Jessica

by Bryce Courtenay

  Joe is suddenly overcome with the frustration and the lies of the last three weeks and his temper rises. He wants to smash his huge fist into someone’s face — not Jessica’s, he loves her, but someone’s. His huge fist closes and draws back and all he can see in front of him is her distended stomach, the madman’s bastard child growing in her stomach. His fist begins to move in an arc and Jessica screams, for she can see where it will land. Then, at the last moment, Joe’s fist flies open and he desperately grabs at the tattered sheepskin coat and begins to shake Jessica. ‘You’ll stay away from your mother ... and your sister, you hear me, Jessie.’ Joe now pulls her into him so that his face is almost up against her own, and Jessica can smell his rancid morning breath. ‘If you don’t, I swear I’ll flay the madman’s bastard right out of yiz!’

  He finally lets go of Jessica, who slumps into a heap with her head cupped into her hands. Joe yanks on the reins and shouts furiously at Napoleon to move on.

  It is some time before they get to the tin shack. The hut is well known to Jessica, for it has stood there throughout her childhood. Joe has now added a door to it, and a bit of a chimney, which looks slightly ridiculous as it sticks out of the corrugated-iron roof at a curious angle. Beside the door is a stack of split logs as high as the roof line and continuing all the way along one side of the hut — it is enough firewood to last the remainder of the winter. Joe climbs down from the sulky and removes the hamper and places it outside the door, not venturing into the hut. Then he adds a sack of flour, a frying pan, a kettle and a pot as well as a cast-iron camp oven. ‘Git yer blankets and stuff,’ he now says through clenched teeth.

  Jessica has wiped away her tears — crying in front of Joe makes her ashamed. She removes the blankets and the canvas bag and enters the hut alone. It is several moments before her eyes adjust to the dark interior.

  Inside Joe has built a cot which contains a hessian mattress stuffed tight with straw. He has also constructed a small table and chair and a couple of shelves. Later she will find nails hammered into the back of the door for hanging her clothes. In addition Joe has built a small hearth with its ridiculous chimney to carry away the smoke. If Joe built it, it will work, Jessica thinks to herself. The hut is so small there is barely space for her to move about, but with a fire going it will warm nicely.

  How Joe, with his huge, clumsy frame, could have managed the work he has done in the interior Jessica cannot imagine.

  She shivers suddenly, for the winter sun has not yet reached the hut and it is bitterly cold inside. Jessica sees that Joe has prepared kindling on the hearth and stacked several small logs for the fire. A hurricane lamp hangs from a post beside the hearth and she supposes there must be a bottle of kerosene somewhere about, so she won’t be alone in the dark.

  Joe’s head appears suddenly at the door and he holds the four-ten shotgun which he now props against the crude door-frame. ‘For the snakes,’ he says, dropping a small canvas bag to the ground beside the gun. ‘There’s ten cartridges, I’ll bring more soon.’

  Jessica comes to the door of the hut and then moves outside just as Joe climbs back into the sulky. ‘You’re not to come near the house, Jessie. Stay away, ya hear? I’ll come by from time to time and bring yer rations, once a week, maybe a bit more.’ Then, without bidding her farewell, Joe moves away.

  Jessica picks up the shotgun and breaks it. The lighter four-ten is much easier for her to manage than the twelve-bore. She knows its range well enough, no more than fifty feet. She quickly slips two cartridges into the barrel, locks it and cocks the hammers. Joe is only just within range for the pellets to reach him with some fury left in them. Jessica fires the first barrel at his back — she knows the pellets will do no more than sting him, real bad she hopes, make him aware of her defiance. She lets him have the second barrel straight off and has the satisfaction of seeing his hat fly from his head to land spinning in a clump of saltbush. ‘Bastards!’ she shouts. ‘Bloody mongrel bastards, yiz can all get fucked!’

