No image of the young men was more vivid to her than the last day all four of them were together on a trip from Summer Hill to Bondi Beach. Her brothers and Harold had raced each other on the sand and in the surf, they had carried her as she squealed with mock rage from her towel to the sea. As she stomped with pretend indignation back from the salty water, she secretly smiled at the pleasure of being surrounded by the three handsome men, the centre of their attention.
With spirits high from their swimming and running, they returned from the beach to news of the war, announced on the radio. The boys jumped joyfully around the house and hollered that they were going to kill the Krauts. The declaration of war seemed to seduce their youthful feelings of immortality and the camaraderie they enjoyed as they had played and rested under the Sydney sun.
Frances remembered that day so clearly, the taste of the bitter water as she was flung into the roaring waves by her spirited companions, the sand that seemed to take days to remove from her hair, the sweetness of the ices that cooled them after their time in the sun. She even remembered the sting of the redness on her pale and delicate skin. It all burnt into her memory like sepia-toned photographs and, from these immortal images, their deaths seemed so impossibly contrasted with their abounding life.
She had looked at a map to find Gallipoli and the Dardanelles but they were just lines, a thin strait that offered no answers to her questions. No explanation of how three men — emerging from waves, covered in sea, salt and sun — could be no more. No sign within the clear crisp lines or the white paper of frostbite, trench foot, and dysentery.
Frances could not explain her ability to sustain herself, her instinctual survival, especially in the face of the fact that she was not enough to compensate her parents for the loss of their boys. Her mother and then her father had chosen to follow their sons to the grave, leaving her alone to ponder black lines on white pages. She looked for her strength in the plain reflection in her mirror each time she brushed her hair. She would also look into her face for that thing in her that was a weakness, the thing that made her not enough. With her father’s death, only two weeks after her mother’s, she had fled the memories of her family and what she had assumed would be their debts.
The war had caused a shortage of domestic servants. It had meant that women like Frances had more opportunities for work and could command wages unimagined before the war. Demand for domestic help was even greater away from the cities and the Howards paid her well, even by the inflated wartime standards, to run their house in Parkes. She had no skills, having assumed that she would marry Harold and become the mistress of her own home. She thought that work in a factory was unfeminine and that a man would prefer a wife who was domesticated in the way that a woman ought to be rather than made calloused and thick-muscled from menial work with machines. When she had answered the advertisement and met Edward Howard in Sydney on business and determined to find better assistance for his wife before he returned, the decision was made. In Edward she had seen the epitome of her ideal man — strong, reliable, dependable, able to provide, successful, dignified, well bred, good-mannered, with sandy hair and a matching, well-kept beard.
So Frances Grainger had travelled to the kitchen of Lydia Howard, to nurse her grief. There were worse places she could be, she told herself, than in a tidy kitchen in a quiet town, despite the long hours, and the lack of freedom and privacy.
When the heart of winter came, Elizabeth found herself overcome by exhaustion. Tired when she awoke, her eyes struggled to open. Throughout the day, her bones would ache until she eventually, late in the night, fell back into bed, limp and lifeless until, not quite refreshed, she had to rise. She was a sturdy girl and had been used to her share of the work in the camp. Now in the Howards’ house, the drudgery and loneliness of a kitchen maid’s life and the winter chill highlighted her despair of ever returning home.
All she had was the odd lost word from a distracted Miss Grainger, the sly glances from the men who delivered groceries and wood to the back door, the shy smiles when Peter delivered the mail and the occasional longed-for talks with Xiao-ying.
At night I lie and think about running through the grass.
I am so tired that I only have to imagine that I am running, and sleep finds me.
I run and run towards my dreams, towards my home.
