Down the Road to Gundagai

by Jackie French

  Chapter 38

  The world was pain. The world was blood. The world was her legs, a fire that flamed up when she moved.

  The world was darkness, with a small lamp turned right down, and Joseph, sitting by her bed, with Nurse Blamey on the other side.

  ‘Blue? Blue, can you hear me?’ It was a man’s voice, not the nurse’s.

  She nodded, too weak to lift her head. Nurse Blamey lifted it for her, gave her something to sip, so bitter she nearly choked, and then water, sweet and cold. Who would have thought that Nurse Blamey’s hands were so gentle? She shut her eyes for a moment, till the world stopped spinning, then opened them, to see Joseph’s face above her.

  ‘The man … from Uncle Herbert …’

  ‘You’re safe,’ he said. ‘He’s in the Gibber’s Creek lock-up. He’s talking like a parrot to save himself. And they have your uncle in charge, down in Melbourne.’

  ‘My aunts …’ she whispered.

  ‘It was your uncle and his henchman, not them,’ he told her softly. ‘They wouldn’t inherit anything on your death. The factories were your grandfather’s. They would all have gone to his brother, your great-uncle.’

  ‘Did the aunts know?’

  ‘They suspected,’ said Joseph. His eyes were red. He had been crying, thought Blue. Somehow that hurt more than her legs — that he had cried for her. ‘He’d lost a lot in the stock-market crash. Must have seemed a miracle when he had a fortune almost in his lap. Your aunts distrusted him from the start, as soon as the police told them that it looked like the fire at your home had been deliberately lit. That’s why they tried to keep you out of sight, away from him. But they didn’t suspect arsenic till a few weeks before your birthday.’

  ‘Must have been in the chocolate creams,’ she whispered. ‘Mah ate the hard centres.’

  ‘I found the ones you’d dropped today. The police have them now. There’s a mark in the base where the poison must have been injected.’

  A heavy dose, to kill her fast, she thought. Uncle Herbert wouldn’t risk a slow poisoning again. Why bother, when the aunts were here to blame?

  Nurse Blamey held up a warning finger.

  ‘I’m not supposed to tire you. You just need to know you’re safe now. One of us will be with you. Nothing will ever hurt you again. Nothing.’ It was a vow.

  ‘My legs?’

  Joseph’s gaze met hers. ‘Dr Gregson stitched you up. Surgery would have been easier, darling. But you did a good enough job yourself. No real damage, he says, as long as we can stop them getting infected.’

  ‘Which we will,’ said Nurse Blamey, as though no germ had ever dared get into any sick room she commanded.

  ‘Would you mind leaving the room for a moment, nurse?’

  ‘And why would I do such a thing?’ Nurse Blamey looked at him with a long-perfected gaze designed to take doctors down a peg.

  ‘Because I want to kiss her,’ said Joseph. And did.

  Chapter 39

  It was morning, even though the sun outside said it was afternoon, because there was breakfast, a boiled egg and toast that she didn’t really want but was eating because Nurse Blamey told her to.

  She had been bathed, a long painful business in warm salty water, her dressings changed by those strangely gentle hands, with Mah holding onto her while Blue pressed her lips together and tried not to scream. She wouldn’t let Joseph be there for that. Medical student or not, she didn’t want him to think of blood and pain when he looked at her.

  She had slept after that, or perhaps the bitter medicine had made her sleep, just as it eased the pain. Now the world seemed slightly fuzzy and a little bright, which she suspected was a result of the medicine too, but didn’t really care.

  ‘May I come in now?’ Joseph looked pale, his eyes so shadowed she forced herself to smile at him. In fact the smile was easy; it was stopping it that was hard. Whatever the medicine is, it’s strong, she thought.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  He sat and took her hand. Nurse Timmins was on duty now, more biddable than Nurse Blamey. She smiled and left them, even before he asked.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Very odd.’

  ‘That’s the morphia. They’ll cut back the dose a bit tomorrow.’

  She nodded. Her body seemed to be floating somewhere else.

  ‘Are you up to visitors?’

  ‘Miss Matilda’s already been in. And Mr Thompson.’ He’d left a bunch of roses in a vase that Nurse Blamey had promptly relegated to outside the door. ‘Who else?’

