‘Think we might have to call this one Curly-Locks,’ Michael said, pulling one away and holding it in the air. It wiggled with excitement, back legs paddling.
‘I’m sure they already have working-dog names like Bluey or Blackie or Red,’ she replied. ‘Mind you they’re all black…’
‘Well you can’t exactly have three “Blackies”,’ Michael reasoned, helping her to untangle the other pups and cradling them as they climbed over each other to chew on his chin.
‘Even so, I can’t see them being given very creative names,’ she said, wishing they could be pets instead of working dogs, but that wasn’t how things worked around here. Everyone had a role to fulfil, including her.
‘Let’s give them secret names then,’ Michael said. ‘I stand by Curly-Locks for you,’ he said holding the pup up again and grinning as it gave a high little bark of approval.
Junie hugged the large, fluffy male who’d made his way back to her and couldn’t seem to stop wagging with joy. ‘You can be called Hero,’ she decided, cuddling him close.
‘Why Hero?’
‘Because he has a star on his chest, see?’ Junie held him up for inspection and Michael tickled his neck.
‘And what shall we call this cheeky fella?’ Michael asked as the smallest, rumbliest pup nudged his way under his elbow.
‘Well, he is rather plump…how about Georgie Porgie?’ Her eyes met Michael’s and they laughed again.
‘Perfect.’
‘You know, with the whole family off to Sydney soon maybe they’ll forget and you can name the puppies in their absence. They won’t really be able to object – a dog has to have a name.’
‘And you’ll be going too.’ Michael’s expression changed and Junie wished she hadn’t mentioned it.
‘How do you know that?’
‘It’s a small town, Junie.’ He attempted a smile and she felt his sadness creep towards her, enveloping them both. Her conversation with Ernest hung between them and she forced herself to find a way to explain.
‘Ernest…Ernest has loaned my father some money –’
‘You don’t have to tell me, Junie –’
‘But I need to. I need you to know.’
‘Everyone knows,’ he said. It was a fact, not an insult. Michael too was feeling the brunt of her father’s economic demise. The Farthington reach was wide.
One of the pups had managed to bury himself in the dirt and Junie bent to pull him out, smiling at his tiny, caked face, and he gave a surprised sneeze, showering her in earth.
‘I don’t know about Hero any more,’ she said, laughing as she wiped his nose clean and he tried to lick her fingers. ‘I think we may have to call you Digger.’
‘Diggers are heroes,’ Michael pointed out, laughing a little too, but there was wistfulness there. For some reason it prompted her to make a confession.
‘I don’t want to go to Sydney…’ she said softly. I want to run away with you…to somewhere safe in those blue hills.
‘Then why go?’
She cuddled Digger close and he nestled near her ear. Surely there was no reason good enough? Then Junie remembered the expression on her father’s face as he looked at her mother today. ‘Because we all have our jobs to do.’
‘And it’s your job to marry him, is it?’ Michael’s dark eyes held hers and there was anger and sadness in their depths.
‘Yes,’ she whispered. How she wished that answer was impossible.
He stood then, picking up the sleepy pups and putting them back in their stall. Junie stood too and they watched the exhausted little pile together.
‘Michael –’
His hands gripped the wood of the stall and he lowered his head. ‘Don’t say anything, Junie. There’s no point.’
‘But I need to tell you that your friendship has been –’
‘Just that,’ he finished for her. He pushed away from the stall and strode out of the barn even as she looked for words that would stop him.
‘It’s – it’s more than that,’ she called, confessing the truth.
Michael paused, his tone odd in reply. ‘You’re not the only one with a job to do, Junie.’
Two
Mavis Riley squeezed the wet shirt through the ringer, her skin already puckered from an hour of laundry. It felt hard as always, a never-ending task that broke her back and cracked her skin, and she wiped her brow as her two daughters brought more baskets up from the creek.
‘That’s it, Mum,’ Beryl said, huffing as she dropped the heavy load near the others.
‘Did you get the stain out of Dad’s shirt?’
