by Dean Mayes
Spider cackled maniacally beside Jabba while Mickey kept checking the rear vision mirror for any sign of followers. Fortunately, there were none.
They drove on through the night, until Mickey finally brought the car to a stop at the football oval where he and Jeremy trained.
Once there, they emptied out of the car and both Spider and Jabba immediately went to the boot to inspect their considerable haul. Gavin went up to them and stepped in between them and the car.
“Come on fellas, you gotta clear off. We don’t want to risk getting caught up together. I’ll get this stuff organised as soon as possible.”
Jeremy stepped back from the vehicle and watched the others as though through a fog. He wanted desperately to get away before he vomited in front of them. Mickey came over to him.
“You better get your arse home too,” he said flatly. “Don’t speak to no one.”
Jeremy nodded and was about to turn away when Gavin came up to them both.
Jeremy stiffened, trying to ignore the pain. This was the first time Gavin had acknowledged him all night.
The older youth appraised Jeremy dispassionately.
“If you’re told I want to see you,” he began, pausing midway for effect. “You bloody well better come. I don’t want to hear of you saying no to me again.”
Abruptly, Gavin wheeled away from Jeremy and went over to the others.
Jeremy’s heart sank, his shoulders visibly slumped.
Mickey regarded him a moment longer and then he too, turned away.
A dark cloud settled inside of Jeremy. He felt sick, embarrassed and he wanted to get as far way from here as he could. He wiped the rain from his face and turned to leave.
Gavin called out to him.
“Jeremy.”
Jeremy stopped and looked back over his shoulder.
Gavin was looking at him and he nodded at Jeremy.
“You did alright,” he said simply.
Chapter 9
1951
In time, her young life became occupied solely by working on the Pastoralist’s farm.
Day after day, week after week, Virginia toiled away with little respite from her servitude. It was repetitive and mundane and there was nothing else to occupy her mind—nothing else to think of than her oppressive life here. All of the colour and life, the warmth and happiness of her childhood home was replaced by the ruddy yellows and browns of this harsh and unforgiving place. Virginia doubted if it had ever been green here. The dust and the heat and the flies were all-consuming—omnipresent.
Worse still, was the effect it had on her emotions—what it took from her.
Hope.
Virginia remained mute, despite the best efforts of the older girls to get her to talk. All she wanted to focus on was getting through each day without drawing attention to herself. There were a number of people who worked for the Pastoralist and it was clear she was considered the lowest form of worker. She took refuge in her work. Her once delicate hands were now calloused and tough. She struggled with constantly itching skin due to the soaps and detergents she was forced to use in the outhouse toilets. If it wasn’t that, the grime and the shit of the stables and yards had gifted her with a number of ailments: eczema, infections and lice. But she dared not complain.
The consequences of speaking up were dire.
Virginia had come to know the Pastoralist as a brutal and unforgiving man who accepted nothing less than complete obedience. The consequences of failing him were severe. Virginia learned early on never to question him and, up until now, she had avoided his wrath. But she had witnessed it, through the misfortunes of Deliah and Marjorie. He routinely meted out punishment to them, either for innocuous infractions or just because he felt like it. They were never without the physical scars, to say nothing of the mental scars. Virginia lived in constant fear, knowing that her turn would surely come.
When it did, Virginia was totally unprepared for it.
It followed a particularly awful day on the wood heap in early winter. Long before dawn, Virginia had been summoned from her bed and ordered by one of the Pastoralist’s nameless lackeys to chop up an entire truck load of firewood for the homestead. Quite unexpectedly, Virginia was greeted by the first rains of the season and they arrived with a vengeance. There was a sense of urgency over this task because the homestead was running low on dry wood for the fireplaces and the kitchen stove. The wood had to be chopped and stacked safely away before the inclement weather rendered it useless.
The three girls were forced to work on a roster based system, rotating through the various chores around the farm and so it was Virginia’s turn to chop the wood. She dreaded it because she was the worst at it. The axe was heavy in her small hands and she could barely lift it. Thus, it took her twice as long to chop and stack the wood as it did Deliah and Marjorie.
Stepping out into the darkness of the pre-dawn, the rain was already coming in hard. It peppered her skin like needles, it carried with it an interminable chill and it soaked everything. The sky above crackled with lightning, forks of electricity licked the pasture all around. However unnerved Virginia might have been, she didn’t dare protest or abandon her task; the memory of witnessing the Pastoralist taking the broken axe handle to Deliah was still fresh in her mind and it frightened her into action.
Virginia toiled away in the mud and the wet, wielding the axe that stood almost half her own height. The only respite she could get from the storm was the skeletal remains of a burnt out shed that stood next to the wood pile. Though its stone and brick walls were largely gone, parts of the iron roof were still intact so she was able to gain some protection from the elements. Virginia retrieved some discarded sheets of iron that lay on the ground nearby to erect a makeshift wall on two sides so she could shield herself from the worst of the rain. It worked—but only partially.
With a painstaking effort she began to master the axe and her output increased accordingly. She loaded pile after pile of soaked firewood blocks into a rusted wheelbarrow, then she transported them through the driving rain along the long path to the shed behind the homestead. Over and over again she did this. By midday, Virginia was shivering from the damp, but she tried to ignore it.
