Down the Road to Gundagai

by Jackie French

  ‘What is happening to her?’ the old woman cried.

  ‘Heaven help us. I’m not a vet. I’m not even a doctor yet …’ Joseph kneeled down by Sheba. ‘Come on, old girl, let’s have a look at you.’ He touched the wound on her head as the shuddering continued. ‘What caused this?’

  ‘The police had four-by-twos, back at the station. Sheba tried to stop them hitting the men. They hit her instead.’

  ‘She is my friend,’ said Madame, into the night. ‘My oldest friend.’

  Blue sat by her and took one of her hands. It felt small and cold and wrinkled. The others clustered about them.

  Joseph took the lamp from Ebenezer. He peered at Sheba’s eyes, the same way he had peered at the injured man’s, then shook his head. ‘I just don’t know. I suppose elephants can get concussion too.’

  ‘What’s concussion?’ demanded Fred.

  ‘Swelling of the brain after an injury.’

  ‘But you get over it?’

  ‘Yes. Mostly. Sometimes there’s bleeding on the brain.’

  Blue drew in her breath. ‘But that would kill her!’

  He cast her a look, half reassurance, half frustration at his inability to help. ‘Not always. Often the bleeding stops. There can be some paralysis.’

  ‘Paralysis!’ cried Madame.

  ‘I said can be,’ put in Joseph hurriedly. ‘This might be a kind of fit. Has she ever done anything like this before? Has she vomited tonight?’

  ‘No,’ said Madame. ‘Who could do this to an elephant? The wisest of God’s creatures. She has lived only to give joy …’

  And steal bracelets and watches, thought Blue. But even that had been endearing.

  ‘How can we help her?’ she asked Joseph quietly.

  ‘Truly? I don’t know. If she was a human, I’d say keep her warm, but maybe an elephant should be kept cool. Look, it seems to be easing.’

  Blue looked back at Sheba. The vast shuddering had stopped. But Sheba still lay with her eyes closed, breathing in sharp pants.

  ‘Just keep her quiet. Don’t try to get her to her feet, but don’t stop her either. I’d better take that bloke to Drinkwater. But I’ll drive straight back and see how she’s going. It’ll only take me about an hour.’

  ‘She must recover,’ said Madame clearly. ‘If she does not recover, I cannot go on. The circus cannot go on. I lived after Monsieur died, after a fashion. But without her I am dead.’

  ‘Madame, no one is going to die —’ began Blue.

  Sheba shuddered again. Madame gave a stifled cry and collapsed next to her.

  Chapter 22

  Blue sat on the caravan steps with Mah as Joseph examined Madame. They had carried her back to her caravan. Ephraim had run to the stationmaster’s to call Dr Thomas’s house again, to ask him to come as soon as he returned from delivering the baby. Ebenezer was driving the injured man to Drinkwater, with directions and a note from Joseph explaining who he was and what had happened.

  Gertrude made cocoa while Mrs Olsen and Ginger and Fred sat with Sheba. The elephant’s convulsions had stopped again, at least for the moment. Blue shivered, despite the hot breath of the breeze, smelling of rock and sheep paddocks.

  ‘Want a blanket?’ asked Mah.

  Blue shook her head. ‘No. It’s funny, a few hours ago the world was just as it should be. And then it cracked …’ Like it did when Mum and Dad’s ship sank, she thought, or when I was burned. She shivered again. Nothing was solid. You thought it was, and then it slipped away.

  ‘You all right?’

  Mah stood as Fred approached. ‘How is Sheba?’

  ‘Breathing all right again. She tried to stand up, then lay back down. Too shaky, I reckon. But she’s looking better. How is Madame?’

  Blue shrugged as the caravan door opened.

  ‘She’s had a stroke,’ said Joseph shortly.

  Fred glared at him. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It can be bleeding in the brain. It can be a blood clot on the brain. It isn’t good,’ said Joseph quietly.

  ‘But you can make her better?’

  ‘No.’ Joseph held up his hand as Fred began to protest. ‘I’m sorry, I should have said, she may get better by herself.’

  ‘Like Sheba?’ Fred’s voice was hopeful. ‘She’s looking better already.’

  ‘No. Not as fast as that. Weeks. Months maybe. She needs to be kept quiet.’ He glanced at Blue, then said, ‘The most dangerous time is the next day or two. She might have another stroke. A fatal one this time.’

