He has made me a stove for Christmas too! He is going to bring it out in Mr Doo’s cart tomorrow. I have not seen it yet. He says it is a new invention as well, as it is made of two layers of metal with air in between them so the room does not get so hot.I do not see how air can stop a room getting hot, but Tommy says it does and his inventions work nearly all of the time.
I wish my father could have met Tommy. My father made things from wood and Tommy makes them from metal, but I think they would have liked each other.
It hasn’t rained yet, not since I have been here. Everyone at church said the drought is getting worse. Tommy and Mr Sampson and I have put pipes from the spring here down to a trough for the sheep. They do not stand in the water now, so the spring stays clean. We have put more pipes down to the cornfield too. It is a big cornfield, so we can feed the sheep corn too. I move the pipe twice a day so in a week the whole field gets wet.
Mr Gotobed, who was a friend of my father, says he has never seen corn grow so fast. He brought me a cartload of sheep droppings from Mr Drinkwater’s shearing shed to feed the corn, but perhaps Mr Drinkwater does not know where his sheep droppings were going, so please do not tell him.
I have my own shearing shed now. It has a wood floor so the clean side of the wool does not get dirty, and a corrugated roof, but no walls as we did not have enough iron. There is also a corrugated iron dip for the sheep to get them clean under and kill maggots treat them for parasites.
We sheared over a hundred sheep. I bought more sheep cheap because we have grass and water and other places do not. Tommy lent me the money but I have paid him back now that we have sold the wool and some ram lambs.
Mr Gotobed and his friends came to shear, they would not let me pay them because of my father, but I think my father would have wanted them to be paid properly, so I gave the Workers’Institute in town money to buy books instead. I now think maybe that was not the right thing to do though, because I will borrow the books and I fear that Mr Gotobed and his friends will not. They would rather have spirituous liquor, but that would not be good for them so perhaps I was right to get the books. It is very difficult.
Thank you again for the parcel. I am very grateful indeed. I hope you and Florence have a very merry Christmas.
Yours respectfully,
Matilda O’Halloran
PS I know I wrote a lot about my friend Tommy but he lives in town, he only visits here so there is nothing improper.
PPS I hope I am not being rude, but if Mr Drinkwater’s sons visit you again could you tell them it is not Christian to shoot natives?
There are not many natives here as nearly all have been taken away to the reserve except those who work on the stations, but sometimes they might look like wild natives so the boys may make a mistake, and even if it is a mistake it is still not Christian. I know my Aunt Ann would have said so. I hope you agree, Mrs Ellsmore, and that I am not being forward in asking you this.
Sometimes it is hard to know what is good manners. There is no one I can ask here, Tommy is a boy so he does not understand about manners like women do.
Yours respectfully again,
Matilda O’Halloran
A scream woke Matilda early on Christmas morning. For a moment she blinked in the darkness.
The hut was silent. Matilda lay back. She must have dreamed the scream. Through the window the moonlight made tree shadows on the ground. She wondered if the cross had turned over yet. It must be hours till morning. She shut her eyes …
‘Graaaarrhk!’ It was as much a snarl as a scream.
Matilda flung herself out of bed. ‘Auntie Love?’ Why hadn’t the old woman woken? Why hadn’t Hey You barked?
She stumbled out to the living area, suddenly aware of one problem with the new stove. Tommy had been right: it didn’t heat up the room as much, and it stayed alight all night more easily. But the fire was hidden in its metal box, which meant there was no red glow to see by.
She fumbled for a slush lamp and a match.
The shriek came again. Something swung toward her. Her eyes were growing used to the moonlight now. She ducked as it swished above her head.
‘Ghhhghhhh!’ Something small and furry thudded onto the floor, then scampered out the door. The possum! It must have been trying to tear the cloth to get into the pudding.
She reached up and felt the pudding carefully, but could find no sign of a tear. She smelled it too in case the possum had left a damp spot. But it just smelled of raisins and treacle — good Christmas smells.
Hey You padded out of Auntie Love’s bedroom. He gave a small woof, then sat and gazed at her.