At some point, Deliah appeared with a plastic garbage bag she had spirited to Virginia from inside the house and that did provide Virginia some protection. Deliah had also brought her a chicken sandwich and an apple, having taken them from the kitchen when no one was looking. Together they stuffed the food items under some more iron inside the ruined shed where they would stay dry. As much as she wanted to, Deliah didn’t stay—she couldn’t—for her work inside the house went on and the Pastoralist was, reportedly, in a foul mood because of the weather. If he caught Deliah out here, she would surely suffer.
By mid-afternoon Virginia was numb—physically and emotionally. She struggled to move in her sodden clothing. It had stuck to her skin, despite the plastic garbage bag she wore. Occasionally, she paused to gather her strength under the shelter of the iron, making sure that no one was watching. Sitting down on a dry patch of earth, she took out the sandwich and nibbled on it.
There was someone however—more specifically—something watching her.
The black and white cattle dog had snuck into view from the shelter of the out houses and had been surveying Virginia from afar. When Virginia disappeared from view, the dog whimpered from his vantage point, trying to see where she had gone. Eventually, his curiosity prompted him to brave the weather and he made a dash for the wood pile where, upon rounding the corner of the shed, he found the little girl huddled up under the iron.
Virginia looked up and regarded the dog absently. She was shivering too much to acknowledge him. The dog stopped before her, his eyes falling across the morsel of food Virginia held in her hand.
“Well?” Virginia croaked, her voice gravelly from months of silence. “D-don’t just stand there.”
The dog needed no further prompting. He trotted in under the shelter and s
at down on his haunches, wagging his tail as Virginia handed him a small corner of her sandwich. He gobbled it down eagerly and then whimpered expectantly for more.
“I got no more,” Virginia held out her empty hands, but the dog wasn’t looking at her hands. Rather, they were focused on the apple that sat in her lap.
Virginia glanced down and the shining red fruit and frowned quizzically at the dog.
“Fruit?” she questioned incredulously. “How silly. What sort of dog eats fruit?”
Taking the apple in her shaking hands, Virginia bit off a piece of flesh and tossed it to the dog who snapped it up effortlessly in his jaws.
That single action both surprised and delighted Virginia who, for the first time in what seemed an eternity, did something that felt completely foreign to her.
She smiled.
Taking another bite of the apple, Virginia reached out for the dog’s collar and thumbed a silver disc that hung from it. She read the inscription that was engraved on its surface.
Again she frowned.
“Simon?” she croaked. “What kind of name is that for a dog?”
The dog, Simon, just sat there, quivering with excitement rather than cold.
Virginia shared another piece of the apple with Simon, then another, until all that was left was the core.
She appraised the drab sky.
“Is it always so miserable here Simon?”
The dog barked and wagged his bushy tail enthusiastically.
Her hunger assuaged, Virginia got to her feet, brushed down the plastic of her make shift poncho, then took the axe handle from its resting place.
“You stay here,” she ordered as earnestly as she could. “No sense in two of us getting soaked through.”
As she was about to return to her work, Virginia stopped when, from across the compound, the sound of music drifted through the rain and the storm and into her ears. Virginia whipped her head in the direction of the homestead and stood perfectly still, listening to the beautiful, plaintive sonnet.
It captivated Virginia.
She had begun to look forward to hearing the music every day when she was working. In fact, she made sure that her other chores were completed and she was out on the verandah, sweeping and dusting. It always began at the same time each day and it stopped her dead in her tracks and the more she listened, the more she was drawn to its beauty.
Virginia knew now what it was and who was playing. It was the Pastoralist’s wife and the instrument was called a violin. Virginia had only ever glimpsed this woman from a distance and she had never actually seen her instrument. She was never in a position to see the woman play but Virginia always knew by her music that she was there.
In that moment, there on the wood heap, a thousand miles from anywhere, Virginia closed her eyes and drifted away from the farm on the sounds of the violin music. Time melted and was gone. She felt as light as a feather. There was nothing but peace.
Her reverie was suddenly and violently broken when a sharp, stinging blow crashed into the side of her head—so powerful that it lifted Virginia off her feet and propelled her small body across the muddy ground where she crashed into the wood pile.
Immediately overcome by nausea, Virginia scrambled desperately where she lay. Struggling to focus, Virginia blinked furiously and looked up to see the towering figure of the Pastoralist standing over her.
“What are you doing?!” he bellowed satanically.
Virginia stifled the urge to vomit from the stinging pain and an accompanying, high pitched ringing that had assailed her hearing. Her heart raced and her lungs heaved as though she had forgotten to breathe. Gaining a precarious hold on her senses, Virginia became aware of a snake like object the Pastoralist gripped in his right hand.
It was a bull whip.
“Answer me!” the Pastoralist roared, reaching down with his free hand and grabbing Virginia by the throat, yanking her to her feet.
“I don’t give you shelter here so you can do what you like, when you like…” he paused as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the half eaten apple. “And I won’t have thieving in my home!”
