Down the Road to Gundagai

by Jackie French

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Notes to the Reader

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Other Titles by Jackie French

  Copyright

  Dedication

  To Lisa, who has guided, guarded and inspired all the journeys, including The Road to Gundagai; and to Jack: welcome to a wondrous world. May all the roads you travel bring happiness, and magic around the next corner.

  Chapter 1

  WILLOW CREEK, VICTORIA, 2 NOVEMBER 1932

  Blue stared at the monster in the mirror.

  Her scalp showed through straggly red hair. Scars like patches of red clay on her neck. Eyes peered from smudges in a dead white face. Wrists like chicken bones, too thin for the silver bracelet Mum and Dad had given her on her fifteenth birthday, a year ago today.

  The old house breathed heat around her. The only sound was the scrabble of mice in the attic.

  ‘Happy birthday,’ she whispered to herself. She ran the comb through her hair again. Even that was enough to pull more strands from her scalp. She’d be bald as well as crippled soon.

  Aunt Lilac said that hair fell out when you’d had a shock. Blue supposed that losing her family, her home and the full use of her legs qualified as a shock.

  Six months earlier she’d have cried if her hair had fallen out. Six months earlier she’d waited at home for Mum and Dad and Willy to get back from Cape Town. She still had tears to cry, back then.

  And then the world had cracked into ‘before’ and ‘after’. Mum and Dad and Willy were drowned with all the other passengers who had gone down in the Southern Star. The night of the funeral their house burned down, like a bonfire marking the loss of its owners.

  Blue had woken to smoke, the snicker of flames dancing through her bedroom wall. She’d run to the door. It stayed implacably shut. She’d pounded and yelled. She’d run to the window, but the shutters wouldn’t open either. She bashed them with a chair, feeling the heat sucking at her lungs. Another wall crashed open, a dragon lashing flames across the room. She felt the whiplash of fire across her neck.

  Then suddenly a yell shredding the smoke: Mah’s voice, beyond the flames. Mah never yelled. She had that night.

  Then nothing. Blue woke in hospital, with Aunt Daisy knitting a grey stocking on one side of her and Aunt Lilac rigid in her corsets on the other, reading from a book of sermons.

  Her home was gone. Her neck and legs were no longer hers, but burns and blisters. And the pain. Always, from that time on, the pain.

  Later, in one of the short intervals when the aunts left her side, a nurse had let Mr Jones the gardener in to see her. He carried a bunch of chrysanthemums, wilting in brown paper.

  ‘The little Chinese lass picked these for you,’ he muttered awkwardly.

  Blue stared, trying to focus through the pain. Mr Jones never let anyone but Mum pick his flowers.

  Mr Jones shifted his boots. ‘Reckon Mah saved you. Smelled the smoke, she did. Woke us all up in the servants’ wing. Ran up to your room with a wet blanket over her head. Covered me with one too, while I bashed in the door.’

  ‘Then you saved me too,’ whispered Blue. It hurt to talk.

  ‘Wasn’t me who wrapped you in that wet blanket. I want to say how sorry we all are, Miss Blue. We’ll all be in to see you, soon as your aunts say you can have visitors.’ He shrugged. ‘Me aunt’s one of the nurses here. She said if I came after visiting hour she’d make sure I got in to give you these.’ Mr Jones looked helplessly around the room, as if expecting to see a vase appear for the chrysanthemums. He put the flowers on the bedside table instead, next to the five-pound box of chocolates from Uncle Herbert.

  So Mah the kitchen maid had rescued her. Funny little Mah from the orphanage, who Mum had let join some of Blue’s lessons. Without Mah and Mr Jones she’d be dead. ‘Thank you,’ Blue managed. It seemed too little to say to someone who had saved your life. ‘Thank Mah too.’

  ‘Tell her yourself,’ said Mr Jones, and there was Mah in the doorway, serious and silent. She hesitated as Mr Jones went out, kissed Blue on the forehead, quickly, as though she wasn’t sure it was the right thing for a servant to do, then sat in the chair by her bed. Mah was still there when Blue drifted back into the sleep threaded through with pain.

