Down the Road to Gundagai

by Jackie French

  ‘So you own an elephant.’

  And Mah owned three caravans, a Big Top and a necklace that might be gold and a bracelet that might be studded with real sapphires, she thought. Had Sheba stolen both pieces of jewellery? If so, it could have been anywhere — there would be no way to find the original owners. Or Blue hoped that was the case. She didn’t want to have to tell the sergeant that her elephant was also a thief.

  ‘I don’t know what to do with her,’ said Blue. ‘She can’t stay there by the river.’

  ‘Don’t see why not,’ said Mr McAlpine.

  ‘But she eats so much! Though of course she isn’t eating at all now. Not even apples. Do you think we should call the vet?’

  There had been a little money left in Madame’s trunk, not much, but enough to pay a vet, and for two girls to live on for a few months, even without the hospitality of Drinkwater or selling Mah’s jewels or the caravans or Big Top, even without the allowance Blue expected Mr Cummins to arrange for her.

  ‘I don’t think the vet knows much about elephants,’ said Joseph.

  ‘Let her grieve,’ said Mah. ‘She’ll eat when she’s ready.’

  ‘But what if she doesn’t?’

  ‘Blue, let it be,’ said Mah gently. ‘We’ll spend tomorrow with her, just like we used to.’

  ‘May I come too?’ asked Joseph.

  ‘You don’t have to get back to Sydney?’

  ‘The professor gave me a week’s leave. Death in the family.’

  ‘But it’s not —’ began Blue, then stopped. For somehow the McAlpines had begun to feel like family, more than her aunts and Uncle Herbert ever had. And Miss Matilda and Mr Thompson too.

  ‘Never had an elephant in the family before,’ said Mr McAlpine from the front seat. His grin was comforting. ‘A few horses, a couple of dogs. But not an elephant.’

  Blue nodded. The paddocks slid by, the sun glinting through the tussocks, a spider’s web turned to jewels on barbed wire.

  The car drew up at the homestead. A crowd had already gathered on the verandah and under the shade of the rain-lush trees, for the sun was hot. The maids circulated with trays of tea and lemonade, plates of pikelets with jam, sliced honey roll, scones with cream, rock cakes and, yes, thought Blue with a lump in her throat, squished flies. Every funeral must have a wake, and this was Madame’s, even if only a few of those here had ever met her.

  Blue let Joseph help her out of the car, then sat on a cane-bottomed seat on the verandah. She sipped her tea, trying to sort out her emotions — sadness and a feeling of desertion, but also a strange sensation of at last beginning a journey home, even if she had no idea what or where that home might be. Despite her loss, yet another loss, she realised that Madame’s death had freed her.

  But today was for grief. She could almost hear Madame say, ‘The future is waiting for you, child, but sorrow must be attended to as well. Each to its season.’ Madame had looked so intimidating that first day in the tiny tent, with her blind eyes and secret amusement, as though she knew the world.

  For a moment Blue wondered if Madame had really been able to read the future. Yes, most had been pretence. But had Madame’s true talent also been hidden in plain sight, under the fakery of shawls and whispered gossip?

  Had Madame led the circus here, where the sisters would learn that they were free to go home, the Olsens to follow Gertrude’s star to America, where Mah would find acceptance and Blue perhaps love? Or had it just been an accident, their future changed unforeseeably when the Mammoth visited Australia? And Fred? Dear Fred. Fred the friend, but not a lover. She hoped he’d find a life of his own now, no longer hiding within the circus glamour.

  Blue glanced across at Joseph, talking to some of the neighbouring farmers. He glanced up at her at the same moment and smiled, then looked back at the man who was speaking.

  Surely it’s too soon for love, thought Blue. And yet from the first moment she had seen him he had been the … realest … person in her life. But Joseph couldn’t know how ugly her scars were … except he could, she thought. He was a medical student.

  She had read in the back of one of the Felicity Mack books that she now devoured more details of how Joseph’s sister too had been crippled, and far worse than her, bedridden for the time she had written her first novel. Joseph would indeed understand the endless indignities that she had to face — that she found even using a chamber pot a challenge.

  ‘Miss Laurence, please do accept my sincere condolences again.’