  Joe lifts one hand in acknowledgement but he doesn’t turn or stop to retrieve his hat. He doesn’t want Jessica to see his pride at her rebellion. His neck, peppered with birdshot, stings furiously and he is hard put not to grab at it. He can feel several warm trickles of blood running down the back of his neck. But Joe hasn’t felt better in weeks. ‘That’s my girlie,’ he grins to himself. ‘Don’t let the bastards get yiz down.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  On Thursday 6 August 1914, news reaches Australia that war is declared against Germany and Billy Simple’s hanging takes place on the dawn of the same day. The war against Kaiser Bill is announced on all the news vendors’ posters for the Sydney Morning Herald in letters five inches high.

  GREAT BRITAIN DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY!

  There is no need for any other details as few are surprised by the announcement. The news is the result of months of posturing and three days of ultimatum by Britain to Germany.

  On Monday 3 August, Germany declares war on Russia. On Tuesday 4 August, Britain issues an ultimatum to the German High Command following their invasion of Belgium and Luxembourg.

  On Wednesday 5 August, by 12.30 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time, Germany has failed to respond to the British initiative and war is declared on Germany. Telegrams are sent out by the War Office to the dominions to arrive at 12.30 p.m. in Australia, too late for the newspapers, so that the nation has to wait until the following morning, 6 August, to learn that it is officially at war.

  The Herald is high on rhetoric and filled with earnest injunctions for every able-bodied man to do his duty to King and Country in the war to end all wars.

  Though nobody seems able to give a sensible reason why Australia, or anyone else for that matter, should go to war, this doesn’t cut any mustard with the prevailing sentiment. The Australian public is overwhelmingly in favour of getting involved in the fray, going to the aid of the mother country whatever the reason.

  In the heat and fervour of the moment the nation seems more than happy to sacrifice the flower of its youth willy-nilly, in what will later seem the silliest of quarrels between a bunch of old men. It will result in the loss of countless young lives.

  The hostilities all began with the assassination in Sarajevo of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In itself, his death is no sound reason for even the most junior cabinet minister to get out of bed and put on his slippers to read the telegram telling of the Archduke’s murder.

  But the assassination comes after months of squabbling and quibbling between the major nations, Germany, Russia, France and Great Britain. There is by now so much confusion, cross-accusation and name-calling that the almost comic death of a minor prince seems as good a reason as any to fight each other. It’s simply the spark needed to set the dry tinder of failed diplomacy alight. The entire matter is not unlike two schoolboys calling each other names and threatening each other in the playground, until eventually they are required to fight or be declared humbugs.

  All this has been said by the more sober news columns in the weeks leading up to the declaration of war. But now, the sheer stupidity of the warring factions is forgotten. The call to arms takes on an urgency and there is a feeling of elation and adventure in the air. Australia will join the mother country to show the Hun who’s the boss and no bloody mucking about. Old men tweak their moustaches and polish their medals in anticipation and young boys think of the grand adventure to come. The government has agreed to supply twenty thousand fully equipped fighting men and there is a veritable stampede to get to the recruitment centres in time to enlist before the quota is exceeded.

  A poster appears on hoardings all over Sydney and Melbourne — and soon in every small dusty town and church hall in the land — showing a grandly moustached General Kitchener, scowling under a stiff-brimmed cap, his forefinger pointed directly outwards. ‘Your Country Needs You!’ the poster proclaims. And s
o starts the first day of the greatest slaughter of men in the history of human warfare.

  Factory workers, clerks, shop assistants, hat-maker apprentices, stable hands and dock workers walk off the job and line up, jostling each other for places in the long queues outside the recruitment centres. In the country, stockmen, rouseabouts, bullock drivers, shearers and ploughmen make for the nearest country town to join up, walking from the scrub farms and the sheep runs, others simply leaving the mobs they’re driving to the older men. Their mood is infectious and they call out ‘Cooee!’ to their mates, urging them to come along to join what a popular recruitment poster calls ‘The grand picnic in Europe’. In three days the shutters come down, the government can take no more volunteers. Australia has answered the call of Mother England.