“Come here,” Mr Howard one day said to her in the kitchen, a place where Elizabeth had never seen him venture before. She obeyed, just as she had been taught to do. He was home more and had been less distant with her than when she first came to the house. Now that she had settled in, he would watch her as she walked past. He would ask her to come over and take his plate from him as he sat on his own at the big dining table and she would be forced to brush against him. These encounters, brief and innocent, made her feel nervous but also secretly pleased that Mr Howard was paying attention to her. Once she came upon him in his study when she was dusting and he told her she was a good girl with pretty hair and he had stroked it as he told her she must look after it. He had asked how old she was and when she said that she was now almost sixteen, he had told her that it was a lovely age to be but she was very grown-up.
Elizabeth was pleased that he considered her to be as responsible as the others who worked in the house. Too often she was the lowest in the pecking order; everyone got to tell her what to do. It made her happy that someone would notice that she was clever too, especially if that someone was Mr Howard. Miss Grainger always chattered on about how important Mr Howard was, how he was a real gentleman, and she would go quiet as she floated off into her own thoughts. No one has ever noticed my hair before, Elizabeth would think to herself, and began to make an extra effort to make sure it was neat and pretty, just like Miss Grainger did.
Now in the kitchen with her, Mr Howard beckoned her and as she moved towards him, he leaned in to her and kissed her on the mouth. At first she liked it, the warm-wet touch of his lips, but as his hands moved and grabbed her sides she stood stiff, afraid. He brushed one hand across her breast, down her side, across the curve of her hip and squeezed her, feeling her under her clothes; his other hand held her hard. He was murmuring as though tasting something sweet and melting. Elizabeth was flushed with quivering relief when he stopped, the initial sensual pleasure now erased by her anxiety and the unfamiliarity of being so close to a man. Her whole body was alert with it.
He drew back, studied her lips, and whispered, “Of course, we can’t be seen like this, can we?” He turned and exited the room.
Elizabeth stood motionless, her body inert, her mind racing with a flushing guilt. She had liked his touch at first; then she had hated it, that feeling against her skin, his taste and his force. She was fearful of his weight crushing against her, afraid of what he would do next. She felt ashamed of how she had felt both attraction and revulsion, both on her skin and in her body.
She ached to tell Miss Grainger, but she sensed that the older woman would be displeased. She was not even sure how to explain it, what to call it, which words to use. Nor was she sure what it meant. She couldn’t even be sure, now that the pot was filling with washed and peeled potatoes, that anything had even really happened, whether Mr Howard had been there at all.
She slipped out after dinner and went to find Xiao-ying. As they lay in the grass in a paddock at the back of town, looking up at the sky, Elizabeth wanted to tell her friend about the strange encounter with Mr Howard. She felt a wariness about revealing it, even to her only friend.
“Do you ever think about boys?” she asked instead.
Xiao-ying laughed. “Do you mean like to kiss and cuddle?”
Elizabeth smiled at Xiao-ying’s amusement and nodded.
“Well, I don’t think that my father would be very friendly to any boy who came to take me out for a walk or something like that. But,” she giggled, “I do think that the boy who delivers the mail, Peter, is very handsome. And,” she paused with a cheeky grin, “I think you do too.”
E
lizabeth felt herself blush and this made Xiao-ying laugh even more. The laughter was contagious and Elizabeth lost herself in it. When their giggles subsided, Elizabeth said to her friend, “Before I was brought here, my family was still trying to figure out who I should be married to. There was one man, but he was taken away by the gunjies for stealing a horse.”
“What’s ’gunjies’?”
Elizabeth smiled at her mistake, “That’s what we called the police back home, in our old language. Sometimes when I am talking I still forget to change some words.”
She paused as the thought of the way Miss Grainger would slap her hand when she didn’t speak English properly. Then she looked over at Xiao-ying who was still staring at the stars. Elizabeth continued the conversation, “My mother said they used to arrange marriages but all the old ways are hard to follow now and the white people do not like it. Will you marry someone who is Chinese?”
“I guess so. My parents haven’t said but I think that’s what they want me to do.”
“Do you find white-people good looking or do you like Chinese boys better to look at?”
