The Last of the Bonegilla Girls

by Victoria Purman

  ‘Look,’ Gerald stammered. ‘I don’t have any money if that’s what you’re asking. This is my first job.’

  She felt as if he’d slapped her across the face. Her cheeks reddened as if he had.

  ‘This isn’t about money.’

  ‘And if you’re looking for me to propose …’

  She didn’t want him to now, not after this, not ever. ‘You clearly aren’t going to.’

  Gerald dropped the cigarette on the cement floor of the storeroom, crushed it under his shoe with a brutal twist. ‘Look, Frances. The truth is … I can’t propose to you because I’m already jolly well engaged to someone else. In Sydney. She’s waiting for me to finish this country stint. Once that’s over, we’ll be married.’

  Frances vomited all over Gerald’s shoes and left him to clean it up.

  An appointment with Dr Elliot in Bega a few days later had confirmed what Frances already knew. Unfortunately, his youngest daughter Lorraine was one of her students, which meant he’d felt free to stare at her patronisingly and advise her that her only option was to leave the classroom immediately. If she didn’t, he would tell her headmaster.

  ‘It is absolutely insupportable that you can be anywhere near my daughter or the other children at the school. You will not go back to the classroom, young …’ She knew why he’d stopped mid-rebuke. He’d been about to call her young lady.

  The doctor scribbled something on a piece of paper and pushed it across his dark mahogany desk. He couldn’t even bring himself to hand it to her. She had tried to make sense of his terrible handwriting, but her shaking fury and the tears that had welled in her eyes had blurred her vision.

  ‘Here’s a place I suggest. It’s run by the Salvation Army. A home for unwed mothers. Silly girls like you who can’t keep their legs closed. I’ll make a call and arrange it. You might be surprised to know you’re not the first girl from here to get herself in trouble. You will stay there and earn your keep until the child is born and then an adoption will be arranged with a decent Christian family.’ He eyed her up and down. ‘This is, of course, unless something can be sorted out with the father.’ He waited for the killer blow. ‘If you know who the father is.’

  Frances had walked out of the surgery as if in a trance. She went directly to school, told her headmaster that her mother had taken ill suddenly—a story he was unlikely to doubt given the look of pale-faced shock on her face—and went to her accommodation to pack a suitcase. She wasn’t even able to say goodbye to the children from her class. She’d left a note for her housemates, left her share of the next week’s rent on the kitchen table, and walked to the bus station where she bought a ticket to Cooma.

  But she knew this refuge couldn’t last forever. As sure as the moon rose in the evenings, this baby would come. Frances turned onto her back, trying to find a comfortable position beside Iliana in the bed they shared. There had been no other option because there was no spare bed in the small Cooma house with only three bedrooms. Massimo was in the sleepout built at the back and the two young boys shared a single bed, one at each end, kicking each other with glee when they fought.

  When the baby kicked and danced, she covered her belly with her hands and felt each movement, committing it to memory. Was it a boy or a girl growing and moving inside her? She might find out that much at least before she gave the baby up for adoption. For that was her only choice. She would give up her baby to a good family and then move on, pretend it had never happened. What life could she give a child? She was an unmarried mother, a sinner, a stupid girl who’d brought shame on herself and her family.

  She had been hesitating for months about how to tell her parents. She’d fudged the reasons why she couldn’t tell them, about why she couldn’t leave Cooma.

  I can’t leave in the middle of term, she’d written. Then, I can’t leave as Giovani and Stefano need my help. It amused her to see them speak with her and each other in broad Australian accents and then lapse into Italian to speak with their parents or Iliana or Massimo. It was as easy as breathing for them.

  The baby lurched to one side in her stomach and pressed on her bladder. Frances glanced over at Iliana in the darkness, a shaft of pale moonlight from the gap in the curtains creating a sliver of silver on her peaceful, sleeping face. She propped herself up with her hands, swung her legs over the side of the bed and shuffled her feet into her slippers. When she found her breath, she felt for the spare blanket folded at the end of the bed and draped it around her shoulders, covering the thin nightdress she wore.

