Authors: Maris Morton
And then, within a year of her mother’s death, her papa married that woman and brought her to live in her mother’s house. She still hadn’t forgiven him. Knowing he’d been carrying on with her all the time Mum had been slowly dying made forgiveness absolutely impossible. Then Penny married her rich lawyer and went to live in England, and apart from routine Christmas cards there wasn’t any real contact any more. Not that the two of them had ever had much in common besides sharing the same house and the same parents
Then Tallis. That had been a rejection of the most painful kind, and she’d been still drying her tears when Paul swept into her orbit, glamorous, rich and besotted with her. She could remember wondering what miracle had made him fall in love with her. Up till then she’d always felt herself to be in Penny’s shadow, not as good-looking, clever or charming as her sister; too tall, gawky and lacking in sex appeal. But Penny had gone by then, so there was no competition.
Yet it was no mistake. Paul persisted, courting her with a formal devotion, and of course she fell in love with him: why wouldn’t she? Having Paul beside her made her the envy of all her friends and went a long way towards making up for Tallis’ rejection. Even her father was impressed and, she suspected, somewhat astonished that his awkward daughter should have attracted such a desirable husband. He was probably delighted, too, to have her whisked away to the other side of the continent. He gladly paid for a slap-up wedding at St Mark’s in Darling Point, and everyone they knew was there. It was her hour of triumph, the moment every girl dreamt of.
When she arrived at Downe, she had no idea what her new life would be like. The fact that Paul had so few relations was a bonus, because it meant she had him to herself, with no family politics to make things difficult. No mother-in-law. It took a while for her to understand that Ellen was still very much present and all the more difficult to appease because, during the three years since she’d died, Paul had elevated her to sainthood.
Taking over another woman’s house was an eerie experience. Clio soon understood that she had to tread carefully and not make any radical changes. Before long her cosmopolitan life in Sydney took on the quality of a dream, like life on another planet.
Clio heard a sound and lifted her head. Was it the Piper? A bit early, but … She listened, then relaxed. It was Mary back from her excursion with Gayleen. That was one thing Paul had done that had turned out well for her. Mary’s good cooking had revived her interest in food. She could remember how she’d struggled with cooking, those first years. Lyla had helped, though.
Steve and Lyla Hansen had come to Downe as Married Couple when Steve was demobilised in 1946. That had been a period of building, she’d learnt from reading Ellen’s diaries, with wartime shortages easing and men coming back into the workforce; and then, in the 1950s, the high wool prices. Apparently Lyla helped out in the house right from the start; and after Ellen died she had to assume the role of housekeeper or Paul would have starved to death.
Lyla Hansen was the first friend she made here. Lyla wasn’t a young woman, close to sixty probably, and plain and stout and kind, and Clio grew fond of her. It was Lyla who taught her to laugh at all the little indignities that were such an unexpected feature of married life.
When Lyla understood how ignorant Clio was, she offered to teach her to cook, and Clio was quick to take up her offer. Once she mastered the fuel stove, they fell into a routine of cooking lessons every morning, producing a midday meal that was adequate, and occasionally very good.
Then Paul broke his ankle and was confined to the house. While Clio and Lyla were busy in the kitchen one day, Paul must have heard them talking and laughing. He came storming out of his room, hobbling with Ellen’s old cane. His face was white, his tone frigid when he ordered Lyla to get out, said she needn’t come here again, they didn’t want her. She could remember the shock on Lyla’s face.
Lyla left without a word, and that was the end of the cooking lessons. From then on till Steve died, Clio only ever saw her in the distance, and with a huge sense of loss.
Later, she came to understand that Paul regarded Steve and Lyla as servants, never friends. And more than that — and something that Clio had scarcely been aware of — Lyla had the freckled light-brown skin and faded frizzy hair of someone with Noongah blood. Which meant that any friendship between Lyla and Clio was absolutely out of the question.
Steve died ten years later, and Lyla moved into town to live with her daughter’s family. Garth and Gloria came in their place.
