Jessica

by Bryce Courtenay

  Jessica remembers how, when she was little and Joe killed a snake or a fox, or some other vermin, mostly rabbits, he’d call it a shotgun feed. ‘Everything lives off everything else, girlie. That’s the way of the world. It’s you or them. It’s damned hard work getting enough tucker to feed your family.’ He grinned and then continued, ‘So I give mother nature a bit of a helping hand, see, give ‘em a shotgun feed every once in a while and I reckon, in their own way, they’re grateful to me.’

  ‘Not if you’re the free feed!’ Jessica remembers replying, pleased that she’d made her father laugh.

  Joe’s made regular attempts to tell Jessica about the dog-eat-dog world she lives in, to prepare her for a life which he describes as ‘a bloody nightmare most of the time’. She isn’t too worried, though, despite his dire warnings. Joe has trained her well, teaching her everything he knows. Isn’t that how things are measured? You can or you can’t. If you can’t you’re a useless bastard. If you can, you’ll just about do. That’s how men judge things. You have to be their equal. Men always look to see if you’re their equal. The only thing they fear is if you are better than they are. On the other hand, in her experience, nobody thinks you’re much chop if you’re the equal of any other woman.

  But Jessica thinks she can see why life is tough for these men, for Joe. Her father is stubborn and set in his ways and she’s beginning to think the mighty Joe Bergman might not be a very good farmer. He is seldom willing to listen to advice and always knows better than the experts. Mind you, that goes for most of the blokes who farm land settlements in the Riverina. Men in the bush are so busy playing at being God, at having dominion over all they see and touch, that they never listen to the natural voice of the land. Or anyone else’s voice, fur that matter.

  The government agricultural officer gives talks up at the experimental station about soil erosion and the need to keep hedges of box-leaf wattle or desert cassia as windbreaks on the margins of the paddocks and to leave some mulga scrub for the wildlife and to fertilise the soil. He talks about crop rotation and water conservation and other things Jessica thinks Joe ought to know about.

  ‘It’s cattle and sheep with us, girlie. Land was always here, always will be. Don’t need to bother yer head with them things,’ Joe says stubbornly.

  Jessica goes with Jack Thomas and some of the young blokes with half a brain in their heads to listen to the lectures. Now she’s beginning to think there might be other, better ways of treating the land and using the river than just waging constant war against it, stripping it bare, ripping open its guts, hoping like hell the rains will come in time to save the winter wheat or the paddock of oats. But still Joe says those government bastards wouldn’t know how to grow a cabbage in a bucket full of wet cow shit.

  Jack Thomas has talked to her about irrigation, about the big canal at Yanco they’ve built that’s going to change everything in the Riverina.

  ‘Imagine, Jessie,’ Jack says, his blue eyes lighting up his sun-hardened face, ‘you’re no longer dependent on the rain that never bloody comes. The soil’s good, we know that from the land below the river — give it water and the desert blooms.’

  Jessica likes that, the idea of the desert blooming, the black soil plains green as far as the eye can see. If Meg manages to snare Jack Thomas she’ll have a good one, all right. Pity Jessica can’t warn him about her cow-faced sister.

  Jessica turns to take a last look back towards the deserted river bank. A soft haze of grey river dust still hangs in the air where the snakes danced. The orchestra of fowl and insect is back, the birds squabbling away in the river gums, each one trying to have the last word, using up the last rays of the sun to drive home their noisy arguments before darkness comes.

  Jessica swings the shotgun up, holding it halfway down the barrel so that the weight of the stock rests on her good shoulder, and continues her walk home in the approaching dark, happy because there’s no hurry tonight. No tea to endure with Hester and Meg looking on sour-faced and disapproving as she and Joe scoff down their dinner, too exhausted to talk. ‘Like pigs in a trough, those two!’ Her mother says it so often that Joe now faithfully responds, ‘Oink, oink!’

  Hester’s Auntie Agnes died recently, and Joe has taken Hester and Meg into Whitton for the reading of her last will and testament. Jessica doesn’t expect them back for four days. Hester hopes to benefit in terms of two Irish linen tablecloths and a few pieces of silver, this booty comprising Auntie Agnes’s famous silver tea service which, Hester declares, will be the centrepiece of Meg’s glory box when she marries young Jack.

  Jessica laughs to herself. She’s been mates with Jack for four years now, and all this time Hester and Meg have been plotting the marriage. She can’t really see that they’re any closer to it, though, tea set or no tea set.

