by Rachel Leary
First published in 2017
Copyright © Rachel Leary 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.allenandunwin.com
Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia
www.trove.nla.gov.au
ISBN 9781760295479
eISBN 9781760638887
Set by Post Pre-press Group, Australia
Cover design: Christabella Designs
Cover photographys: Lyndsey Evans (landscape), Terry Bidgood / Trevillion Images, Christa Moffitt (dog)
The river rises to the flood. The river will not tell.
What is here for the telling? And who is here to tell?
Pete Hay, ‘By the Living Harry’
Contents
1: A Good Place
2: The Rottenness of Bones
3: Headwater
Author’s note and acknowledgements
1
A GOOD PLACE
Bridget stood on the boggy patch of ground looking up at the road. She yanked the spade out of the ground, shoved it in again and with a grunt brought up another chunk of waterlogged soil. The blister on her middle finger burst and she swore, put it up to her mouth. The sun had reached the field above and just below the road, evaporated the fog and melted the frost. The patch of dirt where she worked was still cold, the hill on the other side of the creek shading it. Below her, fog clung to the creek and the low land around it, rays of morning sunlight filtering into it, the grass under the fog coated in frost. Despite the digging her hands and cheeks were pink with cold. She looked behind her at the saddle between the two hills where Pigot and Chambers had gone that morning. Nothing. No sound but the rush of the creek and the distant bleating of sheep.
She shoved the spade into the ground, strode up the slope to the cottage, yanked open the door to the lean-to and then pushed the next door that jammed into the cottage’s dirt floor. Inside she felt on top of the cabinet for the pipe, then for the smooth leather of the tobacco purse. She leaned over the fireplace, held a stick in the embers.
Outside she sat on an upturned log, exhaled smoke into the brisk morning air, looked across the field where the trees had all been cleared, the rocky slope dotted with black stumps. Quiet. There was no one out here. The cottage sat at the end of a road that went nowhere. No one came to the place. There was nothing out here but sheep and crows and Charles Pigot and Grant bloody Chambers.
She sucked again, the smoke rough in her throat. When she had come out here a month ago, Pigot had said the missus was away, was sick and with relatives in Hobart Town, would be back soon. There’d been no sign of any missus. None was coming. There wasn’t even a missus. She knew that now. Pigot was a man who lied easily, no trace of deceit in his black eyes, so sure was he of his right to lie. A man who did not answer to anyone, or to any God. She knew—there was no missus, never had been one in this cottage, not a sign of a woman anywhere, no leftover mark.
Chambers, a convict servant like her, repulsed her. Lizard eyes, flesh rotten with some unnamed shame. He’d grabbed her once down by the creek, ‘Come on, what’s wrong with ya?’ He’d slipped on a rock and she’d got away from him and since then the wanting in his gaze had been lacquered with anger.
For the last two days he and Pigot had been away over the hill felling trees, her there on her own all day. Pigot said he wanted the ground dug and ready to plant. She said why didn’t Chambers dig it, she wasn’t digging, it wasn’t her job to dig. Pigot had paused where he was, about to put a log on the fire. Then he placed the log slowly, deliberately. He straightened, turned around to face her, fixed her with shiny coal-coloured eyes. ‘Your job, is what I tell you your job is.’
Bridget sat smoking while the fog thinned over the creek. She hacked a piece of fabric off the bottom of her dress, wrapped it around her hand and walked slowly back down the field.
A little while later she saw a figure coming down the hill. One of them coming back. Which one? Chambers. He was limping. She had noticed it as they left this morning. He went into Pigot’s place, came out with something in his fist, walked down towards the hut that sat close to the damp of the creek, didn’t look over at her as he passed by about twenty yards away. What was he doing back? It wasn’t lunchtime yet. She heard the hut door open and close and soon a stream of smoke came from the chimney.
In the cottage she put damper, butter and smoked meat on the table for Pigot, took hers outside the lean-to and ate there. When she heard the dog bark signalling Pigot’s arrival, she walked off back down to the mud patch.
After he had gone again, he and the dog disappearing up the track and over the rise on the top side of the road, she went up to the cottage, got the bucket and took it down to the creek, drawing water from further down rather than her usual spot so that she didn’t have to go too close to Chambers’ hut while he was there.
...
Pigot came in again at dusk, hung his coat on the back of the door and sat down at the table. She put a bowl of hot soup and a spoon down in front of him, the butter and damper already there. He slurped a spoonful. ‘Take one to Chambers.’
‘What?’ She had long ago dispensed with calling him sir. Chambers never did and Pigot didn’t seem to want it. He was no gentleman, of that she was pretty sure.
Pigot slurped again, his face close over the bowl, didn’t answer.
She was confused. Chambers had his own rations, was given them every week and cooked for himself in his hut. She never went there.
She turned away from Pigot, spooned soup into a bowl, went to the door and out, down the track towards the creek.
