Charlotte's Creek

by Therese Creed

  Cooper shifted on his feet. ‘Dad wouldn’t care if we don’t learn all that stuff,’ he blurted out.

  Lucy went on sipping and regarded him benignly over the edge of her mug.

  ‘If you can give me one good reason,’ he went on, ‘I might think about staying, just till I see whether you’re a half-decent guvvie or not.’

  ‘Reason? Well, every other kid your age will be doing school. In Australia, that is.’ Lucy stood up and took her cup to the sink. ‘I suppose it depends on whether you want to keep up with them or not.’

  Cooper followed at her heels. ‘Josh Keene won’t be doing school! He’s my age. His mum lets him off all the time.’

  ‘Poor Josh,’ Lucy said sadly. ‘One day he’ll have to go out into the world and he won’t understand a thing about it. How confusing it’ll be for him. Or he’ll be expected to run a property, and will have to sell up. You can’t run a business with no education, not these days. As for going to work somewhere else . . . well, that will be out of the question. He won’t survive in the outside world.’

  ‘You mean like reading street signs?’ Cooper queried. ‘The ones in town aren’t that hard.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Lucy replied. ‘Street signs are easy.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘The city is a daunting place,’ Lucy said offhandedly. ‘People with no education are just sitting ducks. The bottom of the pecking order.’

  The twins were watching Lucy wide-eyed, and Cooper swallowed uncomfortably. ‘Yeah, righto, I know about sitting ducks. And Little Red is the bottom chook in our coop. She really cops it, always got feathers missing and that.’

  ‘Mmmm.’ Lucy finished rinsing out her cup.

  ‘Why hasn’t anyone ever told me this before?’ Cooper asked suspiciously.

  Lucy shrugged again. ‘Maybe they thought you knew. Most kids your age do. But then I guess there’s a fair bit you’ve missed out on already.’

  ‘Bugger it.’ Cooper scowled. ‘I’ll go and get Billie.’

  They all eventually ended up in the schoolroom, and Lucy had the two older children begin with a simple written recount of the weekend, while the twins experimented with her alphabet stamps. It appeared to Lucy that occupying the twins was going to become part of her job description. They had been struggling away at their tasks for almost an hour when the thunder of hooves and the bellowing of distant cattle heralded the arrival of the mob.

  Lucy hurried to the window and watched, spellbound, as a great mass of cattle approached, their multicoloured hides rippling like an unsettled sea. She gazed at the four unfamiliar ringers hanging on the periphery, their horses’ coats gleaming in the sun like polished timber. Then her eyes rested on Ted, his athletic form seeming to merge with that of his mount, their movements so unified. The other young ringers wore boots, jeans and large felt hats, with whips rolled up and hooked onto their heavy leather stock saddles. Lucy was impressed by the sight of the two jillaroos, a strongly built blonde and a slighter redhead, both of whom wore their dirty jeans and battered hats with a certain finesse. Next Lucy noticed the working dogs. Red, black and white, speckled and grey, they skirted the cattle methodically, disappearing here, reappearing there, always in motion. They were tiny, thin and light, but moved the tons of beef with apparently effortless authority.

  Lucy felt her heart leap with a sudden realisation that she’d been longing to see this all her life. She’d been given her first glimpse into the guts of the country, a vision of the real Australia. The old land of the pioneers and the battlers. How had she lived this long and never seen it before? If only everyone could see what she was seeing now!

  ‘Now who’s daydreaming?’ Billie commented behind her.

  Lucy felt that the first school day was not a success. Her two students were unmotivated and complained bitterly about every task Lucy gave them. They had a firmly entrenched aversion towards ‘school learning’ of any kind, and Lucy began to fear that she’d taken on the impossible.

  To make matters worse, Dennis and the ringers were ‘weaning’ two paddocks close to the house, and the enticing clouds of dust rising from the yards could be seen all too clearly from the schoolroom windows. Mid morning, the twins deserted to the yards and Cooper and Billie spent more time glancing towards the window than looking at the page in front of them, and their long-suffering expressions were echoed by the mournful bellowing of the cattle. Every ten minutes or so there was a fresh plea for permission to leave the room, just for a minute. Lucy had no intention of giving in, and insisted that they complete at least three pieces of work before they even thought about going anywhere.