  ‘You’re not a real doctor,’ said Fred. ‘You said so yourself. Maybe Dr Thomas will tell us something different.’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t think so.’

  ‘We have to tell Madame that Sheba is all right,’ said Mah.

  ‘She’s unconscious,’ said Joseph gently.

  ‘She’ll understand, conscious or not,’ said Blue fiercely.

  Joseph looked at Fred. ‘Want me to have another look at Sheba?’

  Fred considered him, then nodded.

  Joseph turned to Blue. ‘The most important thing is that Madame not be moved,’ he said. ‘The circus has to stay here.’

  ‘But we can’t! The sergeant said we had to move on.’

  Joseph sighed. He suddenly looked unbearably weary. He said he had come from Sydney today, thought Blue. How long is it since he’s slept?

  ‘I’ll go look at Sheba,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll come and check on Madame and you can tell her how her elephant is doing. That suit you? And tomorrow morning I’ll bring Matilda back here.’

  ‘Matilda?’ Blue thought of the young woman in the fox fur.

  ‘Mrs Thompson. She owns most of the land around here. People still call her Miss Matilda. She asked me to call her by her first name when I started studying medicine. My brother is her manager. She’ll sort things out with Sergeant Patterson.’

  ‘But he said we had to leave —’ began Blue.

  Joseph held up his hand. ‘No one out here argues with Matilda. Now let’s have a look at Sheba.’

  The elephant lay on the tussocks, with Mrs Olsen sitting by her side. Gertrude sat next to her. Blue was surprised to see the girl’s eyes swollen with tears. Ginger sat there too, holding Sheba’s battered teddy bear. Blood had trickled from the gash in her forehead over her ear and down onto the ground. Sheba struggled to her feet as Blue and Joseph approached, with Mah and Fred behind them.

  ‘She should stay lying down,’ said Joseph.

  Blue sighed. ‘How do you get your patients to lie down?’

  ‘I ask them to.’

  ‘Well, go ahead and ask.’

  Sheba raised her trunk, as though to examine them, then lumbered slowly over to Madame’s caravan. She subsided onto the grass again, though this time it looked deliberate, not as though she had collapsed.

  Joseph stared at her. ‘Don’t you tie her up or anything?’

  ‘No,’ said Blue shortly.

  ‘She’ll be all right, won’t she?’ There was a quaver in Ginger’s voice.

  Blue waited for him to tell the boy the elephant would be fine, in that too-bright voice that adults used to reassure kids. But instead Joseph bent and stroked Sheba’s giant feet, one after another. The elephant watched him, curious but accepting.

  ‘What are you doing?’ demanded Fred.

  ‘Seeing if she can feel my touch. She can, and she wasn’t limping. Her eyes look the same as before, and the same as each other, not that I’ve ever looked at an elephant’s eyes closely before.’ Joseph looked up at Ginger. ‘That means there shouldn’t be any damage to her brain. I think your elephant is going to be all right. She just needs to rest for a while after the blow to her head.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ challenged Ginger.

  ‘No,’ said Joseph gently. ‘You can’t ask an animal if it has a headache, or if its vision’s blurry.’

  ‘How do you know anything about it?’ Fred still sounded belligerent. ‘You work with humans.’

  ‘I g
rew up with animals. We had a horse farm.’

  ‘Wait a minute.’ Mrs Olsen vanished into her caravan. She came back with a handful of squished-fly biscuits. She held them out to Sheba. The elephant’s trunk twitched, then curled around the biscuits, twisting to bring them into her mouth. She crunched them slowly. The trunk reached out again and gently took the teddy bear from Ginger.

  ‘She is going to be all right,’ said Ginger. ‘She’s got her bear again.’

  Joseph stared at the massive animal and the small worn bear. He looked entranced. ‘She’s beautiful,’ he said softly.

  Fred gave him a reluctant smile. ‘She is that. I’m going to bunk down with her here tonight. You lot had better get some rest.’

  ‘I’ll stay with Madame,’ said Blue.

  Mah touched her shoulder gently. ‘Best let me.’

  Blue hesitated, then nodded. If Madame took a turn for the worse, Mah would be able to run to the stationmaster’s to call the doctor.

