Children bounced on the outskirts, played fetch with a thin, rib-lined puppy. The men were gone out in the paddocks or in the fields or with the horses. The women turned back to their wash and Leonora did not know how to begin, her mouth and thoughts failing. A tall, thin black woman reached to a slung wire and hung a wet dress upon the line. She turned, revealing a pregnant belly. Leonora stared at the swollen stomach, watched as the woman tenderly touched the curves of it. Absently, Leonora’s hand came up and rested upon her own flat abdomen.
The pregnant woman neared, tall and black as night. Her head blocked out the sun. She picked up Leonora’s hands, her palms hard and rough, and placed them on her bulging stomach. Tears fell again but not of grief. Under Leonora’s fingers throbbed life—rich and hot and full. There was no jealousy. This was a gift, the woman’s gift to her, and she let the wonder of the budding life flow into her veins and replenish what had been lost.
Leonora whispered, “Thank you.”
The woman nodded and mouthed one word . . . only one: Life.
Leonora took the word, let the vibration of its sound shudder through her body. Life.
Late in the evening, four days later, the front door hammered. Leonora bolted upright in bed. The pounding grew louder and more urgent. Alex moaned, then silenced with attention. He shot out of bed and grabbed his revolver from his pants. “Stay here!” he ordered.
Leonora dismissed the warning and followed. The whole house rattled under the knocking. Alex peered out the window. “What the hell!” In a rage, he flung open the door and screamed at the wide-eyed Aborigine, “What’s the meaning of—”
The man ignored Alex and stretched his neck at Leonora. “The baby!” he screamed. “Baby not comin’!”
Alex turned to Leonora. “I told you to stay upstairs.”
“What’s going on?” Leonora pushed past Alex to the man at the door. “What baby?”
Alex growled and shoved the dark man in the chest. “Get out of here!”
“The baby!” the man cried, his focus still tied to Leonora. “Alkira pushin’, but baby won’t come!”
Leonora looked at her hands, remembered the pregnant Aboriginal woman, could still feel the pulse of the baby underneath her fingertips. “Stay there!” she ordered. “I’m coming.”
She ran for the stairs to change when Alex grabbed her. “You’re not going out there.”
Leonora ripped her arm away. “The woman needs help, Alex.”
“I don’t give a shit!”
Leonora spit with hatred, “Do you really want the blood of another child on your hands?”
Alex glanced at her pelvis, stepped back with the memory. “Go!” He waved his hands in the air as if it were rotten. “What the fuck do I care.”
Leonora brought her medical bag and fumbled with her dress buttons as she chased after the black man, nearly invisible in the dark night. The moon was new, the sky a thick blanket of onyx. There was no break of color from ground to sky, only a line of stars pointed to the edge of land. The air was cool. The curlews were loud, their wails suffocating the ears and night. The Aborigine moved agilely on silent feet. Her breath came choppy and strained; her feet fumbled and slipped over stones and dry, sharp grass as she tried to keep up.
They neared the camp and she stopped. The shacks were still and without sound. Wide, empty shadows clung between the corrugated iron shanties. The air was heavy with absence; the very particles of the night did not fit. Something was off. There were no fires, no lamps lit in the windows. Her flesh shivered. Her feet inched backwards.
The man stopped and turned around, waved her forward. Leonora forced her body against the dread. It was too quiet. The cool air did not carry any scent, and with the lack the air cooled further beyond temperature. She was breathing quickly; her hands clutched the medical bag to her chest. She swallowed through her tight throat and walked slower but ever forward into the rows of sleeping iron boxes.
The man entered the largest shack, a long, rectangular tin can with sawed holes for windows, the edges warped and rusted. Leonora entered the dark room. The pounded-dirt floor sloped unevenly. She couldn’t see past the man beside her. “Where is she?” Her voice cracked.
“In ’ere.” The man put a firm hand on the small of Leonora’s back. Her already-tense nerves jumped at the touch and he let go, waved her ahead to another door.
