If Blood Should Stain the Wattle

by Jackie French

  Matilda strode through the crush towards her, as if prepared to use her stick as a weapon if the crowd didn’t part like the Red Sea before her. ‘I want a word with you.’ Matilda lowered her voice discreetly. ‘Are you on the tablet?’

  ‘The what?’ Jed’s mind flew to large flat stones.

  ‘That contraceptive thing.’

  Jed flushed. ‘The pill?’

  ‘That’s it. Well?’

  ‘Matilda, that’s none of your business.’

  ‘Of course it is. If the chemist won’t stock it, just let me know, and I’ll have a word with his mother.’

  ‘Matilda, really, it’s all fine.’ Her cheeks felt as hot as the peanut soup.

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. Very glad indeed. I would like great-great-grandchildren, of course. They provide enormous bragging rights at the CWA. But you do get more credit for the fruits of your family tree if the fruit arrives at least nine months after the wedding.’ Matilda waved her stick at the Gibberer’s new editor, over by the courtyard. ‘Cheryl, I need to have a quick word with you.’ The crowd parted for her once again.

  Jed let out a breath. Family planning by Matilda. No one planned a family like Matilda . . .

  She headed over to the front door for a breath of normality as Nancy came in, turning to Miss Forty from River View as she carefully undid Gavin’s harness and helped the younger woman put it on herself. Nancy bent and kissed the baby’s cheek.

  ‘You be good for Miss Forty now.’

  The baby stared at her, with watchful, happy eyes, his eyes still turning to Nancy as the young woman carried him out the door, then down the street.

  The white-clad woman.

  Why had Jed never noticed that Miss Forty wore white all the time? The therapists and doctor at River View did wear white coats, easy to clean and a way to show that they were staff. But Miss Forty’s was a white dress. And ‘Forty’: a number, not a name.

  ‘Nancy!’

  ‘Jed, what is it?’

  ‘I’ve just realised — Miss Forty has to be a member of that community — the Chosen of the Universe. The faith-healing cult I was telling you about.’

  ‘Is she now?’ Nancy considered. ‘She doesn’t have any real connection with the kids,’ she said at last. ‘I’ll have a word with her. Make sure she knows that nothing of that kind will be tolerated.’

  ‘But you’ve just left Gavin with her!’

  ‘I think Gavin is a bit young to be seduced by a faith healer,’ said Nancy, amused. ‘She’s just taking him straight back to River View anyway. There’s too much chance of infection in a crowd like this. But we’re trying to give him as much exposure to sounds and speech as we can. He’s one bright little boy.’ Love rang in her voice.

  Jed nodded absent-mindedly. ‘Nancy, could you ring River View and make sure Gavin’s back there, safe?’

  ‘Good grief. You don’t really think . . . Well, if you like.’ Nancy elbowed her way into the kitchen, and the Blue Belle’s phone. Jed followed, smiling vaguely at friends as she passed.

  ‘Hello, Jean? It’s Nancy. Just wondering if Miss Forty is back with Gavin. Her car has just pulled up? Oh, good. No, nothing really, just it’s a bit chilly tonight. I shouldn’t have brought Gavin out. It’s good he’s back home. See you tomorrow.’

  She put the receiver down. ‘One baby, present and correct. Jed, she’s a good girl. Hard-working, eager to help. If she does believe in faith healing, well, maybe wanting to help people is also why she wants to work at River View.’

  ‘Don’t leave Gavin with her. Please.’ Jed hadn’t known she was even going to say it. She tried to hunt for a rational reason for her disquiet. ‘I think Ra Zacharia — he’s the leader of the community — also gives them herbal remedies. Miss Forty might try that with Gavin.’

  ‘How? Gavin’s feeding has to be supervised in case he chokes.’ Nancy gazed around the crowded café in unspoken comment: in a café run by a young woman who chose not to speak, from a commune called Halfway to Eternity, a young woman who wore white and believed in faith healing was neither remarkable nor worrying. She gave Jed a reassuring pat. ‘Go and enjoy yourself. I’d better rescue Michael. Our two hellions need at least two parents to keep up with them. Ah, here’s Sam.’

  ‘Jed, you know my cousin Felicity, don’t you?’ asked Sam.