  ‘My sister for one. Flinty. She and Sandy came down last night. She says she wants to meet the girl I’m going to marry.’

  Blue found the strength to say, ‘But you haven’t asked me.’

  He smiled at that. ‘I know. I thought we might wait for a better time. A better place too. There’s a valley I’d like to take you to one day, about twenty minutes’ drive from here. What do you say?’

  ‘To seeing a valley?’

  ‘To my asking you to marry me there.’

  ‘You have my permission to ask me anything you like, Mr McAlpine. And I’ll give you my answer then.’ She could hear a hint of Madame’s tones in her voice. You taught me well, old woman, she thought, and almost heard a chuckle.

  ‘I think you are going to get well fast,’ said Joseph. He held her hand, a little too hard, then seemed to force himself to relax and even smile. ‘But there are other people who want to see you. Your aunts.’

  She had to see them sometime. Now would be best, when nothing was quite real, when her mind and body were floating somewhere else as well as lying here.

  ‘I’ll be here with you,’ he added.

  ‘I’m glad.’

  They came in quietly, their perfectly polished black shoes soft on the carpet. They always had walked quietly. They sat, gloved hands in their laps, their erect bodies not touching the back of their hardwood chairs, leaving the armchair for those who indulged in such softness.

  ‘Good afternoon, Bluebell,’ said Aunt Lilac stiffly.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ added Aunt Daisy.

  ‘Getting better.’ It was a lie. She had no idea if she was better or worse — the morphia saw to that. But it seemed the right thing to say. ‘I’m sorry,’ she added. She didn’t say for what. For suspecting they had tried to kill her? For vanishing from their care? You didn’t love me, she thought. But you did your duty.

  ‘We tried to do our duty,’ said Aunt Lilac. ‘After the fire …’

  ‘We knew we had to get you away,’ said Aunt Daisy. Her starch was not quite as stiff. ‘We thought if you were away from Melbourne, Herbert might not be so angry that a girl had inherited the factories. Herbert was always such an angry man. Your parents never liked him.’

  ‘Was that why you took me from the hospital? But why didn’t you call a doctor when we got to Willow Creek?’

  Aunt Daisy’s cheeks flushed under their dusting of rice powder. ‘To let a strange man examine you there, between your … your limbs! Besides, there was no need. Your burns healed.’

  Blue looked from one to the other. You left me crippled, she thought, to preserve my modesty. Nearly two years of torture. And yet, if her legs had been whole, perhaps she would have run from them far earlier, and not to the safety of the circus. Would never have known the magic as an audience stared, in thrall; never have built up the muscles that helped free her; the confidence that would walk with her wherever life’s road now led. Never have known Sheba, Madame, Joseph, danced before men’s eyes with Mah and Mrs Olsen. Never had Fred convince her she was beautiful, so that when Joseph met her, she was …

  ‘We did our best,’ said Aunt Lilac, faintly exuding virtue, like the scent of lavender water. ‘At first we thought you were simply ill. When you grew weaker your Aunt Daisy remembered the Glintock case. But I could not believe a connection of ours would stoop to anything like that.’

  ‘Such a clever plot.’ Aunt Daisy looked slightly excited, as though she
almost enjoyed this break from a life of dry toast and dried flowers. ‘Poisoning you day by day till you just grew sicker. The parsnips came wrapped in the newspaper, and there was the article again, reminding me.’

  ‘Poison,’ said Aunt Lilac witheringly, as though Uncle Herbert should at least have chosen a method of murder with a bit more class. ‘I never trusted that Mah creature either.’

  ‘She is my friend,’ said Blue coldly. ‘She had nothing to do with poisoning the chocolates.’

  ‘Yes. Well. It seems we were wrong,’ said Aunt Lilac, the prune of her lips circling into tight wrinkles. ‘Your Aunt Daisy finally convinced me someone was trying to poison you. From that moment on you never ate a thing my hands hadn’t prepared. We left our home for you. Spent our days caring for you.’ She paused, obviously waiting for gratitude.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Blue.

  ‘And how did you repay us? You took it upon yourself to leave. Quite unreasonably. Not at all suitable behaviour for a young lady, associating with people like that. I don’t know what your dear mother would have said.’