The shadows of the corners shifted. There was breathing beyond her own. The man threw open the door. She stepped back, the urge to get away sudden and fierce. Someone moved behind her back and with a hard thrust pushed her to the black room. Leonora stumbled blindly and turned around. The door slammed. Leonora spread her palms over the closed door, tried to find the edge, tried to find the handle. “What are you doing?” she screamed.
The door locked. The hairs along her forehead and behind her neck and along her arms and legs stood straight. She found the handle, a twisted wire wrapped around more metal. She rattled the knob, tried to move it back and forth. She shook her whole arm trying to force it open. The terror moved down her back and filled the darkness. She pounded the door with her fist. “Let me out of here!” she screamed. “Somebody, help! Let me out!”
“Leo.”
She froze. Her fist hung in the air. Her heart raced until it nearly broke through her ribs. Her pulse thundered in her ears and eclipsed every other natural one. Then, beyond the throb of blood, bedsprings creaked.
“It’s all right, Leo,” the air whispered.
Her body trembled. Her lips stretched across her teeth. Her fist faltered and opened; her fingers twitched with spasms. A deep, long wail left her throat.
“Please don’t cry.”
It was a ghost. His ghost. His voice. Leonora tried to hold on to the sound. Knew it would fade, knew it was fading. She shook her head and cried out, “Don’t do this to me!”
The sound would disappear again. She would lose him all over again. Her forehead fell to the door and pressed against it. She shook her head into her sobs. “Please don’t do this to me!”
“Turn around, Leo.”
“No!” she wailed. If she turned around, the voice would go away; the ghost would disappear.
“Please.” The voice was rising, thick with pleading. “Just turn around, Leo.”
Her body twisted in the dark with defeat. Her feet flopped over each other as they stumbled to the back of the room. She shouldn’t have moved. The voice would be gone now. The hole would rip open again, bleed and grow, and this time it would never leave, never scar—just sit open and raw for eternity. But her feet still moved. Her knees bent without bones. Then something touched her arm. Her breath caught. Fingertips etched down her arm and found her hand, squeezed it tight.
Her legs gave out with the touch. Leonora crumpled to the floor. She felt the cold metal bed frame against her cheek. The hand pulled her up. Lips brushed her forehead, kissed her eyelids. A mouth opened and sighed against her jaw.
Leonora shook her head and cried and the lips kissed the tears. Her hands reached up to skin. To skin. Her nails bit into the long, smooth back. Her head rolled into the warmth—the warmth of his neck. Her fingers danced over his face. His face. Her fingertips quaked against the lines of the set jaw, the hot skin, the long, sloped nose, the drawn eyebrows, the creased forehead, the silken threads of his hair. It couldn’t be and was all at the same time. A cry left her throat.
“Shhhh,” James hushed her, and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulled her to his chest. “I know,” he whispered into her neck, the pain in his tone matching hers. “I’m here, Leo. I’m here.” His fingers curled in her hair, held her head against him. “I told you I’d never leave you.”
She tried to speak, but there were no words. She tried to kiss the lips that brushed against her cheekbones, but her lips were still frozen with the freshness of the grief and the new sheer, jolting disbelief. Her mouth opened and gasped, “I . . . I thought you—” The cry broke again before she could say the word.
“I know.” One kiss did not stop before another began, his lips inching along her face. “It’s all going to be all right now.”
The weeks, the months, of dying without him filtered in and laid their knives deep across her stomach. “Why didn’t you tell me you were alive?”
His kiss slowed and stopped; his lips hovered above hers. “I almost wasn’t.” James pressed his forehead against hers. “I didn’t want you to know until I was sure.”
“Sure of what?”
“That I was going to make it.”
She gripped his shoulders. A small, constrained sound left his throat and his body winced sharply. Leonora pulled back. “You’re hurt!” she gasped.
“I’m all right.” He was quiet for a moment. “The worst is over.”
In the dark, she touched him gingerly down his arms, his chest, around the bandages that covered so much of him. She reached for his face and fell into his chest, tucked her head under his chin. “How?” she whispered through her tears.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “Someone found me. Brought me here.”