  Jed turned to see Felicity smiling tentatively at her. Brown skinned, yet another brown dress — didn’t the girl realise brown went out with the ark? Medium heels when Jed suspected she’d be happier in riding boots, and, good grief, red lipstick, which also went out with the ark, and not even a hint of blue or green eyeshadow. ‘We’ve met a couple of times at the election parties. It’s nice to see you again.’

  ‘Thank you.’ A good voice, a bit quiet. ‘Nicholas sends his apologies for not being here tonight. He has a committee meeting.’

  ‘Of course.’ It hadn’t even occurred to Jed that Nicholas might attend, though now she thought of it, a café opening was as good an event to mix with his constituents as any. ‘How is he?’

  ‘Frustrated by this Senate business. The Coalition is blocking so many of Labor’s election promises.’

  ‘Whitlam needs to call a double dissolution,’ said Jed, echoing Matilda.

  Felicity looked uncertain, either about the wisdom of a double dissolution or whether she should comment on it. ‘Perhaps.’

  What on earth did Nicholas see in her? Or had he always really wanted what Jed could never be, a quiet stay-at-home wife and mother? Though come to think of it, ‘stay-at-home’ exactly described Jed. And Felicity was studying to be a vet . . .

  ‘Felicity has agreed to give the opening speech tonight instead of Nicholas,’ said Sam as Felicity moved over to the counter.

  Jed stared as Sam tapped a fork against a glass for quiet. Felicity? But this was her café! She owned it . . .

  No, it was Leafsong’s café. And an opening speech by the local MP’s fiancée would be good publicity, for there was the Gibberer’s editor with her camera.

  ‘I . . . I’d just like to say welcome.’ Felicity’s voice was still too soft. ‘It’s a wonderful café, and it will be a wonderful thing for Gibber’s Creek. I hope everyone has a wonderful time . . . and . . . and that’s all really,’ she ended on a half-laugh.

  The crowd laughed with her, enjoying themselves, then turned back to food and gossip.

  That was possibly the worst speech since Caesar’s horse was made a Roman senator, thought Jed. In fact Felicity’s horses could have made a better one.

  Which was unfair, she acknowledged. For there had been no need for more, and everyone had been happy with it. Across the room Sam was deep in conversation with a couple of blokes he’d known at school.

  ‘You okay?’

  It was Carol, dressed in overalls and boots, her face defiantly free of make-up, her long hair untrimmed, as unlike Julieanne as possible, and yet . . .

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Jed shortly. She forced a smile. ‘It’s wonderful.’

  ‘Well, wonderful is a useful word,’ said Carol.

  Jed laughed, relieved that someone else had noticed too. Intelligence. That’s what Carol and Julieanne had in common. And kindness and integrity and just a touch of wicked humour. ‘Leafsong is doing an amazing job.’

  Carol nodded. ‘I didn’t think she’d pull it off,’ she admitted. ‘I get a bit too big sisterish sometimes. Probably you do too.’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Look, if you don’t mind, there’s something I’ve wanted to talk to you about. You know the rooms upstairs?’

  ‘Sure. They go with the lease of the café.’ As did the tiny flat behind it, where Leafsong now lived.

  ‘I know. But I want to ask, formally, for a change in the lease. I’d like to use one of the upstairs rooms as an office.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘A solicitor’s office, of course.’

  Jed raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re setting up in competition with Old McDonald? What about t
he withering away of the state leaving only alternative communities behind?’

  ‘Halfway to Eternity is already withering,’ said Carol ruefully. ‘JohnandAnnie are moving up to Tuntable Falls. Clifford’s going to teach English in Cuba. Broccoli Bill’s staying, at least.’

  ‘Broccoli Bill?’

  Carol grinned. ‘He thought plain “Bill” was too boring. He and Susan are building a rammed-earth house and are going to market garden on the river flats.’

  ‘What about the dome?’

  ‘JohnandAnnie have advertised it for sale with their share. But if it lasts one more winter, it’ll be a miracle.’

  ‘I thought domes were the most stable building shape on the planet.’

  ‘They may be,’ said Carol dryly, ‘but when they leak . . . and they always leak . . . the deck they are on rots. Look, my values haven’t changed. They’ve just . . . matured. If I practise, I can help people set up dual occupancy, help women or Aboriginal people who are suffering discrimination . . .’