  By one o’clock, however, Lucy sensed that her pupils were genuinely fatigued, and realised she would get no more work out of them that day. The looks of delight and relief on their faces when she told them that they could go were disheartening, and they fled outside as though released from prison. Lucy too was drawn by the fascination of the yards, but she made herself stay and reorganise her resources and thoughts, shuffling through some of the teaching materials she’d brought from Sydney. She could see that she was going to have to go right back to basics with Cooper and Billie. How would she be able to make school relevant and interesting to the pair? And how could she compete with the world of wonders that existed just outside the schoolroom?

  At three thirty, Mel wandered in. ‘Bloody hell, you still in here? Bit keen, aren’t you? I saw the kids scooting over to the yards more than two hours back.’ She perched on a desk.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mel, but they had reached saturation point,’ Lucy explained anxiously, feeling like a failure. ‘There was just no point keeping them any longer.’

  ‘Sorry? That’s the longest school day they ever did in their lives. Dunno how you kept them in here so long. Especially with Den and the ringers just over there at the yards.’ Mel inclined her head towards the window, where the mysterious dust still hung tantalisingly in the air.

  ‘Oh.’ Lucy felt better. Perhaps the day hadn’t been such a disaster after all.

  ‘They didn’t look too happy when they came and grabbed some food.’ Mel’s voice was toneless. ‘You must be some kind of slave driver. The guvvie from hell.’ She made a face before getting up again and disappearing back down the hall.

  ‘Here, give me a hand with this.’ Mel grabbed one end of the old table near the pantry. ‘The ringers are eating with us tonight.’

  Having spent a lonely hour in her cottage after the first day of school, Lucy had fronted up to help Mel with dinner. She knew that helping in the kitchen wasn’t an expected part of her governess duties, but she couldn’t remain idle in her cottage when the tired mother was so clearly run off her feet. The kids were still over at the yards with their father and the ringers. Although Lucy was intrigued by what was happening over there, she hadn’t gone to join them, worried that she’d just get in the way.

  Now she lifted the table, trying not to grunt at its weight as she noticed the ease with which Mel was carrying her end. They moved it to join the main table. Then she took a pile of cutlery from the drawer and began to set it out. She was excited that the ringers were coming to dinner. She found their lives and work fascinating—so unlike anything in her own experience.

  Minutes later, the ringers trooped in with the kids on their heels. They all walked past Lucy as if she was invisible, laughing and talking loudly over the television. Once again, Lucy took particular notice of the two jillaroos. Like the men, they looked fit and hardened by their toil.

  Pulling out the chairs, the ringers plonked themselves down at the table. The kids followed suit, chattering happily. Lucy helped Mel bring over the dishes of potato bake, rissoles and salad, and the ringers began to load up their plates immediately.

  Lucy sat herself next to the red-haired jillaroo, who stopped chewing for a moment to look at her.

  ‘Hi, I’m Lucy,’ Lucy said, and smiled.

  ‘Tash,’ the girl replied, biting off a piece of bread. ‘You’re the new guvvie, eh? Yo
u from town?’

  ‘I’m from Sydney.’

  Tash nodded absent-mindedly then looked back down at her dinner.

  ‘I saw you mustering,’ Lucy tried. ‘It’s so interesting watching you work. It must be a wonderful job.’

  Tash snorted. ‘Dunno ’bout wonderful. But it’d have to beat being stuck inside all day, trying to teach them ratbags.’ She pointed with her fork at Cooper, who was laughing at something Billie had just said, his open mouth full of masticated potato. ‘How long d’you reckon you’ll stick it out?’

  ‘I’m hoping to stay for quite a while,’ Lucy said, trying to sound confident. ‘I’d like to get the kids into a bit of a routine.’

  Tash raised her eyebrows. ‘Good luck!’ she said doubtfully, then turned her attention to the lively banter going on between her companions at the other end of the table.