  Mah was there when the aunts returned too, with a wheelchair to take Blue away.

  ‘To a lovely house in the country,’ said Aunt Daisy, too brightly. ‘Fresh air to make you well.’

  A nurse appeared in the doorway. She looked at the wheelchair with alarm. ‘But Doctor said she has to stay till …’

  ‘I have no wish to hear what the doctor said.’ Aunt Lilac’s voice was rock. ‘My sister and I nursed our dear mother until she died. We can do whatever is necessary for our niece. We are all the family dear Bluebell has left.’

  Except for Uncle Herbert, thought Blue. Uncle Herbert was her father’s uncle, just as the aunts were really Mum’s cousins. But none of them had visited often, and that only for stilted afternoon teas, or dinner once a year with Uncle Herbert.

  Mah stood, slim in her black servant’s uniform, her black hair pulled back. ‘I come with Missee Blue,’ she said.

  ‘I’m afraid we can’t afford —’ began Aunt Daisy.

  ‘No wages. Me come with Missee Blue.’

  Even through the pain Blue heard iron in her tone. Mah has no job now, she thought. Who’d employ a Chinese girl, when a quarter of Australia is desperate for a job?

  ‘Mah comes with me,’ said Blue, through blistered lips.

  And at last she did, holding Blue’s hand through the agony of the trip from Melbourne, to this big bare stuffy house in its dusty garden and rabbit-cropped paddocks; helping Aunt Lilac wash her, and smooth lotion on the burns; teaching Blue to stand again, to learn to shuffle — that was the only way that she could walk, now the burns had melted the tops of her legs together.

  And now her hair was falling out. She felt almost as ill as she had been back in the hospital. Blue shuffled away from the mirror and lay down on the bed again.

  She should be grateful. Without Aunt Lilac and Aunt Daisy she’d be homeless. She remembered Dad’s solicitor reading Dad’s will, after the funeral. Everything left to his children, to be held in trust for Willy till he turned twenty-one, and in trust for her until she turned twenty-five, or married.

  ‘Everything’ was the house and its contents, and what the solicitor said was a few hundred pounds, after debts had been paid, but she wasn’t to worry her head about that now, it would all be taken care of for her, and Blue had nodded, numb with g
rief.

  And now the house was gone. Dad’s income as manager of Laurence’s Shoes had vanished with his death. She supposed ‘a few hundred pounds’ might be enough to get a cottage somewhere, but it was a long time till she’d be twenty-five. If it wasn’t for Aunt Lilac and Aunt Daisy, she’d have had to find herself a position as companion or governess or maybe a typist, if she could somehow learn to type, because a girl who couldn’t walk properly couldn’t be a nurse, or even work in a factory or as a servant, and what other work could a woman do?

  But who’d want to employ a shuffling girl with a scarred face anyway? She’d more likely have ended up in a home for cripples. Did homes for cripples still exist these days, when so many had so little?

  The Depression was like a hungry bear stalking Australia, devouring laughter and prosperity. One man in four was unemployed, queuing for a hessian bag of food each week — just enough to keep him and his family from starvation. Women begged in the streets or stood with hungry children in silent lines of faded hope just to get a bowl of soup handed out by a church or charity.

  Maybe Blue would have had to beg too, like the poor men near the railway station, with their signs that said Blind veteran, please give with a cap out for passers-by to toss pennies into.

  Stop it! she told herself. She was in a solid house, even if it smelled of mouldy curtains, far from the sea that gave her nightmares of white drowned faces drifting in a land that felt no sun.

  She should be glad of the small dishes of invalid food Aunt Lilac made for her, the liver custards and gluey rice puddings.

