A Waltz for Matilda

by Jackie French

  She wasn’t going to let James Drinkwater destroy her Christmas present.

  She fetched a bucket and carried everything to the trough in the last of the light. Best get it done now, so the stench would be gone, the smell of hatred banished from this Christmas Day.

  It was dark when she’d hung it all on the line. She trudged slowly up the steps again, then caught sight of her skirt. Damp, stained with gravy and paw prints. There would be stains under her arms too, she thought, and probably smudges on her face. She felt her hair, escaped from its plaits.

  So that was how the boys saw her, a bush girl in a dirty dress, with a grubby face and callused hands. A busybody, who interfered with their right to call everything on this land theirs.

  Let them, she told herself fiercely. She was the one who had a farm of her own. And a house, and a half share in 116 sheep, a cow and calf, eight hens. She looked down, and smiled at herself. And a small share in a dog too.

  They were still schoolboys, despite their wealth. No, not their wealth. Their father’s. She was older than them in more than years.

  She got herself a cup of water and a peach then sat on a chair back on the verandah. The peach smelled like a honey tree, driving out the last scent of muck. The moon wouldn’t rise for an hour at least, but the stars were bright.

  She looked for the three brightest — two on one side of the black sky lake, a reddish one on the horizon. She raised her cup to them. Mum, Dad and Aunt Ann.

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ she whispered. She hoped they would be proud.

  Chapter 31

  JANUARY 1895

  Dear Mrs Ellsmore,

  I hope you are well.

  I am glad you had such a good Christmas too. I wore the dress you gave me into town last week. Mr Gotobed drove me to the library.

  I took out six books. You are only supposed to take out two but the librarian used to work with my father so he lets me take out more, because I don’t get in to town often. Most of the books are not very interesting, but there is one on diseases of sheep that will be most useful. I will study it hard before I take it back. Two of the books are novels. My aunt did not approve of novels but my mother read them. What do you feel about novels?

  I have been worried too about what Mr Sampson should call me. He calls me Boss now. Do you think that is all right? Also, should I call Mr Gotobed’s friends Mr Curry and Rice and Mr Bluey? They do not seem to have any last names, and when I asked, Mr Gotobed said, ‘Just call him Bluey, girl’ But should it be Mr Bluey?

  Also there is a Women’s Temperance and Suffrage League dance in town. There will be no spirituous liquor in the hall, though some of the men will imbibe outside. Tommy will not go, he says he does not want to go to a dance, but Mr Gotobed and his friends have said they’ll take me. Would it be improper?

  Now that I write this I see that it probably would be. You would not let Florence go to an evening dance with three men. It is very good to be able to write and ask your advice like this.

  Yours gratefully,

  Matilda O’Halloran

  ‘Fire coming,’ said Auntie Love.

  Matilda put down the pencil. She was trying to do the accounts today, working out how much they had spent on the farm compared with how much the wool had brought.

  Patricia Doo had shown her how to balance ‘income’ and ‘expenses’, and Mr Gotobed had taken her to the bank to open an account, and one for Mr Sampson too (in her name, as it seemed that natives had to give their wages to the Native Protectorate’s Trust Fund). But the bank manager assured Matilda that if she and Mr Sampson signed the withdrawal slip and he brought in the bankbook, Mr Sampson could take money out.

  She glanced outside. The day was still, the trees hanging silent above the breathless ground. The shadows, too, were still. The sky was an untouched blue, without even a smudge of smoke from their own fire. It would be cold meat and cold damper today, with apricots that Tommy had brought yesterday from Mr Doo. ‘I can’t see any smoke.’

  Auntie Love heaved herself to her feet and reached for her stick. The weakness of her left side had almost vanished, but the old woman was growing thinner and more fragile, like a gum leaf that would crumble if you pressed too hard. She made her way outside. Matilda followed her down the steps.

  She expected Auntie Love to point up at the sky, to show her a shimmer of smoke she hadn’t noticed. But instead she lifted her stick up to the wattles. ‘See. Seeds.’