  Over the next few days, Lucy continued to make an effort to be friendly with the ringers. After all, they were about her own age. She discovered that the second girl’s name was Bri, and the two boys were Bevan and Mickey. But it soon became apparent that they saw her as nothing more than ‘the temporary guvvie’, and therefore of little value or interest. Their world was bounded by the properties on which they worked, and they were completely absorbed by their own sphere of cattle work, horses and dogs, with no curiosity about anything or anyone that wasn’t part of that domain. For them, Lucy from the city might as well have been Lucy from another planet. All her experiences of life in bustling Sydney, with its access to the arts, music and culture, or the ups and downs of teaching in an elite school, remained unknown to them. They didn’t ask, and Lucy didn’t attempt to divulge. On top of that, she was aware that she didn’t speak, walk or dress as they did. She was uselessly clean, her habitat the indoors, and her rightful place the schoolroom.

  By the fourth day of the mustering round, she’d withdrawn into herself and no longer attempted to make conversation at mealtimes. Mel and Dennis, on the other hand, were far merrier than they’d been on her first two nights at Charlotte’s Creek, and even the children had no trouble joining in with the ringers, shouting their comments and jokes along the table. This just added to Lucy’s sense of isolation.

  Surprisingly, her only consolation came from Ted, who didn’t seem to fit in with the crew either, remaining as silent and gruff as before. The ringers clearly respected him, and often tried to draw him into their conversations, but he was distant and uncommunicative. Mostly he ignored Lucy’s existence too, but once or twice he caught her eye, his serious expression belied only by a flicker of his dimple. So Lucy felt some small comfort in the knowledge that she wasn’t the only misfit at the Charlotte’s Creek table.

  Chapter 5

  It had been decided that Lucy would take care of her own breakfasts and then head over to the main house to start school at seven o’clock. Mel had suggested this arrangement, pointing out that if they started early, they’d be finished by lunchtime, and this suited Lucy, knowing that the children would learn best in the morning. Lucy also liked the idea of breakfasts by herself, believing they would provide her with the opportunity to collect her thoughts and brace herself for the day ahead. But she soon discovered that whenever she was alone, her mind would stubbornly drift southwards, to her family and her old life. It was her sister Gemma on whom she found herself dwelling the most.

  The last phone conversation they’d had, just before Lucy’s departure, when Gemma had called to wish her well in her new role, had been cold and strained. Lucy had known that Lloyd, the brother-in-law she hardly knew, was listening in the background. She knew her own resentment had sounded in her voice, and even though she’d longed to unload her thoughts and fears to her sister, she’d remained distant and polite. But now Lucy found herself craving her old closeness with Gemma; she felt that if she could only have a good talk with her sister on the phone every now and then, a chance to share her frustrations, worries and insecurities, her new situation at Charlotte’s Creek might have been more bearable.

  But on her second Monday morning, after a fairly solitary weekend, Lucy’s breakfast musings were cut short. She’d been sitting with her cup of tea and bowl of muesli for less than two minutes when she heard the squeak of her gate. An attractive older woman with shoulder-length grey hair appeared in the open doorway and knocked briskly.

  ‘Hello?’ she called. ‘Anyone home?’

  Lucy jumped up to go to the door just as the woman poked her head around the doorframe.

  ‘Oh, I’ve interrupted your breakfast,’ the woman said. ‘I’m sorry, darling.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Lucy said. ‘Please come in.’

  ‘I won’t disturb you now,’ the woman said, remaining at the door. ‘I just came to introduce myself, now that we’re back from Townsville. I’m Gwen, Dennis’s mother, and you’ll meet my husband Noel soon. I hear you’re from Sydney?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’ Lucy smiled.

  ‘Well, I insist that you come and have a cuppa with me soon and we can get to know one another. I’m sure you’ll need someone other than Melissa to talk to from time to time.’ Gwen gave her a conspiratorial smile.

  ‘That would be great, thank you.’ Lucy was a little taken aback by Gwen’s friendly manner. Until now she hadn’t been greeted with much enthusiasm by anyone at Charlotte’s Creek.

  ‘Well, I’ll leave you to enjoy a bit of peace before school starts for the day,’ Gwen said, turning away. On her way to the gate she called back over her shoulder, ‘I’ll look forward to that chat.’