  Instead she just felt tired, and a little sick. She always felt sick these days. Nothing mattered. Not her birthday, or the new nightdresses and embroidered hankies Aunt Daisy and Aunt Lilac had given her. Sensible presents, for what did a crippled girl want with dresses? Her world was this small high room, the narrow bed with the commode under it, the trays of tapioca or stewed apple and rice she didn’t want, and vomited up if she tried to eat, the pains that shivered up her legs and arms. Each day like the one before, consuming her life, unlived …

  No! One day she would be well! She had to cling to that. She had a future beyond this room that smelled of mice.

  A sudden sound shattered through the buzz of cicadas outside. It sounded like music. She had never heard music in this house before.

  Blue shuffled over and opened the window. The heat slapped her face. She looked down at the quiet track to town.

  Two men marched along the dusty road. Both wore evening dress and black top hats. Even their faces looked alike, solid and expressionless, with shaggy moustaches. One held a big embossed placard: The Magnifico Family Circus. The other puffed on a tarnished trombone — pom, pom, bleeert!

  And between them paced an elephant.

  It wasn’t much of an elephant.

  She’d thought elephants were enormous. This one wasn’t much bigger than a large bull. It wore a sort of tablecloth in red with gold tassels, and a look that seemed to say, ‘I am old and tired, but I am still the biggest animal you puny humans will ever see.’

  For a moment she wondered if she was dreaming, one of those too-bright dreams of pain- and fever-sleep that were now so familiar to her. But there was the elephant, large and gaudy and impossible, plodding between the parched paddocks and dusty thistles.

  The man with the placard saw her at the window. He doffed his hat. ‘The Magnifico Family Circus! For one night only, just up the road! Come young! Come old! See the Tiny Titania, the fairy who flies! Have your fortune told by Madame Zlosky! Experience for yourself the House of Horrors! More chilling and more horrible than anything this side of the Black Stump!’

  ‘See the two-headed calf!’ The other man took up the cry, as though there were a bigger audience than one girl and the thistles. ‘The world’s largest grizzly bear! The Sultan’s Harem dancers! The Boldini Brothers on the flying trapeze! One night only! Fresh from a triumphant Melbourne season! Now on the road to Gundagai!’

  Gundagai! She’d always loved that name, tracing the Murrumbidgee River it sat on in her geography book. Did they have typists at Gundagai? She never wanted to see the sea again. But the Murrumbidgee River! Even the name made her smile. She leaned out of the window and waved at the elephant.

  The elephant seemed to look at her too. It raised its trunk, almost in a salute. Blue felt her smile grow. Silly, she thought. As if an elephant would really notice her. But it had been so long since she had smiled.

  ‘Bluebell?’ Aunt Lilac’s step had been so quiet Blue hadn’t heard her. ‘What are you doing at the window?’

  Blue turned. ‘Aunt Lilac! It’s a circus!’

  ‘Is it?’ Aunt Lilac’s voice was gentle, though her eyes held worry, and what might be anger too. Aunt Lilac’s voice was always gentle. Only her black dresses were stiff, starched so they seemed to suck in all the light, high-necked with skirts almost to her ankles, just like the ones she had when she was young and Queen Victoria was still on the throne, and buttoned boots, the sort Laurence’s Shoes hadn’t made since the war. Times might change, Aunt Lilac said, but modesty and good breeding did not.

  ‘Please, can I go?’ If the aunts and Ethel and Mah helped her, she could manage it.

  Aunt Lilac shook her head.

  ‘Please! It’s my birthday!’ She hated how forlorn that last plea sounded. ‘I … I’d like to see the elephant.’

  The last postcard she’d had from Mum and Dad, posted at Cape Town, had had elephants on it. It had arrived weeks after it had been sent, while Blue was in hospital. It was the only thing she owned now from her old life, except the silver bracelet that never left her wrist.

  Soon be home, the postcard said in Mum’s scrawl. (Mum said her governesses had never managed to teach her a ladylike hand.) Missing you so much. Hope you like elephants. We saw a man carving them in the market yesterday and bought you a set of them, all different sizes, from big to tiny. Dad says you can put them along your windowsill and pretend you are looking out at Africa. And then, in tiny letters, because she was running out of room, With love always, Mum. Dad had scribbled his and Willy’s names beside hers.