  Matilda peered at the brown clusters, like knobbly hands clinging to the branches. ‘What about them?’

  ‘Tree knows when fire comes. Makes many seeds for new trees after fire.’

  It was the longest explanation Auntie Love had ever given. She waved her hand at one of the shrubby bushes at the edge of the rock tumble. Its flowers had blazed like purple fire last spring, Matilda remembered. Like fire.

  ‘You mean … sometime next year there’ll be a bushfire?’ She had read about bushfires. She hadn’t understood why everyone just didn’t put them out.

  Auntie Love stared at her, her expression as always impossible to read. ‘Trees say this year,’ she said at last. ‘Wallabies say now.’

  ‘The wallabies? But there aren’t any wallabies around.’

  She stopped, suddenly understanding. ‘You mean the wallabies weren’t at the pool last night,’ she said slowly.

  Auntie Love nodded.

  ‘But if there was fire we’d see the smoke. Smell it. Wouldn’t we?’ There’d been lots of smoke when a house down the road had caught fire when she was small. Didn’t fires always have lots of smoke?

  ‘Smoke come,’ said Auntie Love.

  The smoke came the next morning, a haze of white first, then billows, till at last the whole sky was pale grey. Matilda went out with Mr Sampson and Elsie, herding the sheep up into the valley between the cliffs around the house.

  ‘Safer here,’ said Mr Sampson.

  The valley was a sea of sheep. The animals stumbled and complained, as Elsie pulled a rough wire fence between the cliffs so the sheep couldn’t get back out.

  ‘You mean the bushfire won’t burn in here?’ asked Matilda hopefully. Perhaps the cliffs would protect them.

  Mr Sampson shrugged. ‘Fire’s coming that way.’ He pointed to the north-west. ‘Means it comes up the slope, fast.’

  Then it could come between the cliffs, thought Matilda. ‘Can’t we put it out?’

  He stared at her then shook his head. ‘Stop it coming here, maybe.’

  ‘How?’

  He seemed to be considering. ‘You go up to the cave with Auntie. She’ll look after you. Elsie and me’ll stop here.’

  ‘I don’t need to be looked after!’

  He said nothing, just nodded, then walked down the road, wriggling his way out past the fence.

  For a horrible moment she thought she had offended him, that he was leaving. But he just looked back at her. ‘Don’t want to lose my swag if the house burns.’

  She shivered as she watched him and Elsie hurry down the road to their house. Of course, their house was more exposed than hers. I should have told him to build it up here in the valley, she thought guiltily. But she had never even thought of fire. He must have known they would be vulnerable. But he would never have said.

  She glanced around at the sheep, their heads down, hunting for the last shreds of grass, then at her house. She should take her own valuables up to the cave: not just valuables, but necessities too.

  She had made two trips before she realised that Auntie Love was helping her, lugging one of the chairs her father had made down the steps. She put her hand on the old woman’s arm. ‘Leave it. It’s too heavy.’

  Auntie Love shrugged, then looked at the blankets in Matilda’s arms, and shook her head.

  ‘I shouldn’t take the blankets?’

  ‘Wool don’t burn. You wet the blankets, wrap yourself up if fire comes.’

  ‘Then the sheep won’t burn either?’

  Auntie’s eyes were soft with compa
ssion. ‘They burn,’ she said.

  The day grew darker, though the smoke seemed no thicker in the sky. The shadows vanished, and the sun. The light seemed to come from everywhere, a strange unearthly glow.

  She changed into her thickest trousers, shirt, boots and hat (her girl’s clothes bundled up in her shawl, safe within the cave). Nothing more remained in the house except the things too big to move: the table, the beds, chests and stove. She imagined again her father, month after month, chopping trees and splitting logs, smoothing and shaping the wood, dreaming of his family living here, sharing his world.

  Living here had helped her to bear his death. The fire could eat, in one afternoon, all he built, she thought.

  It wasn’t right. It shouldn’t be like this, that so many years of work and love could vanish.