Virginia blinked dumbfounded as the Pastoralist threw the apple at her as hard as he could, striking her square in her belly and winding her. He grabbed at the plastic and the fabric of her dress, tearing them from her in one swift motion. Then he stepped back several paces, unspooling the bull whip.
Standing completely naked, Virginia stood paralysed. Her disorientation had coalesced into blinding fear. The Pastoralist raised the thick handle of the whip above his head and he parted his legs.
“Turn around!” he screamed.
Virginia stared blankly up at him, his stony features shaded by the brim of his hat. She couldn’t move.
The Pastoralist spat on her and brought the handle of the whip down with a flick of his wrist. The length of plaited leather whistled through the air, snapped back loudly and Virginia yelped in pain as the whip’s end cut a deep crimson gash into her skin. Intense pain blossomed across her chest and she began to shake uncontrollably. The music from inside the house stopped and all Virginia heard now was the crack of the whip echoing in her head.
The Pastoralist brought the handle back over his head and cracked the bull whip again, the end striking her identical to the first. She bit her lip. Tears streamed down her face and she felt her legs buckle.
Quite unexpectedly, a single thought passed across her failing consciousness.
‘Where has the music gone?’
As the Pastoralist whirled the bull whip around for a third time, Virginia crumpled to the ground, vomiting into the mud. Her consciousness fading, the Pastoralist’s whip struck across her shoulders. She made no sound as her blood trickled down over her skin and was washed away by the rain. The pain overwhelmed her and she succumbed to the darkness.
The Pastoralist glared at the unconscious child, his anger boiling like a furnace. He closed his eyes and tried to calm his nerves; to slow his breath. Then, he turned on his heel and strode away, leaving the child on the ground.
Simon, who had been cowering under the shelter of the ruined shed, waited until his master was gone from view, then he slunk cautiously over to Virginia’s still form.
The darkness seemed to envelop everything…but not quite.
A blanket was draped across her still form, protecting her from the rain. She could sense a pair of delicate, feminine hands on her skin—then more hands underneath her, lifting her. And then she was no longer out of doors. In her darkness, she could hear the echoing whispers of a woman’s voice, issuing instructions to someone unseen. “Bring the disinfectant and towels. I need boiling water, bandages.” She could sense the urgency around her but she couldn’t open her eyes to see. Then the blackness prevailed again. There was nothing.
Virginia awoke in her bed and blinked her eyes. Sitting herself up, she winced as burning daggers of pain arched across her back, her shoulders and her chest, almost taking her breath away.
Waiting until the pain settled, Virginia looked around her darkened quarters noticing Simon laying curled up at the end of her bed, fast asleep. For a moment, she was disoriented and felt herself begin to panic but she managed to slow her heart beat and force her mind to think.
She had lost days.
For over a week, she had been confined to her bed where she’d battled a rampant fever and excruciating pain. She hadn’t been able to keep any food down nor fluids. She hadn’t so much as slept as she’d writhed in the fog of infection, night after night. Deliah and Marjorie were sent a fresh supply of bandages and antiseptic twice a day to tend to her wounds. Food was brought from the kitchen by the head housekeeper each day—more food than they were ever allowed before. The girls were ordered to keep quiet and make no mention of this in front of the Pastoralist. Clearly, someone else was ensuring the girls had what they needed to care for Virginia.
Eventually, her fever broke. She began to recover, and now, she found herself here.
Working inside the house was considered a significant step up for a domestic servant and it only ever came after a significant period of proving oneself in performing the more menial and less desirable chores.
Virginia had encountered the Pastoralist’s head housekeeper in passing and she had learned to fear this imposing barrel of a woman who always wore a scarf around her head and only seemed to bellow orders to the other girls.
Virginia gingerly stepped from her bed and dressed while Simon stirred and woke, watching her from his vantage point on the bed.
“Come on fella,” Virginia said. “Let’s go and see what we’ve got to do.”
It was clear from the moment that Virginia stepped into the kitchen, that the housekeeper was not at all impressed with her. Mrs. Finchner examined Virginia with the eye of a drill sergeant, grabbing her ear lobes roughly and checking behind them. She held Virginia’s hands, turning them over, picking at her eczema-afflicted skin. Finally the housekeeper inspected Virginia’s finger nails, noting specks of ingrained dirt in some of them which she tried to loosen with her own claw-like nail. Virginia just stood there and quivered like a jittery field mouse, jumping at shadows and the softest of noises.
The housekeeper shook her head.
“You’re too scrappy to be inside here,” she appraised her dourly. “But I’ve been…encouraged…to make use of you.”
The housekeeper turned to a cupboard on the far wall of the kitchen and fetched a bucket, an apron and some cleaning cloths.
“You’ll start in the bathroom. Mop the floors, buff and polish them. Make sure those tiles glimmer. Then you’ll attend to the toilets and the laundry. Understand?”
Virginia blinked and nodded obediently as the housekeeper deposited the equipment in front of her.
The housekeeper pointed toward a doorway that led through to the inner house.
“Go,” she ordered. “I’ll be in to check on your work.”