  Lucy returned to her breakfast. She reflected on the disparaging tone in which Gwen had referred to her daughter-in-law, and realised that Mel had never mentioned Gwen in any of their conversations. Perhaps things weren’t so good between the two women. She had just picked up her spoon to finish her breakfast when the gate squeaked again, and a moment later she heard the voices of the twins, cursing Rambo for following them into the garden. The sounds of a short scuffle ensued, the gate slammed shut, and the twins’ faces appeared in the back window.

  ‘Don’t worry, we didn’t let Rambo in to bother you,’ Molly said.

  ‘What are you having for breakfast?’ asked Wade. ‘Can we come in?’

  Lucy thought for a moment. ‘All right, just for today. But usually you’ll need to wait for me at your house in the mornings, okay?’

  ‘Righto,’ Wade said. ‘Sounds fair enough.’

  The faces disappeared. Seconds later the children reappeared opposite her at the table. Two pairs of hazel eyes watched her eating for a while in silence.

  ‘Do you have to be so hard on poor Rambo?’ Lucy asked. ‘He seems quite friendly.’

  ‘Wants a good shearing,’ Wade observed. ‘Have to get Ted onto it.’ The small boy spoke with his voice in his boots, in a manner so like his father’s that Lucy had to suppress a smile.

  ‘Now, tell me more about this grey lady,’ she said, picking up her cup of tea.

  ‘What do you wanna know about her?’ Wade sounded a little defensive.

  ‘Well, why is she grey, for a start?’

  ‘Her dress is grey,’ Molly said eagerly. ‘And some of the time her hair is, too.’

  ‘Some of the time?’

  ‘When she’s old it’s grey, but when she’s young it’s brown. Her dress is always grey, but.’

  ‘She talks to us.’ Wade looked warily at Lucy, as though waiting for a sceptical response.

  ‘Only sometimes,’ Molly added. ‘A lot of times she’s just too busy crying and wiping her eyes.’

  ‘Oh, how sad!’ Lucy remarked obligingly. ‘The poor lady!’

  ‘She comes in here too, you know,’ Molly added. ‘She likes it here.’

  Lucy looked around a little uncomfortably. Even though she’d never believed in ghosts, she felt a tingle down her spine.

  ‘Now, do you really believe us or what?’ Wade asked, squinting at her suspiciously, his head cocked to one side. ‘’Cause if you’re just playing along, we won
’t tell you nothing more about her.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me, you know,’ Lucy assured him. She was becoming a little spooked about the whole thing. Perhaps the less she knew about this mystery woman, the better.

  ‘She told us we have to be nice to you so that we don’t drive you away,’ Wade continued.

  ‘Yes, because she likes you,’ Molly said. ‘You’re genteel.’

  ‘Genteel?’ It was an unusual word for a four-year-old to use, Lucy thought with a slight frown. But perhaps they’d heard it from Gwen.

  Molly nodded earnestly.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘The Grey Lady didn’t like Natalie because she was common.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘She was a Jezebel. Always making eyes at all the ringers.’

  ‘Is that what the grey lady said?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘What’s her name, this grey lady?’

  ‘Her name is Grey Lady, silly.’ Wade shook his head in exasperation. ‘What do you think we’ve been trying to tell you this whole time? Jeez!’

  ‘Well, thank you for telling me about her,’ Lucy said briskly. ‘And now it’s time to head over to school. I’ve got a couple of things to get ready before we start.’ Although she was glad to change the subject, her curiosity had been awoken. No doubt the children’s description of their conversations with the ghostly Grey Lady was all nonsense, yet she couldn’t help but wonder whether there were some skeletons in the Charlotte’s Creek closet.

  School that day was the usual battle of wills. However, Lucy reminded herself that at least all four children were showing up on time, and of their own free will. Fortunately, the ringers were based at another set of yards today, many kilometres from the homestead, so that particular source of distractions was absent. The children worked sullenly, with many glances at the clock, but Lucy noticed that Billie was making an effort with her handwriting, which was slightly more legible than any she’d produced so far, and Cooper seemed reluctantly pleased when Lucy praised his diagram and written instructions for using an oxy torch.