  Her carved elephants had gone down with the Southern Star. But at least she could see — touch? — a real elephant …

  ‘Bluebell dear, you are not well enough.’ Aunt Lilac sounded preoccupied, as though life suddenly held a much larger problem than a niece who wanted to go to the circus.

  ‘I … I’m feeling better now.’

  Aunt Lilac smiled, an Aunt Lilac wrinkled-prune smile of face powder and lavender water. ‘My dear, you know it is impossible.’

  Because I am an invalid, thought Blue. Because I can only shuffle. Because everyone will stare at my neck, my balding head. Because now I am a family secret, to be hidden up in the top storey of the house and not seen, even by tradesmen, so I do not shame the family with my looks. Because …

  ‘Because your Uncle Herbert is coming to luncheon.’

  ‘Uncle Herbert!’ Blue hadn’t had a card from Uncle Herbert ever since she’d left hospital. There’d been no letters from anyone in her past life. It hurt, a little, that none of the girls from tennis or church had even sent her a get-well card.

  ‘For your birthday. He sent a telegram this morning to say he is arriving at half past twelve. You will be tired after his visit.’

  Blue blinked at the edge in Aunt Lilac’s voice. She almost sounded nervous. But Aunt Lilac was never nervous. Ladies met life with a smile, and a back as straight as a ruler.

  ‘Do you feel well enough to come downstairs?’ Aunt Lilac’s fingers looked stiff, as though they wanted to pluck nervously at her skirt. But ladies never fiddled with their clothes. ‘I’m sure he’ll understand if you would prefer to have your luncheon here on a tray. We can give him your regrets.’

  ‘Thank you, Aunt Lilac, but I’ll come down.’

  Suddenly, desperately, she wanted to see someone from the outside world. She looked at Uncle Herbert’s giant box of chocola
tes on the dresser. Mah had brought them from the hospital. They each had one a day. Mah liked the hard centres. Blue ate the soft chocolate creams. A nibbled chocolate seemed to stay down, when Aunt Lilac’s liver puddings just made her sick. But the chocolates were nearly gone.

  Maybe Uncle Herbert would know how she could become a typist. He managed rental properties, so he must have an office, like Dad’s at Laurence’s Shoes. Women weren’t supposed to understand business, but Dad had taken her to his offices sometimes, he’d even shown her about the factories. Maybe Uncle Herbert might have a job for her. After she was well, of course. I will get well, she thought.

  Aunt Lilac’s lips tightened. ‘Very well. I will send the girl up to help you get dressed.’

  Blue glanced out the window. The elephant had vanished, leaving only an untidy pile of droppings in the middle of the dusty road. ‘Yes, Aunt Lilac,’ she said.

  Chapter 2

  Lunch was long, and dappled with silences, filled only by the chink of forks on plates and the bump of flies at the window.

  The table was long too, and dark with carved legs. Uncle Herbert sat at one end and Aunt Lilac at the other, with Blue and Aunt Daisy facing one another across the middle. Aunt Daisy looked more like an ageing rose than a daisy, all faded pink cheeks and dressed in dusty grey, with fat little clutching hands that seemed to grasp her knife and fork as though they’d never let go.

  Uncle Herbert was long as well, thin as a spider, wearing a black suit and blue striped tie and well-polished black shoes from Laurence’s last summer collection, with eyeglasses and three strands of hair over his scalp. Blue felt faintly jealous: a man could be bald and no one cared. A man could inherit at twenty-one. A man could run a business or be a lawyer. Then she felt sick again as the food on her plate stared up at her.

  Long strips of roast mutton, long boiled carrots, long boiled beans, a long brown stripe of thin gravy …

  Her stomach did a somersault. She bit her lip to stop being sick.

  ‘No appetite?’ asked Uncle Herbert. They were the first words he’d spoken since they sat down, except to ask Aunt Daisy to pass the salt. He glanced back at Aunt Lilac, as though aware he’d cracked the silence of the room.