  ‘Let’s see how she is now.’ Joseph looked at Blue. ‘Things will look better in the morning. They always do.’

  Not always, thought Blue. Sometimes they look much, much worse.

  Miss Matilda arrived at kookaburra call next morning in a cloud of dust, which turned into a dark blue automobile with brown leather seats. The circus was packed up — they’d risen before dawn, though there was no Madame to strike her gong. Gertrude practised on a rope strung from a gum tree. The others sat by Madame’s caravan with Sheba, waiting for something, anything, to change.

  Blue seemed to be nominated by silent consensus to greet the newcomers. She limped towards the car, wishing she had thought to put on a dress and shoes.

  Miss Matilda wore a parchment-coloured linen skirt to just below her knees, a mauve linen blouse, matching leather shoes with small mauve leather bows, a mauve straw hat trailing a flowered silk scarf, and an expression that said everything could be sorted out, as long as it was done her way, and done now.

  Joseph followed at her heels, looking as if he’d had as little sleep as Blue. He gave Blue a small, reassuring smile. ‘How is Madame?’

  ‘The same.’ Madame still lay unconscious, her eyes shut, her breathing rough and uneven. ‘Dr Thomas finally got here an hour ago. You just missed him. He said the same as you. A stroke, and to keep her quiet.’

  ‘And Sheba?’

  ‘Eating hay. She keeps staring at Madame’s caravan. I think she knows Madame is … ill.’ She couldn’t say dying. ‘Dr Thomas had a look at her too.’ The doctor had looked even more tired than Joseph. ‘He said Sheba might have had a sort of fit, with the blow and the excitement. She’s getting pretty old.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  Blue shook her head. ‘Only Madame knows.’

  ‘And Madame can tell us nothing,’ said Miss Matilda crisply. She seemed prepared to overlook Joseph’s failure to present Blue properly. ‘Good morning, Miss Magnifico. I’m Matilda Thompson.’ She held out her hand. Blue shook it automatically, though she had never shaken a woman’s hand before. Only men shook hands.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Thompson. How is Mr Atkins?’

  ‘Fine. Slept like a baby. We’ve found a place for him to stay. I’ve had a word with the police. Constable Higginbotham is going down to Mooloola to see if any of the men down there are being held against their will. Sergeant Patterson agrees that you can’t move on today, but we think it best …’

  ‘We’, thought Blue and smiled. She could just imagine this woman telling the sergeant exactly what it was best for him to think.

  ‘… for you to move the circus to Drinkwater.’

  ‘But Madame can’t be moved.’

  ‘The truck can pull her caravan,’ said Joseph tiredly. ‘I can look in on her regularly at Drinkwater. And Sheba,’ he added. ‘There are nurses at Drinkwater too.’

  ‘Nurses?’ Was Drinkwater a hospital as well?

  ‘My husband had a stroke last year,’ said Miss Matilda calmly. ‘He is recovering, I’m glad to say, but he still needs help. Which means we are well equipped to care for your Madame there. What is her other name, if you don’t mind?’

  ‘I … I don’t know.’

  Miss Matilda sighed. ‘My dear, I don’t think this is the time for secrets.’

  ‘I really don’t know! Mrs Olsen might know. She’s known her the longest. Madame calls herself Zlosky to tell fortunes, but I think that might just be a stage name.’

  ‘Like Magnifico?’

  ‘I don’t think anyone is really called Magnifico,’ said Blue.

  ‘Very well. Tell your driver to bring Madame’s caravan first. You and Joseph travel in the caravan with her, in case she wakes on the way —’

  ‘What about Sheba?’ interrupted Blue.

  Miss Matilda looked as though she wasn’t used to interruptions. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  Blue flushed. ‘I don’t think Madame and Sheba should be parted.’

  ‘Sheba is the elephant?’

  ‘Yes. I know it sounds silly. But Madame was … upset … last night because Sheba was hurt. And Sheba knows Madame is ill.’

  ‘The elephant knows?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Blue stubbornly.

  Miss Matilda seemed to gather up her patience. ‘Can your truck carry an elephant and pull a caravan at the same time?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Miss Matilda sighed. ‘Then we’ll make your Madame a bed in the back seat of my car. You come in the front with me. Joseph and your driver can follow in the truck with the elephant. Heaven help us, just what we need now. A temperamental elephant. The others can bring your luggage with them.’