  Jessica first became friends with Jack Thomas at the age of fourteen, when Joe took her to Riverview Station at the start of the shearing season in early July of 1910.

  Most of the small settlers who can manage the work head for the shearing shed at Riverview during the season. George Thomas’s big sheep station carries eleven thousand merinos not counting the two thousand lambs towards the end of the season and the burly squatter takes on fourteen shearers to do the job. He’ll give every local man who applies an hour without pay on the shearing board, each going full swing, to see if he’s up to the tally the foreman’s set for the season.

  George Thomas doesn’t believe in charity and if a local man can’t reach a daily tally expected from a top contract shearer he’s weeded out and sent packing. It’s a popular laugh that by the end of the local trials Thomas has a couple of days’ worth of free shearing to his credit. George Thomas has never been known to do anything where there wasn’t a solid quid in it for him. Joe’s taken young Jessica along with him to the cut, hoping that Mike Malloy the foreman will accept her to be trained as a rouseabout. If she gets the work, it’s another income they’ll be able to rely upon for eight weeks every year.

  The start of the shearing season is always an anxious time for the small farmers who depend on those two months in the big shed to get them through. If George Thomas throws one of them out it’ll mean a lean year for the family. Joe’s never missed the cut, even though he is a good bit older than most of the local men. Now he’s depending on his past record to persuade Mike Malloy to take Jessica on as a tar boy and sweeper, the first job a boy learns coming into a big shed.

  Even though it was four years ago, Jessica can still recall almost everything about that first day. Big, tough old Joe, trying to look at ease, his taut muscles and awkward stance giving away how tense he was, how much he wanted her to succeed, but without him having to beg to get her the job. Standing in front of them was the foreman, a hard-looking man, though a little soft in the stomach and with a complexion scarred from childhood smallpox. His cheeks look purple and pink and raw and sore as he frowns slightly, listening to what Joe has to say. Then his first words: ‘Joe, I dunno, mate, it’s pretty unusual.’ Rubbing the side of his nose with his forefinger, ‘Shearin’ shed ain’t no place for a young girl, the men swearing an’ all.’

  Joe gives a little nervous laugh, at the same time wiping the palms of his sweaty hands down the side of his moleskins. ‘Won’t be nothing she ain’t heard from her old man.’

  The foreman scratches his forehead just under the rim of his hat. ‘It ain’t just her, the men ain’t gunna feel, y’know, free to express themselves. Jeez mate, I dun no,’ he repeats and then glances down at Jessica. ‘She ain’t too big neither.’

  Joe pushes Jessica forward. ‘She’s just a brat yet. She can start as a tar boy, learn the trade. Don’t need size for that, do you? She don’t look no different to a boy and I’ll wager she’ll work harder than all of them little buggers.’

  ‘Yeah, but—’

  ‘Mr Malloy, what with the Wolseley engine and the wool press, there’s such a racket going o
n she won’t hear a flaming word unless they cup their hands and shout it down her earhole. It’s just noise in there. If she does a good job they’ll soon enough forget she’s a girl and if she don’t measure up she’ll get the flick same as anyone else.’ Jessica can sense Joe trying to keep calm, trying not to plead with the foreman. ‘Just give the girlie a chance to prove herself, Mr Malloy.’Mike Malloy looks at Joe. ‘Mate, I’d like to, we’ve worked together a long time, but I don’t think it’s within me authority t’hire a sheila. I’ll need to ask Mr Thomas.’ He frowns, thinking of something else. ‘What about when she’s taking her dinner with the men?’

  ‘She’ll manage, Mr Malloy, she’ll be sitting right next to her daddy.’

  The foreman laughs — it’s a fair enough answer. Joe Bergman is still a big man and has earned a lot of respect with his fists in the past. There’s not too many in the shed will truck with him even now he’s getting to be an old bastard. Mike Malloy sighs. ‘I’ll speak to the owner, Joe. That’s all I can promise. Fair enough?’

  Joe nods, though he’s not too happy. Jessica knows that he didn’t want to involve George Thomas.