W
ITH PAUL AND MARTIN
just back from the city, the midday meal carried a feeling of déjà vu. It was exactly a week since Mary had arrived here with her high expectations still intact. By now she’d overcome the worst of her disappointment and adjusted to the fact that Downe wasn’t the grand establishment she’d imagined, but a shabby, undistinguished house inhabited by two taciturn men and a sick woman. Paul and Martin, handsome as they undoubtedly were, had so far shown no sign of charm, and Clio was touchy and unpredictable.
Her isolation here had been another disappointment. She’d expected to be free to drive into the nearest town to shop or simply to have a break.
While she stacked the dirty crockery in the sink, Mary considered her options. She could give up on the job. There was no real reason for her to stay, if she wasn’t getting any satisfaction from the work here. In spite of the lack of transport, she wasn’t a prisoner. But if she gave up after only a week she’d feel as if she’d failed. She’d feel bad about leaving Clio, too, she realised. How would the sick woman cope, with nobody to cook for her? What had the men done about meals before she’d come?
If she was going to stay, and working here was to be anything more than drudgery, she’d have to find an absorbing interest. There was the mystery of Clio’s health and the sorry state of her marriage, but those were personal matters, and Mary was reluctant to probe. The operation of a stud farm was of interest, though: while gaining an understanding of that wasn’t likely to be of any long-term benefit, at least it was something to occupy her mind. While she had the bike, she could do more exploring around the farm. Beelyup Pool had been lovely, and she’d like to go there again. There was the reserve and its wildflowers to look forward to.
She’d made a good start on getting the house in order. If the fine weather held, she could have a go at the garden. She was so focused on her thoughts that when Paul spoke to her she was startled.
‘You want to phone an order to the Co-op?’
She turned the hot water off and went over to the table. ‘Yes. I’ve made a list.’ She tried to remember where she’d put the scrap of paper: it was in her pocket. While she had Paul’s attention she might as well take the bull by the horns. ‘There’s another thing: Cec Melrose mentioned something about shearing?’
Paul smiled slowly. If he’d given her that look a week ago, before she’d had to tackle his revolting bedroom, she’d have melted. ‘Met old Cec, have you? Yeah, he’s right. We’ll be shearing in a couple of weeks, just the wethers. Ewes are too close to lambing. You can cook for shearers, can’t you?’
Mary gasped at the assumption. She’d never cooked for shearers in her life. She had a mental picture of a shearers’ cook as a fat stubble-chinned man in a sweaty blue singlet, abused by the shearers if the food wasn’t up to scratch. ‘How many shearers?’
‘Five shearers, then there’s Martin, Cec, Garth, Angus and Jamie. Cec does the measuring and classing.’
‘I don’t normally cook for any of them except Martin.’
‘Not to worry. Shearers are locals, drive in for the day. Only need morning and afternoon smoko and dinner.’
Mary adjusted her thinking. This wasn’t in the tradition of shearers camping on the farm and needing five meals a day. Times must have changed. This didn’t sound too daunting.
‘Usually the boss’s wife does it. If he’s got one.’ There was a sour edge to his voice. ‘Next year young Alyssa can have the job.’ He looked over at his son, but Martin was preoccupied with his food.
‘You’ll have to tell me when this is going to start,’ Mary said, ‘because I’ll have to make sure there’s enough food for extra people. How long does it go on for?’
‘I’ll give you the dates when we’re in the office. It’s only five or six days this time. This isn’t a big place, not like Boonoke or Collinsville. My grandmother was going for quality, not quantity. We’re a boutique operation.’
‘I heard a bale of your wool’s up for tender.’
Paul preened. ‘Likely to get a record price, too. People said you couldn’t do it, but we’re proving them wrong.’
She hadn’t been into the office before, reasoning that there was likely to be trouble if she disarranged any paperwork. The desk was messy and she looked away, glad it wasn’t her problem. Mounted on the wall above it was a glass-fronted gun cabinet, with two or three long guns — shotguns or rifles, she couldn’t tell — and a couple of handguns. It was locked, but she could see through the finger-marked glass that boxes of cartridges lay on the bottom among an accumulation of dust and dead flies and daddy-long-legs.
Paul pointed at a diary open on the desk. ‘Shearing dates in there,’ he said. ‘This is the Co-op’s number.’ He flicked a finger at a card on the corkboard next to the gun cabinet. ‘Ask for Pauline, she does the phone orders. No, I’d best tell her who you are … Got your list? Don’t touch anything in here, will you. The accountant’s coming next week.’ He was already dialling, exchanging a few words with the person on the other end; then he held out the receiver for her to take. She had her list ready, and Paul left her to do her ordering.