Chambers was lying on a straw mattress in the corner, the fire casting a blanket of light over him. His right trouser leg was rolled up to the knee exposing a yellow boil on the shin, the skin around it red and tight. Bridget stood in the doorway holding the soup bowl. Chambers didn’t move. She went quickly over to him and put the soup down on the ground where she was still out of reach. She shut the door behind her and hurried back up to Pigot’s cottage and into her lean-to.
...
In the morning Pigot sent her down to the hut again, this time with oats. Inside the fire was nearly out. It was cold but Chambers’ face was shiny with sweat. The boil had broken overnight, pus and blood oozing from the middle of it. The leg was more swollen, the whole of it from the knee down fat and red. She put the oats down and he pointed at a bowl of water next to him. ‘Can you get more salt?’ She realised then that it must have been salt he’d had in his fist yesterday when he left Pigot’s cottage. She had to move closer to him to pick up the bowl. She grabbed it quickly.
Pigot was still sitting at the table eating.
‘He wants salt.’
He spooned oats into his mouth, kept his gaze on the table in front of him. ‘Then get it.’
She went to the sack in the corner, took a handful. She had just reached the door and pulled it open when Pigot spoke. ‘Touch my pipe again, I’ll drown you in that creek.’
>
She paused, wondering whether to deny it, then went out and down to the hut.
Pigot went up the slope and over the road by himself that morning, just him and the dog. After a while she heard the steady stroke of the axe begin. As she dug she looked over at Chambers’ hut.
By lunch, when Pigot told her again to take soup down there, the fever was on Chambers hard. As she went to leave he reached out, clamped his damp hand around her wrist. ‘Tell him I need a doctor.’
She pulled her arm off him. ‘He’s getting one,’ she lied, didn’t know why she’d said it.
Back up at the cottage she stood in the doorway. ‘He needs a doctor.’
Nothing from Pigot. He put a spoonful of soup in his mouth.
‘He’s going to die down there.’
Pigot raised his head. ‘And you care, do you?’
‘Can’t just let him die down there.’
Pigot looked back down at his bowl. ‘If he’s not better in the morning, I’ll get one.’
In the morning, he’ll be dead, she thought.
...
In the morning Chambers was alive but the leg was swollen and hot, the fever even worse. He was delirious, talking about a storm brewing, yelling at her to shut the door, shut the door. Then he was crying, blubbering that it wasn’t his fault, something—she didn’t know what, couldn’t understand what he was saying—wasn’t his fault. She sat on the stool next to his mattress. Pigot had not harnessed the bullock. He had gone over the hill with the dog just as he had the morning before. He was not going for the doctor.
She sat with Chambers most of the morning. She didn’t care what Pigot said or did. She couldn’t be over there digging while twenty yards away Chambers lay here like this. He hadn’t eaten last night and wouldn’t eat this morning. She managed to get some water into his mouth. He was restless, his eyes protruding and glassy. He thrashed around on the mattress for a long time and then fell into a deep sleep. She went out and up to Pigot’s cottage, stood outside it looking up the slope and over the road, could hear the faint stroke of the axe.
Down in the field she dug for a while and then went to check on Chambers. She stopped outside his door then opened it slowly. He was still, his eyes open. He was lying on his side, staring at the wall. She had known before she opened the door. Somehow had known.
Outside the cottage she stood looking up at the road, the rush of the creek behind her.
When Pigot came down for lunch she put the soup in front of him, waited to see if he was going to ask anything, enquire after Chambers, but he only spread butter on the damper and stuffed chunks of it into his mouth. He left again and in the afternoon she planted potatoes in the dug dirt.
When Pigot returned in the late afternoon he went down to the hut, came back up, went into the lean-to and came out with the spade, took it down towards the creek. Bridget could hear the rough sound of the spade going into the dirt. In the twilight she saw him drag the body out of the hut, saw him roll it, pushing it for the last part with his boot, into the hole. He picked up the spade, shovelled dirt into the grave.
...
Later, she lay awake feeling the presence of Pigot on the other side of the wall. She had not spoken to him that night and he had not said a word—ate his dinner as though nothing at all had happened. Eventually she got up, lifted the lean-to door so it would be quiet and not drag, and went outside. The moon, almost full, cast blue light across the field. The bullock was moving around in the yard beyond the end of the hut, the faint sound of the creek running—those the only sounds rippling the silence. The brightest of the stars spun dusky fingers of light at her. Can’t stay here, it said.
Have to get away from this place.
In the morning Pigot didn’t go over the hill, but stayed in the field next to the hut among the stumps and picked up the rocks that lay scattered all over the place, added them to the pile that he and Chambers had made. Bridget walked down towards the creek, saw Pigot’s tall form bend, pick up a stone, walk over to the pile and drop it, pick up another one, the dog sitting by the pile sniffing the air and watching his master. At the creek she dumped Pigot’s bedsheets in the scrub on the bank, picked her way down to the water with the shirt, squatted there and dunked it, rubbed the collar against a rock. Her movements were fast and scattered this morning; she couldn’t concentrate. As she came back up from the creek with the wet washing she glanced across the field again. He was standing next to the rock pile, one foot up on it, looking towards the woods. While she was hanging the washing she heard him walk past the bullock yard and into the cottage. Maybe he was going to harness the bullock after all, go into town. But as she hung the shirt over the line she heard him whistle for the dog. The dog ran after him as he walked down the track towards the creek, a gun by his side. Roo hunting. They were almost out of meat. He was going roo hunting. Would probably be gone for a couple of hours then.