‘Fat lot of good you are,’ said Matilda. ‘Can’t even scare off a possum.’
‘Woof,’ said Hey You. He yawned, then trotted back into the bedroom.
Matilda untied the rope from around the pudding. Best to take it to bed with her, in case the possum tried again. The raisins and treacle had been expensive. It had taken her hours to pick out the seeds from the raisins, more hours to collect the firewood to keep the pot on a rolling boil, so the pudding wouldn’t get heavy. Auntie Love knew how to make a good damper, but she didn’t know about puddings. Besides, Tommy was coming to dinner, and the pudding was the only real Christmas food they had.
She cuddled it to her, then smiled at herself, hugging a Christmas pudding. She slept.
It was late when she woke again, long past dawn, six o’clock maybe or even seven. But she wasn’t even going to milk the cow today — its calf could have all the milk — or water the vegetables. Today was going to be a holiday.
She stepped out in the cool morning air to wash by the spring. Auntie Love was already on the verandah when she came back.
‘Merry Christmas!’
Auntie Love laughed. Matilda had learned to distinguish the laugh that said Auntie Love was happy from the one which meant she didn’t know what to say, or one that indicated she thought something was funny. This laugh seemed to mean: ‘Well, if it pleases you to think of a day as Christmas, I’ll go along with it.’
Matilda went into her room and began to dress. No trousers today. She put on the first dress Mrs Ellsmore had given her, which she thought of as her second-best dress, but left off petticoats and stockings — it was far too hot. Too hot for shoes too. She only wore boots now when she was working, and her feet were growing tougher. She hesitated, then put her city shoes on. It would spoil the look of her dress to have bare feet.
She wished there was something other than shoulder of roo to roast. But the sheep were too precious, and too familiar too. At least she didn’t know the roos that Mr Sampson shot.
She stirred up the fire, made a pot of tea and toasted damper for herself and Auntie Love, then spread a tablecloth over the verandah table. It was made from one of her petticoats. She hoped no one would see where she had joined the fabric at one end. But it looked good with the china plates and cups and some twigs of gum leaves in an old ginger-beer bottle. She had just finished when she heard singing.
It was Mr Gotobed in the cart, with Bluey and Curry and Rice next to him. Mr Gotobed raised his jug to her. ‘Merry Christmas!’
She stared. ‘Merry Christmas.’
Did they expect to have Christmas dinner here too? She calculated quickly. She could put on more potatoes and pull up more carrots, but the meat wouldn’t stretch to six.
She watched as Mr Gotobed pulled a hessian sack from the wagon. The three of them staggered up the steps toward her.
‘We three kings of thingummie are,’ bellowed Bluey. ‘Dum de dum we travel afar …’
He gave her a clumsy hug and a kiss on the cheek. His breath stank. Mr Gotobed thrust the sack at her. ‘Merry Christmas!’ he yelled again.
They must have been drinking spirituous liquor all the way here — maybe all night too. She watched as they plumped themselves down in her verandah chairs. Aunt Ann would have shown them the door.
But they had shorn her sheep. They were her father’s friends. Her friends
too, she realised. Besides, they looked too drunk to find their way back to town, unless the horse knew where it was expected to go.
The horse … it couldn’t stay there in the sun. She dumped their sack on the table, then unharnessed the animal — it knew where the water trough was and wouldn’t wander far — and went back and looked in the sack.
It was a bird, the biggest she had ever seen, already plucked. ‘A turkey!’
Curry and Rice looked uncomfortable. ‘Not exactly a turkey,’ he said.
‘Near enough but,’ said Bluey. ‘Man’s got a right to a bird at Christmas.’
Matilda gazed at the bird again. ‘What is it then?’
‘A swan,’ admitted Mr Gotobed, helping himself to damper as Auntie Love came out with another pot of tea. ‘Shot it down the river last night.’
Matilda blinked. She had never heard of anyone eating swan, but she had after all eaten weirder things in the previous couple of months. It still hurt, though, to think of all the beauty of a swan turned into a big hunk of meat.