W
HEN SHE WENT
into Clio’s room to collect the tray, Mary remembered that Clio had been back for a week, too.
‘Shall I change your sheets?’
Clio seemed to have trouble getting her mind around this question, but when she managed it she nodded. ‘Yes, you could do that. Shall I go and sit in my chair?’ She lowered herself from the bed and went across to the blue velvet chair near the french doors. She sat, smoothing the crocheted rug over her knees and gazing at the shadows that dappled the ground under the bare branches of the fruit trees.
Mary quickly stripped the bed, bundling the crumpled white sheets into her arms. ‘Will I find clean ones in the linen cupboard?’
Clio indicated the drawers that formed part of the storage unit opposite the bed. ‘The second drawer.’
Mary found the clean sheets and set about making up the bed again, taking the duvet and pillows outside to give them a good shaking in the fresh air. ‘It’s a lovely day,’ she observed, but Clio was off in her private world.
Mary waited until she’d finished with the bed before speaking again. ‘There, all ready to go.’ This caught Clio’s attention and she looked up, so Mary asked her, ‘How’s your burn?’
Clio raised her injured hand and turned it in the light from the window. ‘It didn’t blister.’
‘Good.’ Mary took a breath before embarking on a sensitive subject. ‘If this weather keeps up I could get out into the garden. Where would you like me to start?’
‘It won’t stay fine for long.’
‘So what do you suggest? Weeding?’
‘Yes, there’s always weeding. But don’t pull out any plants, for God’s sake!’
‘I won’t do anything rash. If I don’t recognise it as a weed, I’ll leave it alone.’
Clio almost managed a laugh. ‘God, Mary. If you make a mistake I’m not going to eat you.’
Mary was pleased; this was some kind of progress. ‘I’ll be careful.’ She remembered another matter she’d been meaning to bring up. ‘I thought tomorrow I’d start on Ellen’s room. I noticed that there’s a piano in there and I was wondering whether anyone would mind if I played it?’
An odd expression crossed Clio’s face; something like eagerness. ‘Do you play?’
‘Not really. I learnt as a child but I haven’t touched it for years. It would do me no harm to practise scales, and if there’s some music maybe I could have a go at it? It’d be something to do in the evenings.’
‘Have you asked my husband?’
‘No.’
‘Well, it might be wise not to mention it to him. Keep your practising to the weekends, when he’s away. He wouldn’t like anyone tinkering with Ellen’s things.’ Clio gave a slow smile. ‘That can be another little secret between you and me.’ Her smile disappeared. ‘But I expect it’s out of tune.’
T
HE MILD WEATHER LASTED UNTIL
the end of the week, giving Mary the chance to get to grips with the garden. It was a treat to be working out of doors with the sun warm on her back. She located a cache of gardening tools in a shed behind the rainwater tanks and managed to eradicate exuberant crops of clover and winter grass without crushing any of the emerging bulbs crowding under the trees. Some of them were already coming into bud, and she suspected that they were jonquils or daffodils, with an army of spotty-leafed lachenalias marching beside the path. The rest would reveal themselves in time
But on Friday, just as the Piper disappeared over the horizon, the sky blackened, and rain that was partly sleet slanted in from the south, and that was the end of gardening for the time being.
With the men gone, Mary looked forward to having access to the piano and Ellen’s diaries. She’d polished the old piano and its brass candle holders, and found a store of sheet music. First, to get her fingers back into the way of playing, she’d have to practise her scales.
She carried the rosy armchair out to the kitchen, and by afternoon teatime Clio had settled by the stove. She sat watching Mary for a while. The sudden rain had sent Mary scurrying out to bring in the washing, and now she was draping it over the plate-warming racks on the stove, the open oven door, and a wooden clothes horse she’d found on the back verandah. With the stove stoked up and the flue open, the room was soon fuggy and warm, while outside the rain lashed the windows and the wind moaned around the eaves.
Clio leant back in the chair and cleared her throat. ‘You must be wondering …’