  She’d have said, ‘Good on you,’ thought Blue. Suddenly for the first time in nearly two years her mother seemed real again. And Dad and Willy …

  She felt the tears slide down her cheeks.

  Aunt Lilac’s tone softened by a hundredth of an inch. ‘It is all water under the bridge now. You are safe, and Herbert is in prison and that man who called himself a chauffeur too. He put a pamphlet in the letterbox — car and driver for hire. Reasonable rates.’

  ‘Most reasonable indeed,’ said Aunt Daisy. ‘But it was all a plot to get to you and to blame us.’ Her nose turned faintly pink with excitement. ‘We had another plan to protect you,’ she added. Blue wasn’t sure if the reproach in her voice was because Blue had lost the aunts the opportunity for a dramatic rescue, or for not trusting them. ‘My dear friend Miss Eltherton has a boarding house up in the mountains and …’

  ‘Not a Temperance Spa?’

  ‘Oh no.’ Aunt Daisy seemed even more excited. ‘That was a ruse, to fool Herbert.’

  Aunt Lilac waved one black glove for silence. ‘Given all that has happened, I am afraid …’ For once she struggled to find polite words.

  ‘You would be best not staying with us,’ said Aunt Daisy for her.

  ‘Of course we would always do our duty if you had nowhere else to go.’ Aunt Lilac recovered herself.

  Blue felt her shoulders sag with relief. She could never have lived again with the aunts, in their small confined world and small confined rooms. She wanted the sky for a roof now, at least part of the time, needed to see the horizon and watch the moon rise. Let the river twist around her life. Let the wind do the travelling, bringing her the scent of dust or snow or gum leaves, while the world turned in its circle from its still point here.

  ‘She has a home with Mr and Mrs Thompson,’ said Joseph for her. ‘And other homes where she is welcome too.’

  Blue looked up at him, caught his smile and gave it back to him, then met the aunts’ gazes. ‘Thank you for all your care, Aunt Lilac, Aunt Daisy.’ And for crippling me with your old-maid modesty, you silly women, she thought. ‘But I will be fine. Besides, you don’t have room for an elephant in Melbourne.’

  ‘Elephant?’ demanded Aunt Daisy.

  ‘She is my friend too.’ And eating again, thought Blue. Mah had told her. It was as though after rescuing her, Sheba had accepted that Blue owned her. Or at least, that she owned Blue.

  This is my life, Blue thought, as she smiled fuzzily at her aunts, her poor silly aunts who had done their duty, their very best. Elephants and watching the moon rise and every challenge along the way. Madame was right. I have travelled the road to Gundagai. I have no need to go there.

  Chapter 40

  GIBBER’S CREEK, NEW SOUTH WALES, DECEMBER 1935

  Dear Marj, Belle and Sheba,

  This is just to wish you merry Christmas from your old Uncle Potifar. I’m doing the milking as usual, nothing ever changes here, but things are pretty good. Heard through the grapevine that things are good down your way too. I’m glad.

  Always yours, your old

  Uncle Potifar

  Dear Miss Laurence and Miss Malloy,

  Mum and Auntie Lallie say to give you their best love this Christmas. They hope you like the case of bananas. There will be twenty-eight of us at Christmas dinner this year …

  Dear Belle and Mah,

  I am going to be a talkie star! Mr Visconti says I am a natural and will be bigger than Theda Bara, who is an old hag now anyway. He has got me lessons in things, elocution and singing and swimming and writing. Ginger wants to be a cameraman. He says that is where the action is. Well you know Ginger. We have a house with a bathroom inside and Mum is happy. She says to give you her best love. Next year you will see me on the screen!!!!!!

  Yours sincerely,

  Gilly O’Gold (Gertrude)

  Dear Bluebell,

  Your Aunt Daisy and I wish you a most merry Christmas.

  Aunt Lilac

  To Marjory,

  Wishing you the best Christmas ever. Hope Santa leaves something special in your stocking. You deserve it.

  Yours ever,

  Andy x

  Dear Sheba,

  Merry Christmas from Americca!

  Ginger xxxxxoooooooxxxx

  To Dear Blue,

  Wishing you all the very best for Christmas and looking forward to seeing you again soon.