She found his lips, the warmth of his mouth. James gripped the back of her neck and held her to him. “I never stopped thinking of you, Leo,” he hushed between the drawn kiss. “Never.” With his bandaged arm, he touched her stomach lightly with his fingers.
The baby. The memory attacked and twisted. He didn’t know. She pulled away with horror and shame.
“What is it, Leo?” James reached for her retreating hand, pulled it back tightly.
“The baby . . .” she choked. New, hot tears spread down her face, dropped onto his wrist.
“I know.” James slid his hip along the thin mattress to near her, the effort bringing constrained winces of pain. James kissed her neck and swallowed his own tears. “I know about the baby, Leo.” His voice was nearly silent. “Tom told me.”
A heavy quiet dropped and settled with the utterance of the name. Tom.
Leonora was glad she could not see James’s face and the anguish and bitterness that would sculpt his features. But she was more relieved that he could not see her face and the shame and mortification that froze it. The silence between them grew as the name still echoed. Tom’s death was her fault.
Her hands stretched upon her face and she cried deeply into the creases of her palms. “I’m so sorry, James,” she choked haltingly.
“No, Leo.” James pulled himself up, grunted against his wounds and kissed her hands, her fingernails. His strong arm wrapped around her back, the biceps firm and unwavering against her bent spine. “This had nothing to do with you . . . with us. Nothing.” James touched her hair, tucked it behind her ear, kissed each strand that fell between his fingers. “Trust me, Leo.”
Leonora fell into his arms and sobbed, but his body was calm and loose. “It’s over, Leo. The pain. The loss. It ends now.” He kissed her forehead and she felt his lips smile softly against her skin. “Now we start a new life. Together.” He kissed her. “Like we were always meant to.”
CHAPTER 64
This ain’t your doin’, son.
Mrs. Shelby’s words had stayed with James on that day of Tom’s death and in the weeks that followed, whispered and flowed through the holes of his consciousness.
This ain’t your doin’, son.
His mother died upon his birth. Tess had faded with his growth. Shamus died with hate. And then Tom. Their faces had flashed as the bullets entered.
This ain’t your doin’, son.
Somewhere between the stretched and thoughtless black, the words entered the pores of his skin. Somewhere between the stilted and weary lucidity, the concept seeped into his veins and moved steadily through his blood. And when the fever shook his body and the blackness nearly flooded and won, the knowing took root and gripped his bones like muscle. It wasn’t his doing. None of it.
There were always whispers. Even after the Aborigines changed his dressings and left the herbed tea and bathed his body and then left the room, the space was crowded with the whispers. His mother held his head, kissed his sweated brow. Tess held his hand, her soft, tiny fingers strong against his. Shamus was there, too. The anger gone, the sparkle of Ireland in his eyes as he told him to hold on. His father held his hand with a firm and silent grip. Father McIntyre never left his side, strong and good and proud. And they shared a message for him, told him he was not an orphan but, instead, the son of many.
And then there was Tom—his friend, his brother—there with him always. He would sit casually at the end of the bed, easy and cool and smiling. And when the darkness came too quickly, Tom punched him in the arm and brought James back. These were the bodies that willed him. These were the whispers that vibrated in his ears along that fine line of life and death. The Aborigines healed his wounds, but the spirits healed the scars.
James pressed the bandages wrapped around his ribs. The pain was manageable now. In a month, he could leave. He closed his eyes and thought of Leo. The softness of her skin and kisses and hair washed over him. It was awful not telling her that he was here. It was awful that they had to trick her into the meeting. But it was the only way. No one could know he was here. Soon they would leave.
James relaxed into the thin, lopsided mattress. He closed his eyes. A vision of the sea rose behind his lids and he remembered those days beside his friend, their legs hanging fearlessly above the sea, the sun warming their bodies and the hope that surrounded them.
The hope had returned. They were going home.