  She blinked her way back to the present and found Mr Cummins in front of her. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Thompson have kindly offered me their hospitality. Perhaps we might talk tomorrow. Or in a few days’ time. Whenever you feel up to it.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Cummins. You are very kind. Shall we say four o’clock this afternoon?’

  He looked startled, then carefully wiped the expression from his face. ‘Of course, Miss Laurence.’

  It was time to jump into real life, boots and all. Or rather, extremely pretty black shoes with small heels. Blue guessed that Madame hadn’t wasted a second of her long life, nor Miss Matilda either. She would do the same.

  She looked at the spread on the white damask-covered table and suddenly realised that the most important mourner wasn’t here. She would take some squished flies down to Sheba. She would tell Sheba about the funeral. Sheba would listen, watching her with her small dark eyes, and even if she didn’t understand the words, she would know what Blue was speaking about — the ceremony to say farewell to the woman they both had loved.

  She looked around for Mah. But Mah was being handed chicken sandwiches by Andy McAlpine. Joseph …

  No, no Joseph. Joseph was her life tomorrow, and perhaps many tomorrows too. But today was for her old life, and Madame, and Sheba.

  She slipped down the hallway to the kitchen. The housekeeper looked up from filling one of the giant teapots. ‘Can I help you, Miss Laurence?’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Mutton. It all looks wonderful. You have done Madame proud. I wondered, though, do you have any more squished flies?’

  ‘Have they scoffed the lot already?’

  ‘Not quite. I just wanted to take some down to Sheba.’

  She hoped Mrs Mutton wouldn’t feel her biscuits were wasted on an elephant. But Mrs Mutton just nodded. ‘I did just the same at my gran’s funeral. Made a sponge cake to her recipe. Duck eggs, to make it light, and passionfruit on top from the garden. But I kept a bit aside for Gloria. Gran’s dog,’ she added. ‘Every time Gran made that cake she’d keep a bit for Gloria. Here’s a tin of squished flies, Miss Laurence. You give them to the elephant with my respects.’

  Blue swallowed before she could speak. ‘Thank you. You’re very kind.’

  ‘Kindness is as kindness does.’ The housekeeper patted her arm as she went out with the teapot.

  Whatever that meant, thought Blue. But she appreciated both the thought and the pat. She tucked the tin under her arm and headed down the kitchen steps, past the lemon tree at the back door, and the hen house, through the orchard. Sheba saw her, or perhaps smelled her — or perhaps the squished flies — her ears back, her trunk in the air. She left the corner of the river paddock where she had been standing in vast superiority to the sheep and began to plod uphill to the paddock gate. Blue let herself into the first paddock, then looked back, at the dark dresses and suits and gleam of teapots. She grinned. It was a good thing Sheba couldn’t be among them. How many bracelets or pocket watches might she pinch today?

  The grin faded, as another car rolled up the drive. It was black, the tyres were muddy, with the look of a hired car rather than a family automobile. The chauffeur sat in front, in grey cap and uniform. He parked neatly behind one of the neighbour’s buggies, then got out to open the passenger door. A woman emerged, tall and dressed in black that seemed to soak up the sunlight, a hat in not quite matching black, and clutching an elderly black handbag.

  Blue’s breath ri
pped from her body. Aunt Lilac! Aunt Daisy emerged beside her.

  Chapter 37

  What were they doing here? How had they found her? How could the police have let them come?

  She raised her chin. It didn’t matter. They couldn’t hurt her now. Miss Matilda, Mr Thompson, Mah, Joseph, Mr McAlpine, even Cookie and Mr Higgs — she had an army to protect her.

  But she could also protect herself. She had charmed five thousand people, swum as a mermaid, ridden an elephant and waved at the crowd. She was no longer the girl they locked in that small stuffy room. Two elderly aunts couldn’t touch her now.

  But this was not the time to tell them so, not at Madame’s funeral wake. Impossible to kiss them as protocol required. Impossible to say in public, ‘Go away. You tried to kill me.’ Later, she thought. Oh yes. I’ll tell them later.

  Let Miss Matilda greet them as hostess. Miss Matilda would keep them occupied. She would almost certainly get them seated in the living room with cups of tea, away from onlookers, so that Blue could speak to them openly.