  Love Flinty and all the family

  The Christmas cards lined the canteen mantelpiece. The whole factory smelled of Christmas, from the big she-oak in the corner decorated with crepe-paper streamers and cotton-wool snow, to the baking sugar and spices. Of course, that scent would stay the year round now, not just for Christmas.

  Blue stared at the packet of Empire Rich Tea biscuits on the table. The packaging was gold, with Empire-red wording. A small grey elephant held up the Australian flag.

  ‘The first off the production line, just in time for the holiday orders,’ said Mr Thompson, leaning only slightly on his stick. ‘Well, aren’t you going to try one?’

  ‘It looks too beautiful to open,’ said Mah softly.

  Mr Thompson laughed. ‘Let’s hope the customers don’t think so.’ Blue picked up the packet and opened one end. She held it out to Mah. They both took a biscuit and nibbled.

  ‘A true squished fly,’ pronounced Mah. Her hair was shoulder length now. Her dress was red and white polka dots. The barefoot boy had vanished.

  Blue shook her head. ‘No. They’re Empire Rich Tea biscuits now.’ She smiled at Mr Thompson. ‘When people buy these biscuits they’ll feel they’re getting prosperity and the whole British Empire.’

  ‘Speaking as your business advisor,’ said Mr Thompson, ‘I’m glad to note that we’ve had yet another order from that very Empire. From India, this time. It seems they like the idea of a biscuit that will withstand heat and humidity. Speaking as a customer,’ he selected a squished fly and took a bite, ‘you are also giving the world a dashed good biscuit.’

  Blue looked around the canteen, with its tables and chairs, the pegs for coats, and fridges for the workers to store their lunches. And jobs, she thought. Thirty-two jobs so far, twenty-eight of them for women — jobs with proper wages, equal to a man’s, wages that could support a family, not the pittances most working women were expected to add to the ‘real’ money brought in by their husbands. A widow, a single woman, or one who had fled a violent husband, could earn a living wage here.

  Another contract would mean even more jobs. The overseas agents for Thompson Electronics now also sold footwear by Laurence’s Shoes as well as the Empire Rich Tea biscuits from the new firm of Laurence and Malloy. Mr Cummins had gladly given funds for their cottage by the river and even the paddock next door for Sheba. But he had drawn the line at allowing Blue enough money to build a factory. For the rest of her life, it seemed, she would only have an income from Laurence’s factories. Even th
e money from the sale of her old home and her father’s other assets wouldn’t be under her control till she was twenty-five. Or married.

  It had turned out not to matter. Madame’s jewellery and the sale of Magnifico’s Big Top had given Mah enough money to fund it all. Blue would pay her back over the next five years from her allowance. Or from her share of the company profits, she thought. She hoped the Big Top’s new owners brought as much enchantment to the backblocks as Madame had done.

  The air hummed with the sound of the conveyor belts and the click of oven trays.

  ‘We’ll need to send a case of squished flies to Mrs Olsen,’ said Mah. She grinned. ‘Maybe she can be our agent in America. I’d love her to taste the new jam fancies before we start production too.’

  ‘To Ebenezer and Ephraim too.’ It was still impossible to think of them by their real names, thought Blue. She should also send a case to her aunts.

  Mr Thompson took another bite of squished fly and looked around the clean white walls of the canteen. ‘A long way from the jam factory in Grinder’s Alley,’ he said softly.

  ‘Where’s that?’ asked Mah.

  ‘Another place and another time,’ said Mr Thompson. ‘And a story for another day perhaps. Jamie boy, what is it?’

  The boy skidded to a stop. ‘She took my new watch!’ he panted.

  ‘Well, ask the girl to give it back.’

  The boy grinned. It was his father’s grin and Miss Matilda’s too, as well as something all his own. ‘Miss Laurence’s elephant took it, not a girl.’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ said Mah resignedly. ‘You need to get changed,’ she added to Blue. ‘Joseph’s picking you up in a few minutes.’

  Mr Thompson limped after his son. ‘I’m not entirely sure that having an elephant on the premises is really working,’ he called back to Blue. ‘Will you be in to dinner?’

  ‘I don’t know. Joseph said he wanted to show me a special place.’