“I like both. I must like white boys because I think that Peter is very handsome.” As she made this last remark, Xiao-ying lapsed once more into fits of laughter. Elizabeth, despite her embarrassment that her secret was not so well kept, smiled.
The happiness of spending time with her friend, the teasing and shared wishes, made the encounter with Mr Howard seem far away.
Elizabeth woke to feel pressure on her bed, startled by an intruder. His cold hands were on her warm skin, sending an icy terror through her. His body was heavy, his breath stained with tobacco and whisky as he lifted her nightdress and began stroking her legs. She couldn’t move, could only clench her fists as he began to feel between her legs and pressed wet lips against hers. The feel of it made her spine tense up with disgust.
“You are a beautiful girl, Elizabeth,” Mr Howard slurred as he lay on top of her. He moved quickly, pushing his hard fleshy part inside her, his voice almost a whine. “I need this. You don’t know how much I need this.” He kept pushing into her, harder and harder, grabbing her hips and rubbing her breasts. He then made a grunting noise as he shuddered. He released her and fell beside her on the bed. “You must tell no one about this. This will be our secret,” he had said, his voice as cold as the night air.
He took some deep breaths, rose, rearranged his nightshirt and stroked her head, “You are a good girl.”
She nodded into the darkness, still feeling his sweat and stickiness on her as he closed the door, leaving the smell of their bodies rubbed together. She walked, a little dizzy, to the ceramic basin and washed herself all over, at first gently, then harder and harder, to remove the sweat and smell and the memory of Edward Howard’s touch. She remembered how she had been so flattered by his attention, how he had told her she had pretty hair and that she was beautiful. But if the result of that was what he just did to her, she didn’t want it. She started to scratch herself, angry at her skin and the body it held. She scratched harder and harder, ripping at her skin.
Mr Howard came to her several times after that, each time with a caress of her hair and a warning not to tell.
Why don’t I matter anymore?
Where is Euroke?
Why hasn’t he come for me?
Why did he not want me?
7
1919
”THIS SOLEMN MOMENT OF TRIUMPH … is going to lift humanity to a higher plane of existence for all the eyes of the future.”
Lydia Howard and Frances Grainger listened to the crackling voice of David Lloyd George as it echoed through the radio. The war was over. More than three hundred and thirty thousand Australian men sent to fight, over sixty thousand dead in battle, over half injured in some way—a heavy price to pay by a country with a population so small. Lydia Howard was already dreaming of the monument to be erected in the town square: “a higher plane”, “for all the eyes of the future”, names in gold upon cold granite, immortal and heroic. She held her throat with the overpowering beauty of it.
Frances Grainger thought of three young men, of lines on a map and the taste of the Bondi sea.
One morning, not long after the announcement that the war was over, Miss Grainger had come across Elizabeth hunched over and vomiting on the back verandah. She looked suspiciously at the young girl, noticing the emerging dark circles under her eyes and that her skin was unnaturally lighter. Upon witnessing the same the next morning, Miss Grainger became concerned. She left Elizabeth curled over on the back steps and went to see Mrs Howard in her morning room. “Excuse me, ma’am,” she nervously started.
“Yes,” Mrs Howard replied, her eyes trained on her letter to emphasise her displeasure at being interrupted.
“I need to speak with you on a matter of some importance … and delicacy.”
Mrs Howard looked up, her expression already communicating deep disapproval.
Miss Grainger continued: “I think the little darkie is … indisposed.”
“The little kitchen girl?”
Miss Grainger nodded, wondering what other ’little darkie’ there could be.
“How did this happen?” asked Mrs Howard sharply.
Miss Grainger started to blush but was relieved when she realised that Mrs Howard (who was, after all, a married woman) hadn’t really meant for her to answer.
Mrs Howard sighed. “Send for Dr Gilcrest.”