  Jed listened politely. Carol was kidding herself if she thought she’d get much more than conveyancing work in Gibber’s Creek. Wills, bills and dills . . .

  Or maybe not.

  ‘Could you be the sort of solicitor who investigates things?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She took a breath. ‘When I first came here, the Thompsons got their family solicitor to investigate me. Can you arrange investigations too?’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ said Carol slowly. ‘There are private detectives in the Yellow Pages — I don’t actually know any. Who do you want investigated? And why not use the family firm?’

  ‘Because this isn’t a family matter. Or rather it’s my family, not the rest of the family. I want you to find out about the Chosen of the Universe. And the bloke in charge, Ra Zacharia.’

  ‘That,’ said Carol, ‘will be interesting.’

  ‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’ Jed glanced at Scarlett wending her way through the crowd with difficulty, another tray of hot cheesy things with mushrooms balanced on her wheelchair. ‘Hopefully having this place where she can hang out with Leafsong will keep her away from . . .’

  ‘A faith-healing con man?’

  ‘Do you think that’s what he is?’

  Carol shrugged. ‘Only gossip. Someone’s sister’s cousin kind of thing, who joined the Chosen after Ra Zacharia cured her arthritis.’

  ‘I’d like more than gossip,’ said Jed.

  ‘Will do. How much are you prepared to spend?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’ll probably be expensive, won’t it?’

  Carol nodded. ‘How about I give you weekly invoices? Then you can say stop at any point.’

  ‘Sounds good.’

  ‘Then you’re going to be my first and most lucrative client.’ Carol took a cheesy whatsit, and held it up like a toast. ‘Here’s to business!’

  ‘To business,’ agreed Jed as Sam headed back to her, carrying a tray full of glasses of punch.

  Chapter 44

  RA ZACHARIA

  Another death. And this one had been in the middle of dinner. Mark 49 had clasped his heart as dramatically as if he’d been an actor on Homicide (Ra Zacharia had a TV in his study, purely to keep abreast of popular culture) and slumped to the floor.

  There had been no way to hide that from the community. Nor any excuse to not call an ambulance. There would be an autopsy too.

  Luckily there was nothing suspicious for the autopsy to find. Mark 49 had come to Ra Zacharia with crippling arthritis. He had been so free of pain that for the last few months there had been no need of herbs to soothe it while Mark 49 perfected himself.

  Which he conspicuously failed to do, by not even suspecting the blockage of his heart. Yet more evidence, if any was needed, that the true Sacrifices must be young. Mark 23 was doing an excellent job. So was 40.

  It was a tribute to the power of the universe, and his own harmony within it, that everyone had accepted that Mark 49’s death was a lesson in what might happen if meditation was not strictly practised. Ra Zacharia had noticed Mark 50 being particularly assiduous ever since.

  If Ra Zacharia celebrated Christmas — which he did not, for the star he followed was not the one that had led the way to Bethlehem — he would have felt this was a most excellent one indeed.

  Chapter 45

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, December 1973

  And a Merry Christmas from all at the Gibber’s Creek Gazette. This year there will be no edition on Christmas Day, but our regular daily edition will continue as usual through the holiday period.

  SAM

  If life could be evaluated by its Christmases, which was as good a way as any to do it, Sam thought, waist-deep in the river below the Drinkwater homestead, his toes in its shifting sands, his hand keeping Scarlett’s flotation device steady, and his eyes on Jed, wearing the briefest crocheted pink bikini he had ever seen, his life was just about perfect.

  Not quite, of course. Sam grinned at Scarlett, also bikinied, though more modestly than Jed, giggling as she splashed a similarly bikinied Leafsong; at Jed, with her long brown legs and arms and seal-wet hair, diving and graceful like a platypus; grinned at the sheer joy of life. But there were still some important bits that needed to be accomplished before perfection was achieved.

  The first was convincing Mum to give him Great-Gran’s engagement ring to give to Jed, though he suspected she had already had it cleaned and put in a new box. And was probably looking at layette knitting patterns in Woman’s Realm for future grandkids as she and Dad travelled home.