‘Mostly,’ she said, picking it up to show her. ‘I think there’ll be a faint mark.’
Mavis frowned at the pale brown on the white of her husband’s best Sunday shirt. That wouldn’t do at all.
‘Maybe we could dye the whole thing khaki. Say it’s a troop support shirt,’ Beryl suggested, wrinkling her nose as she studied it and pushing her blonde hair away from her face.
‘Might become all the rage,’ her sister Dorn agreed and they giggled, causing their mother to smile too.
‘Keep it aside, Beryl. I’ll try another soak. Here, Dorn, fetch a clean tub with her now.’ Mavis hefted the one she’d just emptied and handed it to her youngest before they took off.
They were good girls, her two, uncomplaining and accepting of their lot and both blessed with good humour, much like herself when she could find the time to laugh. She allowed herself another smile now, imagining her husband, Rory, turning up at church tomorrow in a khaki-dyed shirt under his pressed jacket and tie. He was proud Irish, her man – Sunday best had to be just that, which made the image rather amusing.
Not so the Irish drinking that came with it though. No, there was nothing much to smile at there.
Mavis pulled a basket close to the line that hung between the great gum and the scribbly, pegging each of her husband’s items carefully. A currawong sat nearby, watching her with yellow eyes before turning to call to her young. It was a strange, lamenting sound, Mavis had always thought; beautiful, yet sad too. Like a mother’s love when she feared for her child.
Holding one of Michael’s shirts now she felt the birdsong fill her, her instincts on alert. Something was up with that boy, something restless and unpredictable and it made her very nervous. Last time she had a son who wore that expression, he up and joined the army. It had been two long years of praying for Davey and Mavis didn’t welcome the idea of adding a second son’s name after each decade of the Rosary. She fingered the beads in her pocket absently. Michael is only eighteen, she reassured herself. It would be impossible for him to falsify his age and join up locally. They would just have to keep an eye on him and hope he didn’t wander into another town’s enrolment office when he was out droving.
The sound of the girls’ chatter echoed and she squinted over at the house, tidy and well-tended but not much more than a shack really. The paddocks were overgrown and largely unused but the vegetable garden bore good return, thanks to the many hours of care she’d invested. The chicken coop was a blessing too, providing a regular supply of fresh eggs, but such luxuries couldn’t make up for the cramped conditions within.
We need more room. It was a common thought, ever more so of late. Rory had promised he’d add extra space not long after they’d moved here from Tumut two years ago, but somehow it had never eventuated. It hadn’t mattered so much when it was the girls sharing a room on one side of the kitchen and she and Rory in a room on the other, but now a two-bedroom home just wasn’t working. Not since the stockmen’s quarters had shut down at the Wallaces’ and Michael had moved back home.
He wouldn’t be with them for long, though. Especially when Rory kept coming home three sheets to the wind after handing over most of his sporadic earnings to the local publican. Despite her best efforts to stifle the grunts and creaks that came from their bed, she knew that Michael was well aware of what went on once her drunk, amorous husband fell alongside her.
/> Michael had taken to sleeping outside in a makeshift lean-to, backed up against the rough-hewn rocks that formed the house’s chimney. But Braidwood was cold at night, even at this time of year. No, her youngest son wouldn’t stand another winter at home now. Not with Rory the way he was.
It had been bad enough when the army had rejected her husband’s enlistment at the beginning of the war. Despite wearing his Sunday best, Rory hadn’t been able to hide the black eye he’d received the night before nor the after-stench of whisky. Nor could he hide the altercations on his service record that reinforced their opinion. Rory had been a decorated soldier in the Great War – infractions aside. He’d been many things before they’d hit hard times. When the army had accepted their son Davey it was another blow to Rory’s pride, especially as he’d been teaching their boy to ride and shoot since he was a young fellow.
