kitchen.
‘You people got any grog in the place?’ he said.
Grog. Always grog. Kate looked towards the dining room. Ed was soon back with her father’s brandy. He took the tea cup off the sink, poured and pushed
the cup across the table towards her. ‘Drink it.’
She reached for the cup with shaking hands.
‘C’mon. One go.’
She gulped, trying to swallow it like cod liver oil, and got half of it down but coughed, the spirit burning her throat.
‘Did. Does Jack —?’ she managed to say.
‘Jack?’ Ed said, shocked. ‘It weren’t Jack. It were ya father.’
Kate gasped, staring; she could not believe him.
Ed shook his head, frowning. ‘Why’d ya think Aunty Nance ’n’ Dais let yez down there, eh? Like it or not, that baby’s y’sister.’
He poured her another tot of the brandy, put the bottle on the metal of the kitchen sink and left her.
Hardly was he gone, that Kate got angry. She threw the brandy into the sink. Why would he say such a terrible thing? Ed was lying. He had to be. Her father would never do that. Have relations with an Aboriginal girl? Rape her? Ed must be mad. Kate gulped in a cry.
Her father? It was true he’d been less and less himself, especially towards the end. But this? Bastard. How dare Ed? After all her father had done for him …
She thought of the times she’d seen her father and Daisy together. There weren’t so many that she remembered: Daisy had made herself scarce when Kate’s father was around. She seemed almost … afraid of him. Kate gasped. The bruises. The bruises on Kate’s arms. And on Daisy’s.
No, Kate could not believe her father capable of it. Daisy was afraid of her father, yes, nothing more – she was afraid of a lot of people, men in particular. Daisy was shy, that was it. But then … Kate thought of her father’s odd comment that morning in the kitchen, the day after the POWs arrived. He’d been encouraging Daisy to eat more. What had he said? A man likes something to hold on to. Kate drew her breath in. He couldn’t have meant … He couldn’t.
Kate stared unseeing into space. Daisy was only fourteen, a child. She thought of her after Kate’s Sydney trip, Daisy sitting at the kitchen table, weeping silently, refusing to tell Kate what had happened, her wrists a map of bruises. Kate hid her face in her hands. Jesus.
She sat for a long time, unable to take it in. Her father had raped Daisy. Raped her. She closed her eyes, trying to block out the image of his attack, or attacks, on poor Daisy. She got up, and looked about blankly. She put the kettle on the stove. Had he always done this? Was Daisy one of many? God almighty. A sound penetrated the fog of Kate’s head. A noise. A whistle. It was the kettle, the kettle boiling. She lifted it off, making tea she would not taste, even if she could bring herself to drink it. Now, this baby. Her father’s child, evidence of his violence, embodiment of it. Her mother’s heart would have broken.
Nonetheless, this baby was Kate’s sister. She put her head in her hands again. How she’d wished for a little sister or brother when she was small. And now she had a sister. A black sister. Kate shook her head. And what about the Board? The Aboriginal Welfare Board was strict; half-caste children, especially fair babies like this one, were put up for adoption to be raised as whites, far away from the mothers. At least on Amiens, Daisy and the baby could hide for a few days or weeks until perhaps they could go to Daisy’s family out west. Now their safety mattered even more. God forbid that Daisy thought Kate knew. Kate hoped they were all right, mother and baby, and she wanted to see them both. But she must let Daisy decide if she wanted that. Kate would talk to Ed.
Late that day, Kate was relieved to see Luca come in through the gate to work in the garden. She’d been waiting for him, wanting to talk. But oddly, now that he was there, she was at a loss as to where to begin. She shovelled out a garden bed border instead, with intensity.
Luca watched her for a bit then he spoke. ‘Signora?’ he asked softly. ‘What is this?’
‘This? The garden bed.’
‘No. Your trouble. What is this?’
‘Luca. I can’t tell you. Really. There’s too much.’
‘Signora, say me. You say me everything. We have this time.’
As he gently dug in front of her, she spoke, putting into words things she’d never dreamed she’d need to say. That she was so very ashamed of her father, and of what he’d done to Daisy. That she feared what might happen to Daisy and the baby. Kate’s sister. That she still worried for Amiens, for the men who worked on it. Even if they managed to make it pay, the drought might break them yet.
Luca listened, digging. She knew he would not understand it all. But he seemed to know it helped to unburden herself to him. He gave her solace.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘For listening.’
Luca straightened up, and leaned across to pat her hand. She felt the warmth of his touch.
‘Non è un problema, Signora,’ he said. The Amiens truck appeared, coming round from the men’s quarters. Ed braked to a stop, got himself down from the cabin and limped across to them. ‘Afternoon,’ he said, leaning his big arms on the top rail of the fence.
‘Aunty Nance still there?’ Kate asked.
‘I’ll givera lift into town tonight, eh.’