  Quietly, Frances opened the bedroom door, turned right and tiptoed to the back door. Unlocked, it opened with a squeak and she carefully descended the three cement steps and took the path that led to the outside toilet. When she reached the corner of the house, a flickering light caught her attention. It was all she could see as her eyes adjusted to the dark.

  ‘Frances.’

  ‘Massimo,’ she said, surprised. Her breath caught somewhere between the baby and her heart. She recognised the smell of his cigarettes. She had smelled it on his clothes for the past six months she’d been living with the Agnolis. His cigarette smoke. The cologne he wore. What he smelled like after a shower. Even the particular pattern of his footsteps, his long loping stride on the wooden floorboards of the house.

  The tip of his cigarette flickered up and down as he lifted it to his mouth to take a drag. ‘I not scare you?’ he said.

  The light flicked to the ground and she heard the sound of his shoe grinding in the dirt.

  ‘No. Not at all. What are you doing out here?’

  ‘A cigarette. Mamma doesn’t like it in the house.’

  Frances knew that. She knew all about the way Agata ran the household. What she liked, what she didn’t. What she would let her boys get away with and what she would scold them for. The way she poured love into every meal and hated washing their clothes but did it anyway. One day, she would be a mother just like Agata. Just not now, not with this baby. She would never be a mother to this baby.

  ‘You mother likes the smell of fresh flowers,’ Frances said. ‘And basil from the garden.’

  Massimo smiled at her. ‘Yes.’

  A pain streaked against her back and she let out a groan. He strode to her and as her eyes adjusted to the darkness she could make out his lovely face. His lips pinched, his brown eyes heavy with something she couldn’t name. ‘You okay? The bambino?’

  He reached a hand out and moved it towards her but hesitated. His fingers hovered a few inches away from her stomach.

  ‘I’m okay. Nothing is wrong.’

  ‘The baby is coming?’ His deep breaths were the only sound she could hear.

  Her exhalation was a cloud in the night air. ‘No, at least I hope not. Not quite now.’

  ‘That is good. But it must come soon, yes?’ His hand disappeared into the pocket of his trousers.

  Frances pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders, the cool air making goosebumps on her skin. ‘Soon, yes. About four weeks.’

  ‘And then you will leave Cooma?’

  ‘Yes. I will have the baby and leave Cooma.’

  She looked up to the night sky. A few pinpoints of stars twinkled down at them. They were alone in the dark. How many times had she wished for this, to be alone with him? Those dreams had been the only thing keeping her going, the only thing that helped her not think about the pregnancy and her future and her life without this baby she had loved and carried for eight months.

  ‘Frances …’ He took a step closer.

  She looked up into his brown eyes. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘I don’t know. Back to Sydney perhaps. I’ll have to look in the papers and apply for another teaching position somewhere. Perhaps in a place no one knows me. Where I can be a stranger. Somewhere I can start again.’

  ‘Why must you go? You can be a teacher here in Cooma.’

  ‘No … I …’ Could she do that? Cooma had been her place of refuge, but st
aying here? No. Staying would remind her of what she’d done. Cooma would always be the place where she’d hidden from the world, and she needed to leave that shame behind if she was to get on with her life.

  When his hands were suddenly on her belly, cradling her baby, caressing her taut skin through her nightdress, she gasped. He hadn’t touched her since Bonegilla, since that last day when he’d said goodbye and given her the Italian coin before he’d got on the bus.

  ‘Your baby,’ he said, and she could feel his breath on her cheek. ‘It is big.’

  Her baby was big and it was to come out soon and she was frightened. What did she know about having a baby? A friend of Mrs Agnoli, who was a midwife from Italy, had come to check on Frances every few weeks, but that had been it. She didn’t want to see a doctor and have to explain all over again how she was in this predicament. The judgement of that one doctor back in Bega had been enough to last her whole pregnancy.

  ‘The baby is healthy,’ Iliana had translated as the midwife had smoothed her warm hands over Frances’s belly and listened to the baby’s heartbeat. ‘And so are you.’

  She was frightened of labour and she was frightened about having to give her baby away. She had tried not to think about it these past months because it was a rabbit hole she couldn’t fall into, but now the tears welled and drizzled down her cheeks.