  What luggage? thought Blue. Everything I own belongs to the circus. But she nodded anyway. Madame should have someone with her who loved her, and just now the best person was probably her. This woman was overwhelming, and she couldn’t imagine any of the others knowing quite how to talk to her.

  ‘And then,’ said Miss Matilda calmly, ‘we will have breakfast.’

  Chapter 23

  The car swept along the dusty road, the truck with Sheba lumbering behind. Sheep paddocks edged with taut barbed wire, and then, far wider than the creek that gave Gibber’s Creek its name, the glint of a river, silver in the sunlight, and the blue leaves of red gums along its banks. Here and there small houses of painted wood or fibro sat next to orchards and vegetable gardens, tangles of tomatoes, tall stalks of corn, and apple trees with red or green fruit.

  They turned off the highway onto the Drinkwater drive. Hills rose on one side of the track now, the crags streaked with eagle droppings. On the other side the river still curved between its banks. Miss Matilda turned a corner and there was the house, its high roof glimpsed between oak and birch trees, so like the garden at home Blue felt a lump in her throat.

  But this house was bordered not by other suburban gardens or tennis courts but by wide paddocks of corn, other green crops Blue didn’t recognise and an orchard as big as a city block. Between the main house and the river, corrugated-iron sheds and horse- and sheep-yards rippled in the growing heat of the day. Smaller houses sat in their own gardens, almost like a village.

  ‘Home,’ said Miss Matilda, as they slowly bumped down the driveway. Miss Matilda was obviously trying to minimise the jolting for Madame. Blue glanced back at her again. Madame lay propped on pillows, her best shawl over her as a blanket, her mouth still open, her eyes shut. Now and then she gave a grunting snort.

  At least, thought Blue, she is still alive.

  A man in moleskins and workboots strode around the side of the house to the car. He stared at the truck with its cargo of elephant, bumping down the road towards the house.

  ‘Fetch Nurse Blamey please, Ringer,’ said Miss Matilda. ‘And someone else to help carry a stretcher. We have a sick woman in the back. Then could you tell Mrs Mutton we have guests? Hanson,’ as another man appeared, ‘the truck is from the Magnifico Family Circus. Tell Joseph to show the driver down to the river paddock and tell the
m the rest of the circus can camp there. They may need a hand moving the elephant out of the truck. She hasn’t been well. The rest of the circus arrives later.’ She spoke as though invalid elephants and visiting circuses were nothing unusual. ‘Better move the ewes. What do elephants think about sheep?’ she asked Blue.

  ‘Not much,’ said Blue. Sheba usually ignored the stock in the paddocks near the circus. ‘But I don’t think sheep like elephants.’

  ‘We’ll keep them separate then,’ said Miss Matilda.

  Blue reached into the back seat and took Madame’s hand. It still felt cold and lifeless. She waited for Miss Matilda to say conventionally, ‘Don’t worry. She’ll be all right.’

  She didn’t.

  The nurse arrived swiftly, in her white uniform and veil, well starched even out here in the backblocks, the men with the stretcher behind her, as Ebenezer slowly and carefully drove the truck past the house and down towards the river. Madame was carried up the wide steps, across the verandah and into the house.

  Blue followed with Miss Matilda, acutely aware of her ungainly shuffle, her bare feet on the Persian runner in the hall, the saggy shorts that hid her scar, her worn and faded shirt, all in stark contrast with the elegance around her. She reminded herself that the most important thing was that Madame was in good hands. She began to follow the nurse up the stairs, then stopped, as Miss Matilda laid a hand on her arm.

  ‘Best let Nurse Blamey and Nurse Timmins get her into bed and settled. They get cranky with onlookers. But they know what they are doing.’

  Blue nodded dumbly, as a door opened down the hallway. An old man shuffled out, leaning on a walking stick.

  But he wasn’t old, Blue realised, as he came closer. It was only his walk that made him seem that way. One leg lagged uselessly, pulled along by the other. The left side of his face sagged too. ‘Get it sorted out?’ It was difficult to make out his words.

  ‘Yes, my darling.’ Miss Matilda kissed his cheek. ‘This is Miss Belle Magnifico, of the Magnifico Family Circus. As I thought, they’ll be staying here for a while … Miss Magnifico, this is my husband, Thomas Thompson.’