Gallipoli Street

by Mary-Anne O'Connor

  GALLIPOLI STREET

  MARY-ANNE O’CONNOR

  www.harlequinbooks.com.au

  Contents

  About the Author

  Part One

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Part Two

  Twelve

  Thireen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Part Three

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  Part Four

  Thirty-one

  Thirty-two

  Thirty-three

  Part Five

  Thirty-four

  Thirty-five

  Thirty-six

  Thirty-seven

  Thirty-eight

  Thirty-nine

  Forty

  Forty-one

  Forty-two

  Forty-three

  Forty-four

  Forty-five

  Forty-six

  Forty-seven

  Forty-eight

  Forty-nine

  Fifty

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Mary-Anne O’Connor has a combined arts education degree with specialities in environment, music and literature. She works in marketing and co-wrote/edited A Brush with Light and Secrets of the Brush with Kevin Best.

  Mary-Anne lives in a house overlooking her beloved bushland in northern Sydney with her husband Anthony, their two sons Jimmy and Jack, and their very spoilt dog Saxon. This is her first major novel.

  For Nana and Da

  We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

  Loved, and were loved, and now we lie

  Colonel John McCrae, 1915

  Part One

  One

  Beecroft, Sydney, Australia, November 1913

  The rumble echoed through the faint drone of cicadas and Jack lifted his head, listening.

  A flash of grey caught his attention through the branches and his country-honed senses fell into instant alert.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Rose.

  Jack held up his hand to silence her and parted the trees, emerging from their lovers’ hollow. Squinting in the late-spring heat, his eyes made out the green snake of creek line twisting through the valley, the telltale artery of a landscape that had lazed too long in sunshine. Parched and dry, it seemed ready to self-ignite from lack of rain.

  The smoke had disappeared…but no, there it was.

  The rumble echoed again and he registered that it was actually the sound of a horse and wagon at full pelt. The cart could be glimpsed between bushes as it careened along Cowpasture Lane, and he could now make out that the grey ‘smoke’ was in fact dust billowing in its wake.

  A woman’s scream carried across the expanse and he jumped to his feet, annoyed at himself for taking off his boots moments before. Jack glanced back at the beautiful, flushed face looking up at him enquiringly and cursed the wretched timing of it all, hoping she would heed his instruction.

  ‘Stay here!’

  With that, he leapt onto Tilley, snatched up the reins and hurled her down the slope.

  Tilley wasn’t nearly as fine looking as Ebony, Iggy’s mare, but Jack had only had her a few weeks and already she was outstripping a few of the others out on Riley’s track. He felt reasonably sure he could catch the bolting horse and wagon before they hit the mush that had replaced the shallows in recent months. Thinking about what would happen if the wheels met with that thick clog of mud, he gripped the leather saddle hard with his thighs and urged Tilley on faster.

  He tore across the paddock, taking the fence at a gallop before cutting down towards the lane, weighing up the unappealing option of cutting through Stan’s Gully without boots to save time. His mind was made up as he caught a glimpse of the runaway. Yes, it was a woman on her own, standing up in the wagon, dragging on the reins.

  ‘Bloody fool’s gunna break her neck,’ he muttered. He turned Tilley towards the gully, taking the rocky slopes and gritting his teeth against the sharp tear on his shins as the sword grass lashed him. Sweat ran into his eyes, piercing them into momentary blindness, as he swerved against the large sandstone boulders: rough grazes added themselves to the lines of cuts. Jack vaguely registered the trickle of blood, and supposed his legs were by now a mess, but then Tilley found the sudden rise that bordered the road and he forget all else, finally gaining a clear view of the situation.

  The sight was not what he expected.

  With her honey-blonde hair loosened from its usual tight braiding and her cotton dress tucked into a belt about her waist, Veronica Maggie O’Shay was standing up in her father’s cart, one leg firm against the front-board. Her arms were taut and she was obviously in full control of Bessie, who was galloping along in front. The girl let out a loud catcall, which Jack recognised as the ‘scream’ he’d heard earlier, then took a bend in the lane with precision, laughing in exhilaration.

  It was the laugh that did it. Jack’s high-pitched whistle made Veronica start and she turned and stared at him in surprise. Her confident pose became a confused moment of imbalance as she contorted in alarm, the cart careening dangerously before she managed to regain control, slowing Bessie down to a canter then finally to a walk.

  She jumped down from the wagon and rounded on Jack as he dismounted, her hair twisting and bouncing about her, reminding Jack of a pet cockatoo he’d once had, who used to gallop across the floor, crest fanning in fury, whenever he saw the biscuit tin being put away.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, Jack Murphy?’ she demanded. ‘You could have killed me!’

  ‘Me? You seemed to be doing a pretty bloody good job of that yourself!’

  ‘Don’t you swear at me!’ She waved a warning finger at him, her breath coming in short gasps, from exertion or fury. ‘Sneaking up like that…I nearly ended up in the ditch!’