But the harshest blow had come this winter, when Henry Wallace had suddenly announced he was putting Rory off. These past few years Rory had fallen down, to be sure. He’d become a drunk, bad-tempered, even belligerent, but he wasn’t a lazy man. He’d worked the farm for the Wallace family with as much care and dedication as if it were his own – more, she acknowledged, looking around her. He’d even taken his own sons to work alongside him. She knew he’d missed working with Davey once he’d left for war but at least Michael had still been with him each day. Now that was denied him too, and Mavis knew Rory resented not being able to spend time with his son even more than losing the regular wage.
Mavis still wondered at the coldness of Henry’s decision; it was so unlike him. But of course Henry wasn’t the one behind it – rumour had it he was in debt to the Farthingtons, because Ernest had taken control of the property. And Ernest had no room for an outspoken man like Rory on staff; he preferred lackeys to men with opinions, boys he could work like dogs and pay as little as possible. Boys like her son.
Her eyes pricked for poor Lily; she’d lost more than a child in this war. Henry was hitting the bottle hard too and they’d lost control of their staff and their home. Grief crippled people in so many ways, she reflected, sending a quick prayer to heaven for Davey.
And for Michael. Because he would soon leave, she knew it in her heart. It wasn’t just his father’s drinking, the cold nights or even Ernest Farthington that was driving him away. He was losing Junie Wallace too. The only person who had been keeping him here was set to be caught in the same net that held them all. Mavis could read the signs in Mass each week: Ernest was after that girl and what Ernest wanted he usually got, even if it meant standing up to his overbearing mother at last. Michael was about to taste the bitterness of a broken heart and she could no sooner prevent it than stop the sun from setting.
Mavis looked to the sky as that golden orb sank gloriously now, igniting the fields into a moving sea of light, shimmer and shadow, rippling and bowing to the breeze that cooled the day into night. The currawong continued her call and Mavis felt an aching maternal love move through her. It dipped and pulled, surpassing an old love and eclipsing it, the love she’d once felt for her man. Now as fallen and rusted as the gate on their drive.
Neither love gave her comfort any more. They just left her here, alone with the sky. To ache with the song of the currawong.
Sitting in the bay window of her bedroom, Junie Wallace watched the sun burnish the cream walls of the family homestead. The green pitched roof of the front parlour below was almost black now and the lawn was a dark carpet for the handful of rosellas in late search of grass seeds. She was running her fingers across the soft silk of her new dress, wondering how her mother had saved the coupons and put enough money away for it. Such items had been commonplace a few years back but now, with her father’s debts and the Farthingtons’ control of the estate, they were rare and treasured items. Especially when there was a special occasion to wear it to – like tomorrow night. Despite the dread she felt over Ernest’s pending announcement, part of her couldn’t help but feel excited by the idea of Michael Riley seeing her in this dress.
Suddenly she couldn’t wait to try it on. Junie tore her cotton skirt and shirt off, pulling the soft fabric over her head and sliding it down her body before pausing to carefully zip it. Then she turned to stare into the oak-framed mirror that sat in the corner of her bedroom, admitting to herself that the girl she saw there was no longer a girl at all. The pale pink fabric clung to her curves where only last summer it would have fallen in straight lines. Junie, a late bloomer, had become a woman at long last, with accentuated hips and a rounded bust. Her best friend, Katie Burgess, said that Junie looked like the film star Gene Tierney, marvelling at the resemblance every time they passed the poster advertising the actress’s latest movie Belle Starr at the theatre in town. Junie didn’t know about that. Gene Tierney seemed to know what to do with her curves. Junie hadn’t a clue.
She tried to practise some of the movie star’s poses, lifting one shoulder and holding her hand at her hip. Maybe Michael would dance with her, his hand on her waist, his cheek against hers. She stroked the material absently. Maybe he would take her outside and kiss her in the cold moonlight, running his fingers across the silk, causing pleasures she could barely imagine. The thought made her stomach flutter and she took a deep breath, trying to calm her mind, but it went racing ahead regardless, darting into little tunnels and holes like a rabbit in a warren. Sometimes she hated the way her mind did that, always digging further, relentless, finding yet another tunnel when all she wanted to do was rest.