  Sheba trumpeted, a small high noise. Blue turned and began to walk towards her paddock. Sheba was a hundred times more important than the aunts. Ten thousand times. She smiled, imagining Aunt Lilac’s and Aunt Daisy’s shoes slipping among the tussocks and hard black pellets of sheep dung. She stood at the top of the hill above the river, brown and foam-flecked, feeling the vibration of the flood under her feet, smelling the sweet-sour scent of old leaves and wombat droppings. Green paddocks, grey sheep, the barbed-wire fences that carved the world into manageable shapes, the high blue ridges far away. This is my world, she thought. The aunts and their shut-in lives had no place here.

  Sheba lifted her trunk again. Blue began to make her way down to her, careful in her new heeled shoes.

  ‘Hey, Miss Laurence!’

  She turned. It was the aunts’ chauffeur.

  ‘Wait up,’ he called. ‘Got a message for you.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear anything my aunts have to say at the moment. I am sure Mrs Mutton can give you a cup of tea.’ She turned away.

  ‘Ain’t from the old women. It’s from your uncle.’

  Uncle Herbert! Blue stopped and waited for the chauffeur to come up to her. His face looked like it had been roughly cut out of a log of wood, the nose sharp, the mouth thin. Poor ineffectual Uncle Herbert. He had failed to protect her, but he hadn’t known what she’d faced either. It wasn’t his fault her aunts had turned out to be poisoners.

  I should have sent him a letter, she thought guiltily, reassuring him that I was all right. But why hadn’t Uncle Herbert come here himself? If my niece had been almost poisoned, I’d have gone to her in person.

  ‘Did Uncle Herbert send you to keep an eye on my aunts?’

  ‘You got it. I do lots of little jobs for your uncle. Here, this is from him.’ He pulled out a small box of chocolate creams from the pocket of his uniform.

  ‘Thank you.’ She held the box on top of the tin of squished flies, wishing she had a pocket or handbag to put them in.

  ‘Ain’t you going to try one?’

  She shook her head. She was full of sandwiches and scones. ‘How did my aunts find me here?’

  The chauffeur leaned back against the paddock gate. ‘Followed your Mr Cummins in Melbourne, didn’t I? He got a ticket to Gibber’s Creek. Easy enough to find you once we got there. Your aunts just had to ask at the tearoom and they heard all about you.’

  Blue took a step back, clutching the squished-fly tin. ‘I don’t understand. You told my aunts I was at Gibber’s Creek?’

  He looked at her assessingly. ‘You really can’t walk properly, can you? Sure you don’t want one of them nice choccies?’

  ‘I want you to answer my question.’

  She could smell his breath, like a dog kennel. ‘Your uncle told them.’

  ‘Uncle Herbert!’

  ‘Then I offered meself cheap as a chauffeur. Your uncle guessed they’d head up here when they found out where you were. Sharp man, your uncle. Been working for him for years. Any tenant what won’t pay up, he gets me to persuade them. Or get them out. He knows he can rely on me.’

  She had to get away from here. Even as she realised it, Sheba stamped her feet in the adjoining paddock.

  The chauffeur noticed her for the first time. ‘Blimey, what’s that?’

  ‘An elephant,’ said Blue shortly. What did he think it was? An oversized mouse? ‘Excuse me. I think I’m needed back at the house.’

  The chauffeur grinned, showing white teeth all totally even, too obviously false. His nose looked like it had been broken and badly set. He clenched and unclenched his fists. She bet whoever had broken his nose had come off worse. ‘Don’t think your uncle would want you to do that. Not if you ain’t going to eat your nice choccies.’ The man was enjoying this, drawing it out.

  She began to brush past him. ‘I’m sorry. I need to go.’

  He stayed where he was, against the gate. ‘You don’t need to go nowhere, darlin’. Not ever again.’

  She stopped, temporarily frozen. Where could she run? The gate was blocked. The barbed wire would catch her if she tried to get through the fence. The chauffeur grabbed her arm. The squished flies and the chocolates rolled on the ground.

  She had to keep him talking. The longer they talked, the more chance that someone would come this way and see them.

  ‘Uncle Herbert burned our house?’