  ‘Sneaking up? With the racket you were making?’ Jack glared back at her, feeling a wave of anger overtake him. So much for rescuing a damsel in distress. Bloody Veronica and her secret rebellions. He’d thought she would have well grown out of such things by now. ‘I’m sure your mother would be interested to know that her daughter was running about the place with her legs bare to the wind, making a scene!’

  Jack indicated at the still half-tucked-in dress, distracted by the limbs that were being hastily covered from his sight.

  ‘She wouldn’t…she…’ Veronica swatted angrily at the unruly blonde curls blowing across her face and Jack knew he had her there. Mrs O’Shay would not be amused by this escapade. Veronica seemed to run out of logic and reverted to one of her brother Tom’s favourite retaliations instead. ‘You’re – you’re nothing but an ugly man’s dog, you know that?’

  ‘Sure she’d love to hear her supposedly refined daughter talking like that too,’ Jack said, beginning to be amused by Veronica’s outrage, and the way she’d copied Tom’s slang, clearly the worst insult she knew. He could tell the comments about her mother were unnerving her; she was biting her lip and he noticed he was staring again. He became uncomfortably aware that they were very much alone, both in varying states of undress.

  ‘I’d better escort you home,’ he said, quickly pulling up hi
s braces, which were hanging down limply, and running his fingers along the edges of his shirt front for the buttons.

  Veronica blushed and glanced down. ‘What happened to your legs? You’re bleeding.’ She bent and peered at the scratches and cuts on his shins. ‘What on earth possessed you to take off your boots?’

  She reached out to touch his leg and he grabbed her arm, hauling her upwards.

  ‘Don’t. It’s all right.’ Jack stopped abruptly as she stood in front of him and his eyes came to rest on the pulsing in the damp hollow at the base of her throat. A sticky strand of blonde curl still clung there and for a moment Jack felt a strong pull towards her, a lapse of conscious thought. An insane desire to brush that curl away and trace her skin with his fingers.

  Then he met her eyes. O’Shay eyes. The same colour as her brothers, Mick and Tom.

  His two oldest, closest friends.

  Their little sister.

  ‘Anyway, you’d better do something about that hair,’ he said, almost shoving her away and turning to needlessly tighten Tilley’s girth.

  Veronica seemed to steady herself before climbing back onto the wagon. Sitting on the bench seat she braided her hair furiously as Jack determined to look away. This is Vera, for God’s sake, he told himself sternly, purposefully using her brothers’ pet name for her. Get a hold of yourself.

  Forcing a neutral expression, he mounted Tilley and deliberately adopted an authoritative, paternal tone. ‘Just take more care in the future, Vera. You would’ve been in serious trouble if I hadn’t come along. What if you’d ended up in the creek?’ He received a haughty sidelong glance in response, and felt his frustration rise again, forgetting the new, mature approach. ‘When are you going to bloody grow up a bit and stop acting all wild?’

  Vera turned quickly on the bench seat. ‘When am I going to grow up? What about you? You can’t even walk around with your…your shirt tucked in and your boots on! And for your information I was in perfect control of Bess the whole time, and I’ve lived on this lane long enough not to be so stupid as to drive a cart into the creek.’

  Jack thought he detected a slight tremble as she picked up the reins, and he sighed. ‘Better give me the cart. You’re too upset to drive.’

  ‘You just get yourself back to whatever crevice it was you crawled out of! I am quite capable of getting myself home,’ she said, flicking the reins and adding over her shoulder: ‘And stop calling me Vera!’

  She set off up the track at a pace, leaving him enveloped in plumes of dust. Jack moved to the side, shielding his face, watching the angry little cloud all the way to the corner until she disappeared from view.

  What the hell was wrong with her? And, even more disconcerting, what the hell was wrong with him?

  She was like family. Growing up on neighbouring farms, the Murphys and the O’Shays had been inseparable as kids – barefoot and unencumbered, they had grown as wild as the bush itself within a thousand adventures of childhood. He supposed they’d never looked ahead, to when adulthood would arrive and drive them into responsibility and restriction, reining them in and strapping them down. He suspected Veronica was resentful. She’d had the worst of it at that suffocating school her mother had sent her to and now, when it was finally over, she had come home to find that the rest of them had long moved on into adult lives. The adventures were of a different nature, the friendships altered.

  Even his sister Pattie, Veronica’s closest friend, had been home schooled by a governess and was never made to leave. Another wild one was Pattie, though in a different way from Veronica.

  Pattie was a tomboy, straight out.

  Veronica was…well she was Vera. Vera would be the one standing in the mud, squishing it beneath her toes or sitting in the tree humming songs to herself, always the last one to want to come inside. Such was the girl. He wondered at the adult version of this nature child. He’d thought she would come home after four years away a polished little clone of her refined English mother, yet here she was tearing along the track, bare legged and as wild as ever. Jack’s mind filled with the image – like an ancient goddess on a chariot, he mused to himself.

  He shook his head, rejecting it. It was just the shock of seeing her suddenly grown up. They hadn’t had the chance yet to try to be friends as adults. Working in the city meant he’d only seen her sporadically during the past four years, and then only on the occasional weekend when she was home. Even now that she was back for good, those precious two days were likely to be taken up with cricket and courting Rose.