People had always dubbed her ‘clever’, in the almost pitying way they said such things about bookish girls, but the verdict had shifted somewhat with the arrival of her figure. Now she was viewed with discomforting interest by several of the men in the town, and expressions like ‘good sort’ and ‘right little beauty’ were tagged to her name. A few of the women were less effusive, marking the change in Junie with wariness or perhaps envy, using non-committal phrases such as ‘grown up’ and ‘quite the young lady’ at best, ‘look out for that one’ or ‘up to no good’ at worst – the last only whispered, of course, but Junie heard. Those who loved her were in turn apprehensive (her parents), teasing (her girlfriends), or frustratingly silent (Michael), but to those precious few she was still just Junie; clever, curvy or otherwise.
Michael’s face came to mind again and the longing she’d read in his eyes today haunted her. It wasn’t just her imagination – she knew he felt what she felt. But she needed him to turn that feeling into action or Ernest was about to close in and take any hope away.
He’s going to anyway; it’s too late, the rabbit in her mind warned, racing down an unwanted tunnel.
Junie stared at her reflection as the rabbit ran, twisting and searching for a way to stop this.
Maybe Michael is planning something. He said he had a job to do. Maybe he’s lined up work for himself somewhere else.
Hope bounded with the rabbit.
I could leave with him! Then maybe we could make enough money to send home and I wouldn’t have to marry Ernest – he wouldn’t have any power over me. I could save the farm with Michael.
Then the rabbit hit a block and Junie paused.
But just how much money would be ‘enough’?
There was no point in the rabbit running down any more tunnels until she knew that answer. The price of her freedom was really the price of her family’s debt and she needed to find out just what that sum was.
Junie felt her resolve intensify. She was a woman grown, not a child to be bartered off. Forget her earlier resignation, she wasn’t going to marry Ernest, not when her rabbit could tunnel its way to an answer. Not when the debt could be paid with a combined force of skill and wits from two instead of one.
And not while Michael Riley and pale pink silk dresses promised so much more.
The wireless was playing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ and Lily Wallace hummed along as she washed each glass carefully, spinning the crystal in the late sun and watching it make little rainb
ows across her kitchen. It would have been a perfectly normal, cheerfully domestic moment if not for the fact that she was also crying. She hardly even noticed it any more, it was just rain on her face, matching the tears that rained every day in her heart, ever since her boy had been taken from her.
Judy Garland’s voice wrapped sweetly around her.
Frankie had drawn a picture of a rainbow for her once. He’d given it to her for Christmas – or was it her birthday? Lily hated that she couldn’t remember, although she did remember that he’d included a horse with three legs. She’d laughed and kissed his fair little head, telling him he was an artist in the making. She wondered where it was now. Surely she’d kept it? Perhaps she’d look for it later, after a little lie down.
‘Mum.’
Lily started and hastily dabbed at her eyes. ‘I’m in the kitchen,’ she called, wishing she had time to wash her face – Junie hated to see her cry. She turned and gave a little gasp as Junie walked into the kitchen in her new pink dress.
‘Junie! You shouldn’t wear it until tomorrow! Oh, but you do look lovely,’ Lily exclaimed softly. That girl grew more beautiful by the day.
Junie glanced down at the dress in mild surprise. ‘I tried it on, then forgot I was wearing it,’ she said. ‘I’ll take it off in a sec, Mum, I just wanted to ask you something –’
‘I think you should take it off now, don’t you?’ Lily said, wiping her hands on her apron and pointing to the stairs. ‘Come on, you can ask me whatever it is in your room.’
Junie huffed impatiently but did as she was told. She was a good daughter like that, dutiful towards both her parents while her brothers were away, despite her wilful nature.
Lily helped Junie out of her dress and hung it carefully on the wardrobe.
‘There. Now what was it that couldn’t wait?’
Junie put her skirt and blouse back on and sat next to her mother on the bed, staring into the distance as she often did when deep in thought. Lily could almost hear the intelligent teenage mind at work.
Worth Fighting For Page 2