Dr Gilcrest examined Elizabeth in the privacy of her room. He ordered her to remove her clothes and lie on the bed. She had shivered at first but reluctantly did as he asked, obeying Mrs Howard’s stern instructions that she was to do as she was told. He squeezed her tender breasts, pinched her nipples and inserted cold fingers into her. Then he left the room, making a tart ’tut-tut’ sound. Elizabeth felt shamed by the way he touched her, telling herself over and over that he was a doctor, and that the things he had just done to her were what doctors must do, even if they felt too much like the things Mr Howard did to her. She reminded herself that it was her fault, that she must have done something very wrong. She scratched at her arms, her torn nails leaving white marks that slowly rose in pink lines on her skin.
As she buttoned her dress, she could hear voices through the door. She leant against the splintering wood to hear Dr Gilcrest and Mrs Howard talking.
“It is as we suspected,” the doctor pronounced.
“I have no idea how this could have happened,” puzzled Mrs Howard. After a pause she added, “I wonder who the father could be?”
That was how Elizabeth realised that she was going to have a baby.
When her husband returned, Mrs Howard sat down with Edward and told him about the kitchen girl’s pregnancy.
“I was very surprised. I can’t think who could have fathered it. So few men come to the house,” she had chattered, more to herself than to Edward who was sorting through his mail. “Even deliveries are supervised by Miss Grainger, and rarely is that girl away from her duties.”
Lydia had grown accustomed to her husband’s indifference to the concerns of her household. Had she looked at Edward, who was looking more intently at his paper than usual, she may have noticed a constriction of his throat and a discemable widening of his eyes.
There was a change in Mr Howard’s attitude towards his wife. He was suddenly more attentive to her, as though she were fragile, more easily broken. Lydia initially enjoyed Edward’s refocused attention, the sidelong glances when he thought she couldn’t see him. But slowly the truth became apparent to her. Lydia Howard could not explain how she pieced it together other than by intuition, which she seldom had; she operated more by calculation than feeling. This time, however, she brought the threads of her suspicions together and they created a tapestry so vivid and clear she could not deny the image it formed. One night, in the privacy of their bedroom, in that intimate interval before sleep, she found the words that had been suffocating her daily thoughts.
“What do you k
now about the girl’s condition?” she asked.
He noticeably coloured as he spluttered, “I do not know what you mean. What would I know of it? I didn’t have anything to do with it! Is that what you think of me?”
In the weak glow of the bed-lamp, Edward turned his reddening face away from her, unable to meet her gaze, “Really, Lydia, haven’t you got more to fill your day with than coming up with such fanciful ideas?”
He turned his back to her. Lydia felt the white-hot surge of anger and the heat of humiliation creeping through her. She was silent but the overwhelming odour of false indignation hung in the air between them.
As Elizabeth’s body started to ripen and burst against her pinafore, Miss Grainger could no longer look her in the eye. She had noticed the flirtation between Elizabeth and the delivery boy and had expressed disapproval even though she had thought that it was a harmless infatuation. She believed Catholics were untrustworthy, but she had never seen him at the house other than to deliver the mail. As the housekeeper, there was little that passed under her nose or was not brought to her attention.
She had noticed Edward Howard’s attention towards the young girl, thinking it odd he did not mind that Elizabeth dusted around him when he could have ordered her to come back later when he had finished in his study. Frances had dismissed his attention towards the girl as just part of his concern over the fate of her race, a noble expression of concern for someone so much his inferior. When she had seen the young girl come out of the study smiling, knowing that Edward was also in the room, she presumed that he must have said something kind, given her some little scrap of encouragement. Even now she could not bring herself to imagine that he would act in a scandalous manner. He, with all his dignity and masculine grace, could not have behaved in such an unworthy way with a little darkie. Frances could not even finish the thought, preferring to shudder at the hideousness of it, to suppress her own hungry unanswered longings. But she had also noticed the alteration in the relationship between husband and wife, something she had always observed the nuances of, and she suspected that Lydia shared her suspicions. She no longer saw Edward as the embodiment of perfection, tried not to dream of his lips against hers. And she no longer spoke of him to anyone, especially not Elizabeth.
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