  They are kept waiting outside the tally clerk’s office for two hours before the owner finally appears, Mike Malloy beside him. George Thomas is a smallish barrel of a man with a big gut and a very red face, and even with him wearing a hat you know he must be bald on top. He’s dressed up to the nines, wearing riding boots, jodhpurs, a tweed jacket and tie. Jessica wonders if he’s off to a meeting or the races or something until Joe tells her later that’s how owners dress in the shearing season. ‘This your girl, Joe?’ he asks, pointing a stubby finger at Jessica.

  Joe touches the brim of his hat, too proud to lift it off his head altogether. ‘Afternoon Mr Thomas, sir,’ he says and puts his big hand on Jessica’s shoulder. ‘Jessica, this is Mr Thomas.’

  George Thomas grunts, ignoring the greeting. ‘This isn’t girl’s work, Joe.’ He turns to Jessica. ‘What do you know about sheep, eh?’

  Jessica keeps her eyes on her boots, and answers shyly, ‘A bit, sir.’

  ‘A bit? A bit isn’t enough, lass. Can you shear?’ It’s a cruel question, Jessica is plainly too small to handle a fully grown ewe. ‘If it’s a lamb, sir,’ she replies, looking up at George Thomas for the first time.

  ‘Hmm. Can you crutch? Tar? Sweep? Pick up and throw a fleece?’

  ‘The first three, sir. I reckon I’ll be able to do the other when I’ve grow’d a bit and they’ve learned me.’ Jessica holds George Thomas’s eyes for a moment then looks down at her boots again. ‘She’s a good worker,’ Joe mumbles.

  ‘She’s a cheeky young bugger,’ the boss of Riverview Station replies. ‘Got all the answers. If you ask me, she’s too clever for her own good.’

  Joe stiffens, not knowing how to take the remark, but Thomas doesn’t seem to notice. ‘Joe Bergman, you’ve been shearing in my shed for fifteen years and I’ve no quarrel with your work. I know you haven’t a boy of your own to help, but .. .’

  Joe cuts in quickly, ‘I wouldn’t take a boy in her place, sir. The girl’s a damn sight better than any lad her age.’

  George Thomas is unimpressed. He’s not the sort to take notice of other folks’ opinions. ‘It’s putting temptation in the way of the men, I don’t like it.’Joe looks surprised — the idea that Jessica might be a temptation to men hasn’t entered his head. ‘I’ll be in the shed meself, Mr Thomas, keeping a sharp eye on her.’ ‘Hummph!’ George Thomas thinks a moment and then seems to make up his mind. ‘We’ll put her in with Jack and young William Simon, it’s their first full season on the shears.’

  Joe smiles. ‘She’ll do you proud, sir.’

  The owner of Riverview now turns to Jessica. ‘You’ll be the tar boy and sweep for the two lads. Jack’s my son and he’ll probably make a mess of things, always does, but young Billy’s a good boy and he’ll teach you or throw you out, one or the other, I don’t much care which. I hope you know what you’re doing, Joe,’ he says, prodding him in the chest with his forefinger. ‘She’ll get no special treatment, mind.’

  ‘Don’t expect none, do we, Jessie?’ Joe says, gripping her shoulder and trying to hide his pleasure.

  ‘Well, there’s one you’ll get right off, girl. You’ll take your dinner at the big house with my girls, though I don’t know that it’s much of a favour at that.’ He turns to Joe. ‘I don’t want her eating with the men in the shearers’ quarters.’

  ‘There’s no need, Mr Thomas, we couldn’t put your missus out. She can sit with me, we’ll bring our own tucker,’ Joe protests.

  ‘Like hell you will, Joe. The shearing shed’s one thing, the shearers’ quarters another. I don’t want her eating there, it’ll make the men jumpy.’

  ‘Too right,’ Mike Malloy adds, ‘I said that me self.’

  Joe shrugs, none too happy. ‘If you say so, Mr Thomas.’

  George Thomas turns to his foreman and scratches his head under his hat, the posh city hat bobbing under his fingers. ‘I must be out of my flaming mind, but sign her up, Malloy.’ He pauses a moment and gazes at Joe. ‘First sign of trouble out she goes, and it doesn’t matter who starts it, you hear me, Malloy?’

  ‘Right, Mr Thomas,’ Mike Malloy replies.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Jessica says shyly.

  George Thomas spins around at this. ‘Look girl, you’re just another tar boy. That’s the lowest there is around here. From now on you won’t talk until you’re spoken to and you never speak to me. You hear me?’ Jessica bites her bottom lip, saying nothing, not sure now whether she’s got permission to answer this. ‘Do — you — hear — me?’ he thunders.