Kate brushed the dirt off her holey gloves. ‘Can you get her some rations too, as a thank you?’
‘Orright.’
‘Where’s Daisy?’ Kate said, not game enough yet to ask to see them.
‘She’s still down the creek.’
‘She’s not going to try for Broken Hill yet, is she? To get back to her family?’
‘Nuh. The cops’d pick her up on the way for sure.’
Kate was conscious of Luca behind her. ‘Do you think … do you think she might stay on Amiens? If I asked? I mean, for now.’
Ed nodded slowly. ‘She’ll wanna hear it straight from you, eh, Mrs D.’
‘All right. What about the manager’s cottage? That’s empty. It’s still got a bit of our furniture, though – there’s enough there for her to be comfortable.’
‘You two betta talk first, eh.’
‘What’s the baby’s name?’ Kate asked.
‘Dunno. I’ll bring em here.’
‘Ed,’ she called after him. ‘I … I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I thought …’
He shook his head, dismissive. ‘Ya reckon I done it, Mrs D? Why ya think that, eh?’
She had no reply. She knew she’d misjudged Ed, just as she’d misjudged Luca, months before.
At dusk, as the swallows and bats swooped in the half-light, Ed returned in the truck with Daisy and the baby. Kate took a deep breath and went to the fence. Luca took the baby from Daisy like a man handling china; his face was alight with pleasure, and Kate felt a pang of sadness to see it. He held out the baby over the fence to Kate but she shook her head. She couldn’t hold this child, not yet, not with the images of Daisy and her father that she could not get out of her mind.
Luca cuddled the child once more but the move had startled the baby, and her eyes grew large. For a second, to Kate’s shock, the baby had a fleeting look of her own father. His eyes? Something.
The baby whimpered. ‘Bambina,’ Luca cooed to her, ‘bella bambina.’ He put his hand above the palm of the baby, and smiled when two tiny fingers closed around his. Kate blanched, forcing another image of her father with Daisy out of her head.
Daisy came to them and took the baby but the whimpering went on. Ed and Luca retreated to the far side of the truck. The breeze ruffled Daisy’s hair. Kate remembered pushing a curl away behind an ear, down the creek when she was in labour. Now the girl looked intermittently exhausted, afraid and angry, her full breasts pressing against her shift dress. It was not even a year before that Daisy had arrived on Amiens, aged fourteen. Now she was a mother, a child-mother, and that by rape.
She rocked the whimpering baby, her eyes watchful. Kate knew Daisy didn’t want to be beholden to her, and, in some way, Kate didn’t want them on Amiens, a living reminder of her father’s violence.
Her eyes still on Kate, Daisy clucked at the baby, yet the whimpering went on. ‘You gunna tek her, Missus? Grow her?’ she asked.
Her words st
artled Kate and she froze. She knew what that meant, knew what it must cost Daisy to say it.
‘S’orright, Missus,’ Daisy said, her eyes narrow, fearful.
Kate dropped her head, feeling the weight of her own failings. Daisy, at fifteen, was brave enough to give her baby to Kate to save her from being adopted. But Kate herself could not decide. She did not know if she had the courage to take on this child, to raise a half-caste when no one did such things. And then she caught herself. Child? Half-caste? Whatever she called her, this baby was her sister.
‘You gunna, Missus? You gunna tek her?’
‘I’m so sorry.’ Kate swallowed, ashamed. ‘I don’t know.’ She looked at the baby. ‘Will you – can you – can you stay here on Amiens? For now?’
Daisy didn’t move, not a yes or a no, just a sway to quieten the baby.
‘What’s her name?’ Kate asked.
‘Pearl, Missus,’ Daisy said. ‘If ya like.’
Kate smiled. ‘Pearl is lovely. Perfect for her,’ she said.
Daisy nodded.
‘Ed could take you and Pearl to the manager’s cottage for a few days. If you wanted.’
Daisy was still, her face wary. Kate guessed she might have preferred to be with her, in the homestead, for company and for familiarity. While Kate could not bring herself to do that, not yet, she didn’t want Daisy to go. And the girl had guts. She just might set off for Broken Hill, no matter the risks.
‘Please stay. Please.’
Pearl decided it for them. She started to cry again, and she would not be placated this time. Daisy went to the truck where Ed was waiting.
Luca came inside the fence and stood with Kate to watch the truck go off towards the manager’s cottage. ‘Good,’ he said to Kate. ‘This is good.’ Back to work, he picked up his hoe, swinging it in an easy arc in the air, stopping only to wipe sweat from the bridge of his nose.
‘It’s only for now,’ Kate warned. It would not be long before someone got wind that Daisy and the baby were there. And then the police would come, the baby would be adopted out, and the Aboriginal Welfare Board would place Daisy on another property, far away, indentured again. God almighty. Kate could not bear to think of it, just as she could not see how to stop it.