  ‘Don’t cry, Francesca. Please.’

  She hadn’t meant to but the tenderness of his gesture, the way he was touching and embracing the shame she was carrying, sent her into the kind of sobbing she had been holding in since she’d discovered she was carrying Gerald’s child. Everything leached from her: her shame, her disgust, her fear, her anger, all in great heaving sobs. She had ruined her life and she was paying the cost, but it seemed a dreadful price to pay. When Massimo’s arms enveloped her, she cried even more. In that moment, she hated herself. She hated her life. She hated how ashamed she felt. She hated that she had wanted to have sex with Gerald, a man she had liked but not loved, not like this, not like she loved the man who was standing with her in the dark, clutching her, holding her as tight as he could around her swelling secret. And she hated that she loved this man she couldn’t have.

  Why hadn’t she waited for someone like him?

  ‘Francesca,’ Massimo murmured into her hair. ‘Francesca …’

  And she let him hold her for just a moment. She let the warmth of his body seep into her in the dark of the night, in the private silence of the Agnoli’s backyard at midnight.

  When she pulled away she didn’t look back at him, and when her quick trip to the outside toilet was over, he was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  ‘Bene.’ Agata smiled at Frances and patted her on the shoulder. Frances knew that was a compliment and she was pleased with herself. She had managed to roll the little orecchiette pasta all by herself. She looked down at the kitchen table, covered with a dusting of flour and her attempts at the little ears, as Iliana had translated, and laughed.

  ‘Not as good as yours, signora.’ She smiled.

  Agata laughed and splayed a hand to her chest. ‘Mine very good.’

  Iliana laughed along too. ‘My mother has been making the orecchiette from six years old. With her nonna.’

  ‘Goodness,’ Frances said. She arched her back, feeling stiff from bending over the table. Eight months pregnant now, she had to overcompensate and the pose made her back ache even more than it had. She winced, propped a hand on the small of her back and rubbed.

  ‘Sit,’ Agata commanded and Frances didn’t fight it. Iliana quickly poured her a glass of water. The two women had been fussing over her for months: ensuring she drank a cup of warm milk every night. Seeing that she was never hungry. Refusing to let her do any of the chores now she was getting closer. Giuseppe had even given up his armchair in the living room, the one closest to the fire, so she could be warm and comfortable with her legs propped up on the stuffed leather footstool. She had grown to love them as if they were her own family. Once Agata had warmed to her, Frances felt as if she’d found a second mother. Giuseppe seemed too shy to speak to her much, but he fussed over her, too. Giovani and Stefano had been perfect pupils and Iliana, her dear friend, had become her best friend.

  Frances learned more from Iliana than she could ever repay. She had given her words in English, whispered and practised at night when they were snuggled between the sheets, but Iliana had given her unconditional love, friendship and her own family.

  ‘Dinner tonight will be …’ Iliana held her pinched fingers to her mouth and made a smacking sound.

  ‘Bellissimmo!’ Frances replied and that made Agata giggle too. Signora had been so patient with her. She was a wonderful mother. One day, she would make a wonderful grandmother too.

  They turned at the sound of footsteps.

  Massimo walked into the kitchen, smelling of soap. She hadn’t seen him for a week, since he’d touched her belly and she’d cried in his arms in the dark. Her cheeks flamed with the shame of it, of what he must think of her.

  ‘Ciao, Mamma.’ He walked to his mother and kissed her cheek.

  ‘What is this?’ he asked in English. His question was directed at Frances.

  ‘Your mother has taught me how to make this pasta.’

  Massimo stepped closer to the table. He brushed against her shoulder as he leaned over to inspect her work. ‘Almost as good as Mamma’s,’ he said and then for just the briefest of moments, his hand was on her shoulder.

  She resolved right then to tell the Agnolis she had to leave.

  Because if she stayed one more day, she would want to stay forever.