In the lean-to she grabbed her shawl from the mattress and from inside the hut took a wad of damper, the last of the smoked meat, wrapped them in the shawl. She pulled the door of the lean-to shut, her breath fast, heart hammering. She looked down to the creek. No sign of him; he had disappeared into the trees already. She looked up at the road and then had a thought, went back inside. She grabbed the pipe and tobacco, hurried back out and walked quickly across the rocky field to the road. She ran until the road went into trees and was out of view from the creek below then slowed to a quick walk.
...
The road wasn’t really a road—more a rocky, scrubby cart track that disappeared completely at times only to reappear for a few yards in a gully as two muddy wheel ruts. She kept up a fast walk. Maybe he would get back to the hut to find her gone and would just sit there, put his feet up on the table, smoke his pipe. He would look for his pipe…Should have left it, shouldn’t have taken the pipe. Well, it was too late now; it was part of the bundle she held against her stomach.
The day she had come along here had been overcast, the cloud low around the hills. It had been early in the morning when they’d turned off the main road, the crisp air as shocking as a slap. For the rest of the day she’d sat on the back of the cart while it jogged over rocks and holes, her arse raw from the rubbing of the hard wood. There had been one house, a big place off in the distance nestled into the crook of a hill, a cart track turning off the one they were on and leading over the tree-studded plain towards it. After that there was nothing: the cry of yellow-eyed crows and the occasional kangaroo darting across in front of them, bounding off into the scraggy mess of wattle and gum that flanked the track. Pigot sat up the front hunkered down into his coat, the bullock dragging her on the cart through mud and over sheets of rock towards a far-off and criminally silent horizon.
She didn’t know how long it had taken to get from that turn-off to the stone hut that sat in a dip near a creek, the land around the creek damp and sprung with sedge. It had seemed like a long time. She had not been along the track in this direction, hadn’t left Pigot’s place the whole time she had been there. After the first two weeks had gone by and there had been no sign that Pigot was going to take her to town for church, she had told him she needed to go. She knew masters were supposed to make sure the convicts in their service went to church on Sunday. But Pigot had said that if she wanted to go to church, she could go, had motioned towards the track. ‘Road’s up there.’ She’d thought about doing it, about walking off then and there, had gone and stood outside; a bitterly cold day, the rain having stopped for a while but not long before it had been coming in almost sideways. She had turned and gone back into the cottage where the fire crackled in the hearth.
She hadn’t even wanted to go to church, just to get away from that place for a while with that hill looking over her all the time and Chambers skulking, and Pigot casting his long shadow over everything. Just to see some other people, see who was in the town, get a look at the other convicts, see if she knew anyone there, maybe someone she could even get a word with, tell them how rot
ten the new place was, how she wished she could go back to Hobart Town. Well, now she was going to. She was going to walk to Jericho and tell the constable that Pigot had let Chambers die and that he’d let her die out there too if anything happened to her, if she got sick; he’d just let her die and she wasn’t going back there, there was no missus there and she wasn’t staying and she was going back to Hobart Town.
...
She sat on a rock and pulled a chunk off the damper. The day was cool, the thin cloud cover breaking now and then, the sun glowing weakly behind it high in the sky. Around the middle of the day, she thought. Up ahead the faint track made its way up a grassy slope. She hadn’t thought to bring water and her mouth was dry now. The wood below the track was solid and dark with trees and she wondered if the creek was down in there. She walked into it, didn’t get far before the scrub became thick and tangled. She stood there, the tall gums rising up, each of them trying to see out over the other ones. She had a creeping feeling of being watched. She turned around. Nothing there. Stupid. There was no one out here. She pushed her way further down the slope, listened. No sound of water. She turned around, couldn’t see the grass clearing above. She ran back up, cutting grass wrapping around her ankles as she went. When she was back in the light she stood there breathing fast, for the first time wondering if she should turn back. Then she tied the shawl with the remaining damper, the meat, pipe and tobacco around her waist and kept walking.
...
The track crossed a small creek. She squatted, cupped her hands and guzzled. She had just filled her hands again when she heard the new sound. She stood up, listened. Yes. Faint, but unmistakable. She looked ahead at the muddy slope and then picked up her bundle and ran. Halfway up the slope she stumbled, her foot rolling off a rock. At the bottom of the next rise she left the track, ran limping down the hill into the thick of the trees. Behind a fallen tree she lay on the damp ground and listened to it—the rattle of cartwheels. Then it stopped. She waited, listened. She thought she heard it again but wasn’t sure. She stayed there a long time with the cold from the ground seeping into her body then she stood stiffly, made her way back up the slope.