  Love … She had never thought of it before. I’ve loved you, she thought to the valley around her. It wasn’t love at first, just nowhere else to go. But I love you now. Don’t let me down. Please. Don’t let me down.

  Stupid. As though the land had a mind or heart. She sat on the hot ground suddenly, disturbing the sheep, who baaed and moved away, and spread her hands on the soil. It felt hot and dry, but there was something else, almost a vibration in her hands.

  A heartbeat? Or just a shudder from the footsteps of the sheep? Or was it her own heart she felt? It doesn’t matter, she thought. We’re all in this together now.

  She looked up to find Mr Sampson staring at her. She stood and dusted her trousers, embarrassed. He handed her a green wattle branch, thick with leaves.

  ‘What do I do with this?’

  He shrugged, as though she would know when the time came. They made their way back down from the cliffs, through the mob of sheep shuffling and bleating uneasily, to join the others in front of the house.

  She could smell the fire now.

  She had expected it to smell like a cooking fire. It didn’t. It wasn’t just the lack of hot meat or flour. This was another smell, as though more than wood was burning. The earth? she thought.

  A sound crashed behind her. She turned, thinking a rock had fallen from the cliffs. But it was the wind.

  It had been still before. Now the air tumbled about the cliffs, a growling howl like a giant dingo had swallowed the wind and was roaring it out. The smoke whirled in strange soft patterns, almost too fast to follow.

  Mr Sampson and Elsie drew close to her, branches in their hands. Auntie Love was calmly dipping the blankets into buckets of water on the verandah, Hey You standing close to her, his tail between his legs, hardly even glancing up at the cliffs where the sheep called nervously.

  If only we had a thousand buckets, thought Matilda. A million. A million hands to carry them.

  How could wattle branches fight a fire?

  ‘How long before it comes?’ She hadn’t meant to whisper. The words were whirled into the wind. She tried again, and found her voice hoarse with smoke.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Mr Sampson. He nodded up to the spring. ‘We wait there.’

  She followed him, then stopped. Someone was coming through the smoke between the cliffs.

  For a moment she hoped it was Mr Gotobed, with a hundred men from town. But Mr Gotobed and his mates were shearing down toward the Murray. It would be autumn before they were back here. The object came closer, and she saw it was the bicycle, with Tommy sweating as he rode.

  She ran down to him. ‘There’s a fire coming.’

  ‘I know,’ he said shortly. ‘Why do you think I’m here? They said it was headed this way. Going to miss town, they think, but the men are burning a firebreak in case.’

  ‘What about the other farms along the river? And Drinkwater?’

  ‘They say it’ll miss Drinkwater, unless the wind changes.’ He looked troubled. ‘The only other place in its path is Heenans’. It’ll burn before the fire gets here. I told Mrs Heenan to take the children to town. She said she would.’

  ‘But you don’t think she will?’

  ‘I don’t know. You know what she’s like.’

  Past caring, thought Matilda. But surely she wasn’t past all care for her children.

  He began to wheel the bicycle up to the house.

  She didn’t question what had brought him here. ‘Better take it up to the cave.’

  ‘What cave?’

  She realised she had never showed it to him or told him how she had met Auntie Love either. No time to explain now. ‘Follow me.’

  It was black within the cave, the world around too dark to shine any light within. They pushed the bicycle roughly through the lip in the rock, then headed down again. A leaf whirled and fluttered down from the cliffs. Matilda stared. It was charred, a shred of green, then black.

  The wind was even louder now. Or is it the fire? thought Matilda. It was almost impossible to see the figures standing by the spring.

  Mr Sampson’s clothes looked wet with sweat, and then she realised: he had dampened them in the spring. She did the same, scooping up water in her hands. Beside her Tommy followed her actions.

  She wished he hadn’t come. He was already so scarred. He could have been safe, back in town. This was her fight, not his. She glanced at him. It probably wasn’t safe for him to head back now. And every fight of hers, she acknowledged, he had made his own.

  It seemed a long way from Mr Thrattle’s factory.

  She glanced up at the sky. A red haze shone against the black. And then the fire came.