‘There’s good eating on a swan,’ Curry and Rice assured her. ‘Just put plenty of stuffing in it and it’ll be fine.’
Plenty of stuffing … She supposed you could use the same stuffing in a swan as in a chicken, damper instead of breadcrumbs, and the onions she kept hanging up inside. There was even sage growing in the garden now, to season it, and last week’s butter in the cold safe.
She inspected the swan carefully, in case the flies had got it, then washed it inside and out just in case. But no crawlies floated in the water. Impossible to think of it big and majestic on the water.
She made the stuffing, put the swan in the oven in the big oven dish Tommy had bought for her, then pulled up more carrots and new potatoes and a few turnips too. Her dress was grubby at the hem now, and there were red spots on it from the swan. She washed them off quickly, hoping they wouldn’t stain, then rinsed the hem of her dress. Luckily it’d be dry in a few minutes in the heat.
She looked out the door. The men were asleep, their mouths open, their snoring louder than the yelling of the cicadas. She hoped they’d wake up sober. There was no sign of Auntie Love.
She turned to peel the potatoes as Auntie Love came out of her room, wearing the big white apron over her dress, carrying a bark container. She gestured to the sleeping men outside and wrinkled her nose.
Matilda laughed, then looked down at the bark container. It was shaped like a pot, with a bark lid tied down with homemade string. She untied it and looked inside.
It was a necklace of red and black seeds, strung onto hair, she suspected. The seeds were shiny, like tiny jewels against the bark.
‘Oh, Auntie.’ So Auntie Love did know what Christmas was. She bent and kissed Auntie Love’s cheek, then slipped the necklace on. Auntie nodded, then went over and began to peel the carrots.
‘Auntie, this is for you.’
Auntie Love unwrapped the brown paper — the only paper in the house — then smiled. It was a hanky, made from a bit of another petticoat, carefully hemmed in secret and embroidered with daisies at the corners. She tucked it into the belt of her apron, then kept on peeling.
Six hours later Hey You was chewing the leftovers. Auntie Love, Mrs Sampson and Matilda sat on chairs on the verandah, while Tommy and the men leaned against the wall, their legs out, finishing the last of the pudding.
Matilda hadn’t expected Mr and Mrs Sampson. She had only met Elsie a few times. She was as tall as her husband and much fatter, a strong woman but shy with people she didn’t know. She’d hardly spoken throughout the meal, just smiled and laughed when everyone else did.
But somehow it seemed right that Mr and Mrs Sampson should be there. She’d made handkerchiefs for them anyway, and for Tommy, and had hastily wrapped up three of her own for the union men.
The pudding had been voted delicious, in spite of the lumps; the swan hadn’t been as tough as it might have been; and the taste of soap in the gravy was hardly noticeable at all. A giant Christmas cake, a present from Tommy’s landlady, sat under a fly net, next to the basket from the Doos, with its squat jar of preserved ginger, its red-blushed peaches and a box of dates.
‘Well, I’m full as a goog after that. Who’s for a song?’ Bluey pulled out a mouth organ. Curry and Rice took out a pair of gum leaves from his pocket. As Matilda stared he held them to his lips, and hummed a tune she almost recognised.
‘Silent night,’ roared Mr Gotobed. ‘Da de dum night …’
The last time she had sung this it had been at Aunt Ann’s, three Christmases ago, those easy days she thought would last forever.
‘All is calm, all is bright …’ Tommy’s singing voice was deeper than she’d expected.
‘Round yon virgin mother and child …’
‘Dum dee dum dum, dee dee dum, dee deee.’
‘Sleep in heavenly peace,’ Matilda stared as Auntie Love joined in, her voice pure and clear. ‘Sleep in heavenly peace.’
How had the old woman learned the song? Where? Had she worked for Mr Drinkwater or some other squatter, years ago? Had Mr Drinkwater fired her, like he had sacked Mr Sampson? Was that why he was so angry she was here?
But it still didn’t explain why the old lady had stood in front of him, almost naked. She was sure that anyone working in the Drinkwater house would have to wear proper clothes.