CHAPTER 65
Alexander Harrington stretched under the thin sheet and spread his legs. Stale whiskey soured his mouth. His tongue was dry as cotton. He let out a long, waking sigh and flexed his toes. He was hard. With one hand, he sleepily stroked the long shaft. Leonora should be ready for him now, her body healed. It had been too long. He flopped to his side and reached for her hip, but his hand fell flat to the bed. Blindly, he patted the empty space, grunted and turned onto his back.
Suppose I should be glad she’s up, he reconciled. At least she’s not moping around the house like a fucking ghost anymore. Almost a month had passed since she lost the death look. Her cheeks had grown color again; her figure curved with healthy skin instead of bones. She was gorgeous again, almost painfully beautiful, and he wanted her again. Besides, he was tired of the whores, tired of their fake moans and cheap perfume. Alex turned to his side and pulled Leonora’s pillow to his face, sucked in the gentle rose scent.
All she needed was time. The shit was behind them now. Leonora’s tantrums were over and she was subdued. California would be a new start. Australia had been a curse.
California. They’d get an estate along the coast—raise thoroughbreds in a place that didn’t burn the horses’ skin. Alex grinned and stretched his arms above his head. Owen Fairfield’s days were numbered. Man was half-dead already with grief. They’d have more money than they could spend in five lifetimes. Alex stroked his penis, but the arousal had fallen away. He needed to piss.
Downstairs, he took his tea black and fanned the newspaper on the table. Meredith placed oranges and scones and butter down stiffly. “Where’s Leonora?” he asked without looking up.
“Don’t know,” she answered curtly.
He cocked his head. “Well, did she have breakfast?”
She glowered and crossed her arms over her bosom. “No.”
He dismissed her with a derisive snort. It would feel good firing that bitch.
After breakfast, Alex went to his office, pulled out the Monterey property listings. His eyes flickered over the acreage, the profiles of the land. Alex glanced over the edges of the papers and scanned his desk. Something was out of place, felt odd. He searched the walls. The pictures were all there staring back at him. His desk was in order. He twisted his neck to the bookshelves lined neat and polished. The crystal decanters in the bar were nearly full. The safe was still—
Alex bolted from his chair. The safe door was unlocked and swayed easily with the touch of his hand. His blo
od boiled. His eyes bulged from their sockets. Half the money was gone. Gone! As if someone had taken a hatchet and cut the box in two—on one side the bills reached nearly to the top; the other side was only blank, gaping, empty steel. They were robbed. His hands balled into fists, the nails cut into his palms.
His eyes blinked violently as a new thought entered. No. The air in his lungs steamed from his nostrils, hot and slow. She would never.
Alex tore from his office, ran upstairs taking three steps in each bound. He flew into the bedroom and pulled out the top drawer of Leonora’s bureau. Empty. He pulled the next one open. Empty. His teeth clattered with the stone fury pressing at his jaw. He ripped open drawer after drawer after drawer. Empty. Empty. Empty! Alex whipped open the closet doors, the hard wood banging sharply against the wall. Empty.
“Noooooo!” he howled, and picked up the table lamp, hurled it across the room to where it smashed into a shower of glass.
Alex ran and slid down the stairs. Clare waited at the bottom, her eyes wide with fear. “Where is she?” he screamed. Clare trembled mutely and stepped away from him. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her until her neck bobbed. “Where is she? ”
“I don’t know!” she cried, her voice undulating under Alex’s jerking.
Alex pushed her away and she crawled on scattered limbs for the kitchen. In a blind rush, Alex was in his office, found the revolver, cocked it and barreled outside. The Model T was gone. That bitch! His body twitched. He pointed the gun in every direction and then stopped with sudden focus and clear intent.
Alex ran. His boots pounded against the hard ground. Thump. Thump. Thump. Sweat dripped down his face and stung his eyes. His neck was wet and slick. His breathing was loud—panting, grunting, spitting breathing. His head felt swollen and dizzy under the beating sun. The fiery air entered his nostrils too quickly and burned his throat. “I’ll teach you!” he screamed into the quiet bushland.
Daughter of Australia Page 46