  He laughed. ‘Not him. Left the details to me, he did. Always does. The fire coulda been an accident. Nearly worked too. Then those old biddies spirited you away. But it’s them who’ll get the blame if you drop dead of poison now. But I reckon I know another way too.’ The man looked down at the swollen river, at the logs fighting for position among the froth. ‘I reckon what you need is a dip in the river. Easy enough for two old ladies to push a crippled girl in. Might not even find the body in a river like that. And if they do, well, who’s to say when you fell? An’ your aunts was here all the time.’

  She wrenched her arm away from him as he added, ‘All I need to do is … this …’ He grabbed her around both shoulders and lifted her into the air. She tried to scream. His hand shoved a handkerchief expertly into her mouth. She kicked, striking nothing. He began to stride down the paddock towards the river, his arms like sinewy steel around her.

  She had to think! And suddenly it was as though Madame spoke to her, telling her exactly what to do now. ‘The man will see what he expects to see.’

  He saw a cripple, a fragile Bluebell. Blue let her body sag in what she hoped was a convincingly female-type swoon. She felt the chauffeur’s body relax slightly in response. She let him take three more strides towards the river and then she struck, forcing her arms outwards, using the upper-body strength honed by more than a year of mermaid handstands.

  He lost his hold for just a second. Her body hit the ground. She rolled as she hit the earth, a trick she’d learned from the circus people, spreading out the impact to lessen the jolt.

  He reached down for her. She struck out with her strong hands again, at his neck, a side chop. The man fell, gasping. For a moment she thought of Ebenezer and Ephraim and their frying pan, Mrs Olsen smashing her tormenter’s hand. She wanted to hurt, kill, destroy, just as Euphrasia and Eulalie had. And then the rage passed and she knew simply that she had to get away.

  She rolled, using the momentum of the slope of the paddock, and scrambled to her feet as he raised himself, trying to catch enough breath to come after her.

  If she could get to the gate to Sheba’s paddock, she could head up to the men’s quarters from there. She just had to get back up the hill and someone would see her, hear her. He would not dare touch her if anyone could see. Vaguely she was aware that someone was screaming. Was it her? She plucked the handkerchief out of her mouth as she forced her body onwards.

  No. It was Sheba, the trumpet cry echoing over the river.

  ‘Help!’ she yelled. The sound was hidden in the elephant’s roar. />
  She forced her legs to move. The scar hobbled her. And then she felt it rip.

  The universe stopped. In the next instant it began again, but grey with pain. Sweat ran down her face, like the blood warm down her legs. But she couldn’t stop. She dared not stop. For the first time in nearly two years her legs could stretch, could run. She pushed her body, again and again …

  The man was gaining on her. His fingers reached out. She flinched away, sidestepping. Her arms, her wonderfully strong arms, struck him again, so he cried out.

  The gate was closer. His footsteps thudded behind.

  Her shoes sloshed with water. No, not water. Blood. Her blood. Red and dripping into the tussocks.

  She shouldn’t have looked. Nausea swept through her. The pain was so great it was no longer pain, just cold, the coldest she had ever known.

  ‘Help!’ Had she even said the word? There was no air left to speak with and none to cry. The gate to Sheba’s paddock was a mile away, shadowed with pain. She took another step and another, heard his breath behind her, felt the hands grab her arm. Once again she twisted, but the strength was gone now. The blood had swept away her strength.

  A noise. Crashing, smashing. Thunder, she thought. A storm. A flood. I must be in the river …

  She blinked away the haze of pain and fear.

  Not a flood. An elephant, charging through Miss Matilda’s fence as though barbed wire didn’t rip into elephant flesh too, stomping, trampling, leaving the wrecked barrier behind …

  The hands wrenched her down, onto the ground. She forced herself up, to look at her attacker. The cold hit her again, the blood-red cold. But a hard wet rage was all over her too, so strong a jet that it forced the man away …

  Water. A jet from Sheba’s trunk.

  The elephant screamed a challenge. Blue used the last of her strength to roll under Sheba’s legs; she held onto one leg as though it were a safe grey pillar, saw the wrinkled bulk above her, heard the elephant’s bellow, as Sheba kept her friend safe.

  And that is what they found, the funeral crowd streaming down towards the river: the blood-stained girl, the elephant, and the bruised man, scrambling away.