  Inside the same day’s newspaper, on the right-hand column on page nineteen, the sub-editor’s clever little headline ‘Simple Simon meets the hangman’ announces the execution, at dawn that very morning at His Majesty’s Prison, Long Bay, of William D’arcy Simon, late of Lachlan River and Yanco. The briefest details follow, only sufficient for a reader seeking some relief from the high-blown rhetoric of war, to know that justice has been served in society’s other little battle against people who kill people for no apparent reason. Poor Billy Simple, he hasn’t even got the timing of his execution right. On any other day a hanging would make the news headlines, but today he rates no more than half a column in the deep interior of the famous Sydney newspaper.

  Jessica has risen before dawn on this same morning.

  It is bitterly cold in the little tin hut and as she prepares to light a fire she realises she hasn’t brought in any wood the previous night. She goes outside, to see that the moon is still up and that its silver glow makes the frost on the paddock look like winter snow, an enchantment of pure white under a full moon on the bitter morning of Billy’s death.

  Her teeth chatter and her fingers grow numb as she removes the topmost logs to find dry wood beneath them. She wants to be wide awake when they hang Billy, to be sitting thinking of him when they release the trapdoor and poor Billy’s worries are finally over. Jessica’s quite certain that if she thinks about Billy hard enough he’ll somehow know he’s not alone. Jessica isn’t aware yet that war has been declared and so she doesn’t know that Jack, too, is being taken away from her, destined to sail with the very first contingent of the 1st Australian Light Horse Brigade. They will be sent to Britain where they will undergo further training.

  Jessica has been in the tin hut now for two weeks. Joe, who visits her every three days to bring her rations, has not mentioned when she can return to the homestead. She has asked him on two previous occasions but he has simply replied, ‘Not yet.’ Now she’s vowed not to ask him again.

  Joe has brought a milking cow and calf over to provide her with milk and, except for the bitter cold at night, she is reasonably comfortable. Jessica’s relationship with her father during the past couple of months has grown steadily worse and, if the truth be known, she’s grateful to be away from the lot of them.

  Where the hut is located has always been one of her favourite places on the selection, situated .on the banks of a creek where the water flows most of the year. It’s still too cold for mosquitoes and the frost has killed most of the fly larvae, so surroundings are close to idyllic. Jessica knows that the conditions will deteriorate in the summer, but she expects to be back in the homestead by the time the warm weather comes.

  Joe has brought her the newspapers a couple of times and she is busy re-reading each of her books yet again. Joe’s also carted in several rolls of chicken wire and instructed her to build a turkey run. ‘Keep you busy, no point in sittin’ around moping,’ he says. Jessica is increasingly heavy with child and, though she enjoys the work, her progress is slow. Carting her big belly about causes her to tire easily.

  The next three months pass without Joe once suggesting that it’s time to come home. The turkey run at the back of the hut is completed though no turkeys are in evidence. Jessica reluctantly accepts that she will remain in the tin hut until the birth of the baby, a prospect which frightens her enormously.

  ‘Who’s gunna help me give birth?’ she asks Joe.

  ‘Your mother,’ he answers brusquely, ‘she’s been reading up on it.’

  ‘Can’t I have the midwife, like Dr Merrick said? You know what he said about my hips an’ all?’

  ‘Nah, you’ll be orright, your mother’s a sensible woman.’

  ‘But she doesn’t know nothing about delivering babies,’ Jessica protests.

  ‘Why not? She’s had the two of yiz!’ Joe answers implacably.

  ‘Father, we can’t keep it a secret forever. Folks will know soon enough.’

  ‘Don’t worry your head about that. You never know what could happen, girlie.’

  ‘Could happen?’ Jessica becomes at once suspicious but won’t say so. Instead she says, ‘What? That it’s not born alive?’ She sticks out her belly and pats it. ‘It’s alive orright, it’s gunna kick its way out if I’m any judge,’ she says, trying to sound confident.

  ‘Let’s just wait and see. No use telling the whole flamin’ world until we know for sure.’

  Jessica now looks anxiously at Joe and says, ‘Father, you won’t take my child away and put it in one of them orphanages?’

  ‘No, Jessie, it’s your child, it stays in the family,’ Joe says somewhat guiltily. ‘There’s been enough trouble at home, what with the death of Mrs Baker. Don’t want no more, do we?’ he says, trying to reassure Jessica.