  After dinner that night, Frances pleaded tiredness and the need for a rest and left the family in the living room listening to the radio. Slowly, she packed up her things. She didn’t have much, really. The clothes she’d arrived in, which hadn’t fitted her for months, were already packed away in her suitcase. Mrs Agnoli had sewn her two maternity dresses, which she alternated wearing, so she packed one. There were two pairs of shoes. A book she’d brought with her, some toiletries. The note from Dr Elliot in Bega with the address of the Salvation Army home. A bundle of letters from Elizabeta and Vasiliki and her parents, and wafer-thin aerogrammes from Tom in London. She had been careful not to let too many possessions accumulate around her; she hadn’t wanted the Agnoli house to feel like home. And even if she had wanted to buy pretty things, the money she’d had when she’d arrived in Cooma was all but spent, and the humiliation of that burnt almost as deep as her pregnancy. She was pregnant, and alone, with money enough for a bus ticket back to Bonegilla and not much else.

  She lifted her small brown suitcase and set it on the end of her bed. This tiny room had been such a place of freedom and sanctuary for her. How could so plain a room, filled with so few possessions, feel like home? There was a double second-hand mattress on a plain wooden frame, which she and Iliana had been sharing since she’d arrived. Every night they’d played tug of war with the five blankets before laughing and drifting off to sleep. Whenever Frances had apologised for taking up space in Iliana’s bed, Iliana had told her that if either Giovani or Stefano had been a girl she would be sharing with a little sister anyway, and that it was much more fun to have a friend to talk to at night as she fell asleep.

  Iliana didn’t have much but had shared it anyway. A dark dresser with a round mirror and rounded edges on its two drawers was set across one corner. On sunny days, the light from the north-facing windows reflected in the mirror and brightened the room. A plain wardrobe with a few wooden hangers in it to hold their few dresses. There was no need for cocktail dresses in Cooma. A rug cut from a piece of carpet, of swirling floral greens and pinks, covered the floor on one side of the bed. An ornate silver and carved wood crucifix hung on the wall above the bed. Iliana crossed herself in front of it every night before turning out the lights.

  Frances would remember this room. Her friend. This family. Their kindness. Their open arms. Their slow acc
eptance of the wayward Australian girl who had got herself into trouble. When Frances thought of this time of cocooning, of hiding her sin and shame, she would at least have her memories of the Agnolis.

  She would find the courage to tell them that the next day she was going back to Bonegilla to tell her mother and father and face the truth.

  When she opened the door to the living room, the warmth of the open fire flushed her cheeks. Everyone looked up at her, smiling. She truly loved this family and had grown to feel like a daughter to Giuseppe and Agata; a sister to Iliana and Giovani and Stefano. And Massimo? She couldn’t think about what she longed to be to him. How would she ever be able to repay what they had all done for her?

  ‘Buone notte,’ she managed.

  ‘Come. Sit.’ Giuseppe waved at her, gesturing to the chair nearest the fire. They had kept it empty for her. She crossed the room and lowered herself backwards into it. Iliana was on the sofa, flicking through the pages of Women’s Weekly magazine, and she reached across and patted the back of Frances’s hand.

  She looked at each member of the loving family who had taken her in and felt a wave of grief about having to leave them. Iliana’s father, so kind to her to let her stay. Her mother, who had taught her to cook the most delicious food. The two little brothers who had been the best students she’d ever had. And Iliana. Her dear friend Iliana who had fought for her, felt her baby kick inside her, brought her dry toast when she was feeling so sick she couldn’t get out of her bed, and who had loved her like her own sister. The family had welcomed her so lovingly, with so little judgement or censure, considering what she’d done and their own religion and culture. She’d been so lucky to have been welcomed into their family, but she had always dreaded the day when it had to end.

  And it seemed today was that day.

  This was a familiar scene. Giovani and Stefano were lying on the rug, reading Biggles books. She had introduced them to the adventures of the wartime pilot, and they were devouring Biggles Gets His Men and Biggles, Foreign Legionnaire. Frank Sinatra’s voice was crooning from the radiogram in the corner, and the fire cast a warm glow over the room. Iliana’s mother was mending a pair of Giuseppe’s trousers and Massimo sat on another armchair opposite her. He was gazing down at his linked fingers. She was glad for the heat of the fire to disguise her blushing cheeks.