  Jessica jumps. ‘Yes, sir, thank you Mr Thomas.’ George Thomas shakes his head. ‘Christ, I must be bloody mad.’ He turns back and looks at Joe, placing his hands on his hips. ‘She won’t get the same wages as a tar boy.’

  ‘What? Even if she’s as good?’ Joe asks.

  ‘She’s a girl, Joe.’

  ‘So?’ Joe’s face darkens.

  ‘So she’ll take sixpence less a day, one shilling a day, no arguments, six bob a week, take it or leave it.’ Now Joe looks down at his boots and the silence grows. ‘Well, what’s it to be?’ George Thomas demands, jutting out his chin.

  Jessica can see that Joe’s temper is going to get the better of him, and she clutches his arm. They need the money too much to lose this job now. Getting up her courage, she draws George Thomas’s attention to herself, giving Joe time to calm himself down.

  ‘Mr Thomas,’ she stammers, ‘we’re more than happy with the pay, it’s real generous of you, I’m sure.’ She tries to say it in the voice she’s heard Hester use when she’s talking to Ada Thomas.

  ‘You!’ George Thomas shouts, pointing his finger at Jessica. ‘Keep your trap shut! Don’t you ever listen, girl?’

  Jessica cringes against Joe’s arm. Joe has regained his composure now, though his lips are drawn tight. He looks straight at George Thomas, his eyes weary and beaten. ‘Righto, Mr Thomas,’ he says, and the two of them turn to leave.

  But George Thomas must have the last word. ‘Joe Bergman, I’ve had no trouble with you and I don’t want any with your daughter, you hear me?’ he calls to their departing backs. ‘Any muck-up with her in the shed, your girlie’s out on her ear!’

  ‘You already said that,’ Joe replies quietly, but only Jessica can hear him.

  Jessica knows George Thomas has made her father eat humble pie and she can feel the shame burning in him. She’s never seen it done to him before and she hates the boss of Riverview with all her heart. You’re a right bastard, Mr Thomas, she thinks to herself, Joe’s a hundred times better a man than you’ll ever be. She feels her father’s big hand rest on her shoulder, as they walk to where their horses are tethered under a lone kurrajong tree.

  Jessica now remembers how unhappy she was at the prosp
ect of eating at the big house. Riding home that day she’d questioned Joe, ‘What’s Mr Thomas mean about the men being jumpy, Father?’

  ‘He don’t want no females eating in the shearers’ quarters, the men are liable to get .. .’ Joe thinks for a moment, scratching his head, searching for a word, ‘you know, ah ... well ... jumpy!’ he says, lost for a better word that seems fit to use in front of his little daughter. ‘The shearers’ cook’s a lady. Don’t she make them jumpy?’ Jessica asks again, still not sure what jumpy means, other than it isn’t something that’s good for shearers when they eat.

  Joe looks surprised at the question. ‘Molly Gibbons? Holy smoke! For a start she’s a missus, not a miss. She’s twenty stone and fifty years old if she’s a day.’ He gives a short laugh. ‘She’s well past giving men the jitters, more like the fritters now, eh!’

  It’s a poor joke but Jessica is pleased Joe hasn’t gone into one of his dark moods because of George Thomas.

  ‘Anyway, it ain’t no use arguing, girlie,’ he now says.

  ‘If George Thomas says you’re takin’ yer tucker at the homestead, that’s about it.’

  ‘You don’t like Mr Thomas, do you, Father?’

  ‘Like doesn’t come into it, girlie. He’s got the shed and the work and we need it. Out here it’s them what pays says, and the ones who get paid shut their gobs.’

  Then he adds, ‘We were damn lucky today, he was in a good mood.’

  ‘You could’ve fooled me,’ Jessica says, feeling bold. Now Joe pulls his horse a little closer to her pony and holds her arm. ‘Keep your gob shut, do as you’re told, don’t muck about and when you see Mr Thomas coming in your direction make yerself scarce, otherwise keep your head down and keep working, ya hear me now, Jessie?’

  ‘Yes, Father.’ Jessica knows Joe’s giving her sound advice. ‘I won’t let you down.’

  ‘Never have, never will,’ Joe says. Jessica looks up at him in surprise and catches just the hint of a smile. Joe’s proud she’s got the job and didn’t lose her pluck in front of George Thomas, she thinks to herself.