  Good Lord, Rose!

  Jack immediately snapped out of his reverie and mounted Tilley, who made short work of the sprint back to the stand of trees in the high paddock where the other world lay waiting. Spying Rose’s horse Arrow grazing nearby Jack let out his breath, relieved that she hadn’t left in a huff. He ducked his head through the whispering casuarinas that secluded their secret spot.

  ‘You sure took your time,’ she said. ‘What was it? A runaway horse?’

  ‘Hmm? Oh yeah, just some local kid.’ Jack lay down next to her, marvelling at the fact he could have forgotten about her for so long as he cupped her soft cheek. ‘You feel hot,’ he observed, tracing the damp line along her brow.

  ‘Still getting used to the Sydney weather.’ She smiled, pushing her dark red hair back in a thick curtain and baring one creamy shoulder from her blouse. Jack stared, his mouth going dry. He’d never been with a woman like Rose before. The girls he’d courted were mostly strictly raised Catholics whose mothers were never far away – he’d been lucky to steal a kiss or the occasional brush against them at a dance. He’d visited Kings Cross, of course. All the men in his circle did, mostly to play cards and dine at some of the more risqué clubs, however a few times the night had ended in darkened rooms between perfumed sheets. But that was different. It had been perfunctory, fast, professional. Detached.

  Rose was a delicious cocktail of Catholic girl and seductress. She was a lady, yet she responded with free abandon to her passion without seeming to harbour any guilt or restraint. These past two months with her he had learnt how to please a woman: where they liked to be touched, how they liked to be touched. How much fun a lady could have without completely surrendering her virtue.

  He leant forward and lifted her hair, kissing her softly behind her ear, noticing that his breath raised little bumps along her arms. She closed her eyes as he found her mouth, playing against it until she sighed, her eyes heavy and asking for more.

  ‘Did you miss me?’ he asked.

  She reached behind and showed him a pile of unlaced corsets, raising her eyebrows in answer.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’ He laughed, rolling her onto the blanket and kissing her deeply again, this time running his fingers across the thin fabric to feel the bare skin beneath. He stretched her arms up above her head and traced circles against her breasts, watching her gasp as her skin met his touch.

  ‘You’re a bad, bad boy Jack Murphy,’ she whispered, tracing one nail across his chin. Jack kissed her again, the sweet scent of the splintered leaves baking above them, all thoughts of runaway carts swept from his mind.

  Veronica didn’t go straight home; in fact she decided heading to the creek and cooling off was a much better idea. After tying up Bess she took off her shoes, welcoming the familiar feel of the large smooth rocks under her feet as she picked her way downstream to her favourite spot. This was a small pool to the side of the creek, hidden behind an enormous log and ringed by sand.

  It was here, to this secret oasis, that she came to escape the confines of her life, a life once as natural and easy as these surrounds. How she had longed for it as she endured the stuffiness of the classrooms at her hated finishing school; now, in her newly prescriptive role as young lady of the house, this place was her only solace from routine. Here, soothed by the clear water and the light dappling the leaves in multiple shades of green, she could distance herself from expectation and restraint and savour the freedom that had once b
een hers. Back when being with Jack was an everyday event. Back when being with Jack was simple.

  Veronica undressed, absently watching the rainbow lorikeets squabbling among the grevillea, their jewel colours brilliant alongside the strangely curling, long red flowers. Laying her clothes on the sand, she placed her shoes on top and walked gingerly into the water, its coolness soothing her overheated skin as she lay alongside the log, her head resting on a smooth branch. She breathed in deeply, welcoming the familiar honey of the gum blossoms hanging overhead and tracing the scribbly gums’ little pathways with her eyes, forcing her mind to relax.

  ‘Hello, Eddie,’ she said. The butcherbird had jumped up beside her, tapping his beak expectantly on the log. She smiled and he hopped a little closer. ‘No, I haven’t got any bread for you today. Go and catch something, you lazy thing.’

  He waited for a while, then eventually accepted there would be no free lunch and began to dig about in the leaves for grubs.

  Veronica’s mind wandered back over the events of the past hour, scowling as she remembered the condescending way Jack had looked at her, his dismissive words. The moment he had pushed her away as though he suddenly realised she was just a child.

  The way he ordered her about as if he were her brother. Who was he to tell her she couldn’t race a wagon and enjoy herself? So what if she’d let out a few calls and her skirt had ridden up a little?

  Veronica blushed. Actually she had tucked it up and Jack Murphy had just seen more of her body than anyone else since her mother dressed her as a child. Sighing, she leant back in the water, staring at the sky. There would be hell to pay if she was found out, so what had possessed her to do it? She didn’t really know, she just knew she needed to do things like that sometimes, to remind herself how it all used to feel. Before she’d had to grow up.

  Sinking into the cool water she ran her hand down her arm, reliving the moment he’d touched her, remembering the feel of his fingers, as if they’d burnt her. She’d been so close to him she could breathe in his scent; every part of her alert. His open shirt and his low-slung trousers had revealed a flat brown stomach with a trail of fine dark hair. She blushed to think what lay at the end of it.