Mr Gotobed swung into ‘Jingle Bells’. Curry and Rice followed him on his gum leaves, sounding like a mob of almost tuneful bees.
The sun was below the tree tops when they left. Tommy loaded his bike onto the wagon; Matilda hoped the men’s horse knew its way back in the dark. Auntie Love vanished into the bedroom. Hey You grabbed the swan carcass in his jaws and took it down to the deeper shade under the steps. The Sampsons left, with his laconic: ‘I’ll check for fly strike in the mornin’, Boss.’
It was the first time he had called her ‘Boss’. She wanted to protest. But it was true that when he called her ‘Matilda’ it made it sound like he was talking to a little girl. She was thirteen …
She stopped gathering up the dishes, and looked down at her hands. Work-stained, tough hands.
She had missed her birthday, hadn’t even known what date it was till Tommy had asked too carelessly what she was doing for Christmas dinner. No one else in the world, she thought, knows when my birthday is now.
She washed the dishes in a bucket by the water trough, then threw the dishwater onto the corn. She was just putting the plates carefully in the dresser when Hey You barked again.
She looked up. Was Mr Gotobed so fuddled with spirituous liquor that he’d come back by mistake? But Tommy would have taken the reins …
Two horses cantered between the cliffs. She recognised the horses first — those giant shiny brown animals — before she knew the riders. The Drinkwater boys, James and Bertram.
It had been too good a day to be angry with anyone, even the Drinkwaters. ‘Merry Christmas!’ she called.
The boys pulled the horses to a stop by the house. They didn’t dismount. James reached down to his saddlebags and took out a parcel. He threw it down into the dust. ‘For you,’ he said abruptly.
She looked at the brown paper in the dust. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Our aunt has decided that you’re a worthy recipient of her charity.’ The words bit like cold water. ‘We’re delivering it.’
She made no move to grovel by the horses’ hooves to get the package. ‘Please thank your aunt,’ she said quietly. ‘Or I will write and thank her.’
‘You’re good with a pencil, aren’t you?’ James was white-faced with fury now. ‘Aunt passed on your message about hunting natives. We don’t appreciate grubby little bush girls giving their betters lessons in behaviour. Do we, Bertram?’
The younger boy shook his head. He was grinning, as though this was simply fun. His brother’s horse rolled its eyes, as if it could sense its rider’s anger.
‘Just so you know. If you mention us again, to anyone, you are goi
ng to regret it. You understand?’
She wanted to yell at them that she’d say what she liked. But despite Hey You growling at her heels she knew she was helpless. They had whips. They had firearms, longer and shinier than the blunt weapon Mr Sampson used against the roos. She had no doubt that the older boy at least would use them both, if not against her, then certainly against the dog or Auntie Love.
Who was to stop them? Their father ruled this world. These boys believed that they did too.
This is what made my father angry, she thought.
She prayed that Auntie Love was sound asleep and couldn’t hear what was happening.
‘I understand.’ She spoke as calmly as she could. She stood immobile, hoping that if she showed no other reaction they would go.
The older boy, James, spat. She could see the spittle frothy in the dust by his horse’s hooves. His brother copied him. James yanked the reins; his horse turned. In seconds they had cantered back between the cliffs, toward the setting sun.
She was shaking, from fear as well as anger. She sat on the steps, and pulled Hey You into a hot and doggy-smelling embrace till her heart stopped pounding. At last she let him go, picked up the parcel and took it back to the verandah.
It had been untied and roughly wrapped again. The string was so badly knotted she finally had to get the knife to cut it. She pulled the paper away slowly.
The smell hit her first. Dog’s droppings, rubbed into the fabric of the dark blue dress. A new dress, she thought. Not Florence’s cast-off. A new dress for her. Silk stockings, slashed with a knife. A bar of soap, cut into pieces, its scent of violets almost as strong as the stench of muck.
It didn’t matter, she told herself. Nothing the boys had done had touched her really. She would wash the dress and iron it — the stain was fresh at least, so would come out. She could mend the stockings — no one would see the mends under her skirt. Even the soap could be used in pieces. It would last longer that way.
A Waltz for Matilda Page 18