  In fact, the death of Mrs Baker has caused little comment and it isn’t more than a couple of Sundays before the folk at St Stephen’s are congratulating themselves on having found a much better organist in the verger. Nor has Mrs Baker’s death been a surprise. Everyone knew about her crook heart, her arithmetic, and secretly most of them would have dearly loved to see the old girl topple from her stool, taken off to meet her Maker in the middle of a hymn as she’d always wanted. Nevertheless, things settle down very nicely with the verger, a man of sound heart who puts a great deal more enthusiasm and vigour into the makings of a hymn.

  The church folk soon stop asking Hester or Meg about Jessica. Some even openly admire their fortitude in the matter, for being so unfailingly cheerful when it must be very difficult to care for someone who has gone round the twist.

  There is much favourable comment that Meg will make a very good Mrs Jack Thomas. The vicar, with an eye to the future, is especially anxious to stay on the right side of the pair of them. He is as nice as pie when they come to church and never fails to ask about the state of Meg’s pregnancy, which is becoming increasingly apparent, likewise her constant knitting of tiny booties and matinee jackets. Hester has it in mind to ask the vicar to Sunday dinner quite soon after the birth of Jessica’s baby, or — as the world will know it to be — Meg’s baby. Her excuse will be that they want to discuss the christening.

  It’s mid-afternoon, a Friday in late November. Suddenly Jessica hears a woman’s voice calling out, and she comes to the door of the hut.

  ‘Hello, missus Jessie, you remember me?’

  ‘It’s Mary, ain’t it?’ Jessica says, squinting against the bright afternoon light before stepping out of the hut.

  Four years have passed since the ragged bunch of starving blacks turned up at the kitchen door and Joe allowed them to stay. But Jessica immediately recognises the Aboriginal woman she had befriended among the little mob of blacks when she was fifteen years old. ‘Your memory good one, missus,’ Mary Simpson laughs. ‘You remember me?’

  ‘Same as if it were yesterday. ‘Owyergoin’, Mary?’

  ‘I heard about you,’ Mary says quietly.

  ‘Heard? About me?’ Jessica asks, surprised.

  Mary points to Jessica’s stomach. ‘That. You gunna have a baby, your people kicked you out.’ Her English has improved over th
e years and she now speaks with confidence.

  ‘But nobody’s supposed to know!’

  ‘Bush talk, miss us. Blackfella know, we watch over you.’ Mary doesn’t explain any further.

  ‘Jessie. Call me Jessie,’ Jessica grins, pleased to have the unexpected company. ‘You’re older than me, it should be me calls you missus.’

  Mary grins too. ‘You gunna need help, Jessie?’

  Jessica looks forlornly down at her belly. ‘I dunno, I’ve never had one before, but my mother’s supposed to know what to do.’

  Mary can hear the doubt in Jessica’s voice and sniffs, rubbing her hand across her flat nose. ‘Your mum, eh? She done it before, then?’

  Jessica shakes her head. ‘No, I don’t think so. The doctor says there ain’t much room, me hips is too small.’ Mary places her head to one side, examining Jessica’s hips expertly. ‘First baby always like that,’ she says reassuringly. She points to her own somewhat broader hips, then laughs softly. ‘After number one, the buggers jump out like a frog in yer hands, no worries.’ She stops talking for a moment and looks kindly at Jessica. ‘Never mind hips, that baby find a way for bloody sure. It don’t want to stay in there more than it must.’

  Jessica suddenly feels safe and happy for the first time in months. ‘Mary, come inside, I’ve got soup and a bit o’ damper.’ She then adds, smiling, ‘Ain’t much room though, me with me big stomach an’ all.’

  Mary moves across to the doorway and pokes her head into the tiny hut. Jessica has lit the hurricane lamp and the interior is bathed in warm light, a fire crackles on the hearth under a pot and she can smell the hot soup. ‘You made it nice,’ she says after a while.

  Jessica nods. ‘It’s bloody cold at night, though, lemme tell ya.’

  ‘It’s a real good humpy,’ Mary concludes, bringing her head back out of the door.