  Sam could afford a new ring, of course. But Jed liked old things, and the ring linked him to the maternal great-grandparents he had never known, though he could just remember Mum’s funny old great-aunts, turning up like bad fairies at Jane’s christening. They had sent him The Good Child’s Book of Martyrs one birthday.

  The next step was to ask Jed to marry him, which was going to be the most incredible moment of his life so far. He needed the perfect time and place for that.

  And after that, if Jed agreed, he’d build an extension at Dribble, because even though Scarlett only had two years before she went to uni, it would always be her home, and he and Jed could do with a bit of privacy, plus they’d need more bedrooms for the kids.

  He smiled. He’d seen Jed with the River View kids often enough to know how much she loved children. He’d like two: one would be lonely, three bad for the planet, two about perfect. But if Jed wanted more or less, or asked him to build her a turreted castle to live in before she’d marry him, it would be fine by him. And he’d been saving up a couple of 1890s stained-glass windows scavenged from a building site that would be perfect for a glassed-in patio out the front, a place to leave muddy boots and raincoats and warm up the air in winter, then open the windows up to create a thermosyphon to suck hot air out of the house in summer. Natural air-conditioning.

  If Jed was happy with their living at Dribble, he’d turn his cottage at Halfway to Eternity into a combination of business office and showroom, where customers could see solar hot-water panels, photovoltaic panels, a hydraulic ram pump, adobe walls and a composting toilet actually working.

  And he needed a business name. He didn’t want to go on being ‘that nice young McAlpine lad, he can turn his hand to anything’ forever, especially once he was married. Maybe ‘Sam McAlpine: Alternatives’. That would fit on the side of the ute.

  ‘What are you daydreaming about?’ Jed popped up beside him, pushing her sodden hair out of her eyes. ‘You’ve got a smile on your face like you’ve seen a chook lay a golden egg. It’s time to go back to the house. Matilda says dinner is ready.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Sam glanced up at the Drinkwater homestead, where Matilda was probably still chatting to Jim and Iris and their sons, and Carol, dressed almost like a solicitor in a neat purple paisley dress. If dinner was ready, it meant that Michael and Nancy and their kids had arrived with Matron Clancy and Nancy’s mum.


  Jed pointed. Maxi panted in the shade of the red gums. A card dangled from her collar: Dinner is served.

  Sam laughed. ‘How did Matilda get Maxi to come down here?’

  ‘Matilda can do anything. Haven’t you noticed?’

  ‘Jed used to say she turned into a dragon at night,’ said Scarlett, doing an excellent job of propelling herself to the bank with her floater.

  ‘Maxi knows I keep dog biscuits in my pocket,’ admitted Jed. ‘Matilda just has to tell Maxi, “Find Jed.”’

  ‘If Maxi knows where you are.’

  ‘She’s a dog. She can smell dog biscuits a mile away. Come on, lazy bones.’

  ‘Lazy bones, yourself,’ he said, ducking her, then bobbing under the water too, to kiss her till they both emerged, spluttering.

  ‘Yuck,’ said Scarlett, watching with interest from her floater. Leafsong grinned next to her.

  ‘A tactful girl would look away,’ said Sam.

  ‘Probably,’ agreed Scarlett. ‘Good thing I’m not.’ She held up her arms for Sam to lift her into her four-wheel-drive wheelchair, then turned the wheelchair by herself, despite the sandy ground, and steadily if laboriously made her way up the slope with Leafsong to the big house.

  Sam waited till Jed had blotted her hair — his ponytail could stay wet and dripping — and wrapped herself in a sarong. Jed looked almost as good in a sarong as in a bikini . . .

  An almost perfect Christmas. And next year, the dinner table would need an even longer extension, with Mum and Dad and Jane, and Auntie Mah and Uncle Andy back home again.

  And Jed would be Mrs Sam McAlpine. Or Mrs Jed McAlpine. Or Ms Jed McAlpine-Kelly. Or just Ms Jed Kelly. Names didn’t matter. But he and Jed did.

  Chapter 46

  February 1974

  Dear Sharon,

  Happy birthday!

  We all hope it is a lovely day for you, and a wonderful year.

  Love from Mum, Dad and Bruce

  SCARLETT

  Scarlett looked at the card. Cheap, with flowers on it and a gold embossed Happy Birthday. She opened the small parcel. Bath salts!