  She had thought the wind already too strong to bear. She had been wrong.

  The fire’s voice was lower, higher, a sound that had no name. She saw the fire bite the air above the cliffs, the trees become a ring of flame, dancing red and black. The redness moved, circling above them now.

  She waited for the flames to drop on top of them. Should they run for the cave now, and save their lives, at least? Surely there was no way five people — one a frail old woman — could fight a ring of fire.

  But they couldn’t abandon the sheep yet — nor the house her father had made with so much love and hope.

  The heat and glare hurt her eyes. She shaded them with her hands, staring upward.

  The air was filled with tiny embers and ash that made it almost impossible to see. Only the red of flame was visible. At once she realised — the blaze had jumped across the valley. Both ridge-tops were alight now, but the fire wasn’t heading down the cliffs.

  She felt a shiver, almost as though her father had whispered to her. This place he had chosen was protected against fire as well as drought — as long as they could fight the fire-front coming up between the cliffs, and put out spot fires from the embers raining down.

  They were a long way from safe. But now they had a chance, not just to survive, but to protect the valley from the flames.

  She was aware of Mr Sampson moving in the thick ash-dark.

  ‘Boss? Got to get down to the cliffs. That’s where it’s comin’ from now.’

  ‘I’m coming!’ She stumbled after him, trying to keep up, the sheep milling and crying around them, circling in a blind panic looking for safety. For a second she lost her footing, but felt Tommy’s hands — the good one and the scarred — help her up.

  It’s the first time I’ve touched his scar, she thought. Was that why he wouldn’t go to a dance with her? So she didn’t have to touch his scar?

  Auntie Love forged through the frightened beasts, upright despite her frailty. It was almost as though she knew how to move between them.

  The wind buffeted Matilda again, coming in a great wave of heat and burning leaves up the track. Once again she almost fell. By the time she was steady the air had cleared.

  She blinked, not quite believing it. Beside her Tommy stared upward, his face intent, so fascinated it was almost as though he had forgotten the danger. ‘The updraught,’ he yelled. ‘It’s taking the smoke away. Isn’t it incredible?’

  She nudged him, and pointed, down toward the road. Mr Sampson was right. The fire was coming up throug
h the cliffs now, running fast uphill. Trees burst into flame even before the wall of fire reached them. Even the ground seemed to burn.

  Already Mr Sampson and Elsie were running toward the flames. As she watched they began to beat the ground with their branches, and beat out the burning bark on the trunks of trees as well. To her surprise the flames vanished where the green branches lashed them.

  Impossibly the sheep had pushed further up into the gorge behind the house. Their bleats of terror were part of the shriek of the wind, the deeper roar of the fire. Hey You ran along the rough fence in front of them, yapping and nipping, keeping them bunched up and out of everyone’s way.

  Someone touched her shoulder, briefly. She glanced at Tommy, his scar flame-red in the glare of fire. He gestured to the house, as though to say he would help Auntie Love put out the spot fires there. She nodded. There was no time to talk; almost no air to breathe.

  Matilda ran toward the Sampsons, and began to beat the ground too.

  Time lost meaning. Her body seemed to vanish. There was only the fire, snickering through the grass, leaping into the trees, flaring from branch to branch. If you could kill the fire around the tree you could leave the top to burn itself out.

  Dimly she was aware of Tommy yelling from the house, of Auntie Love lugging buckets through the smoke. It was thicker again now, the burning grass and trees here in the valley filling the world with grey.

  Was the house alight? There was no red glare up there, just the trees like giant candles, flaring above the screaming sheep. But at least the fire had only spread a few yards into the gorge. So far, at least, they had kept it back.

  How long could they hold it? She didn’t know, couldn’t think, not in this heat, this glare. All she could do was lash with her branch, over and over, one tussock out and then another, one tree after another …

  Her body longed for air, for water, for a time of cool and peace. But there was only heat and flame, the trees like wild torches in the air, smoke so thick it was almost like breathing ash, the wind strong enough to keep you upright if you leaned against it.