Mud and Gold (54 page)

From the first night she had come to his
house, whenever he had touched her it had been a punishment,
whether it was a blow when she had annoyed him or just the rough
way he used her for his lust. She had come to him eager to please
and desperate for approval, and he had hurt her and reviled her.
And now he had beaten her savagely for shrinking from him.

Awareness of her body crept back, and Amy
slowly absorbed the details of her pain. She felt on fire all over.
It was a long time before she attempted to move, and when she did
try she thought she would faint.

She lay still until her head stopped
spinning quite so violently, then dragged herself to her hands and
knees, took hold of a chair, and pulled on it until she was
squatting.

A new spasm racked her. She clutched at her
belly until the convulsions eased a little, then stared at the pool
of blood on the floor between her thighs, slow to comprehend what
it meant. So there had been another child growing within her;
another child lost. A child killed by its father.

When the pain no longer threatened to make
her faint, Amy slowly pulled herself to her feet, using the edge of
the table for support. She felt something hard in her mouth, and
spat a mouthful of blood into one hand. In the middle of the pool
were two teeth. She closed her hand on them and squeezed until she
felt them cut into her palm, then slipped them into her apron
pocket.

The habit of guilt was strong in her. She
deserved everything bad that had happened to her from the time she
had lain with Jimmy; she had been told so over and over. She had
accepted it as her due. But had she really deserved this from her
husband? Hadn’t she been punished enough now?

She wiped up the blood as well as her
trembling hands would allow, lit a candle and put out the lamp,
then walked quietly through the parlour and up to the bedroom
door.

Charlie was sprawled half on the bed with
his legs dangling over the edge, clutching his empty bottle in one
outflung arm. She paused in the doorway, watching and listening.
His snoring told her that he was sound asleep, and unlikely to be
easily disturbed. Amy felt that the very last thing in the world
she wanted to do was touch him, but she forced herself to go over
to the bed. In the early hours of the morning it could be cold even
at this time of year. He should not lie there all night with no
covers over him.

She prised his fingers from the bottle, a
shudder running through her at the touch. There was something wound
around his hand: long strands of her hair, ripped out by him. The
pain in her scalp was a small part of the whole, and she had
scarcely noticed it till now. A treacherous memory from her last
day with Jimmy crept into her awareness; so Charlie wanted a lock
of her hair, too.

She put the bottle on the floor near the
wall where he would be unlikely to trip over it. She managed to get
his boots off, but when she tried to lift his legs onto the bed the
weight sent stabs of pain through her, forcing her to abandon the
attempt. Instead, she took a blanket from the wardrobe and draped
it over him. She took her nightdress from a drawer and walked out
of the bedroom, closing the door quietly behind her.

The photograph on the mantelpiece caught
Amy’s attention as she came into the parlour; she paused to study
it. Something had put the idea of a family portrait into Charlie’s
head two years before, and he had summoned Mr Hatfield out to the
farm to make a visible record of Charlie and his heirs.

It showed Charlie standing before the fence
in front of the house, holding Smokey by the reins. Malcolm was
perched in the saddle, beaming with pride at being allowed to sit
on the horse. Amy had not ventured further than the gateway in the
fence. She looked at the image of herself with David in her arms,
clutching the child to her as much to hide the signs of pregnancy
as for the pleasure of holding him.

Charlie’s kingdom. His farm, his sons and
his wife. She had thought she belonged to him then; belonged as
much as his farm and his animals did, and had as little right to
complain.

Amy heard the soft sounds of David’s
breathing as she slipped into his room. She put out her candle and
undressed in the dark so as not to wake him; unwilling, too, to
face her injuries before she had to. She slid into bed alongside
him, trying to find the position that would cause least pain, and
snuggled up to his warm little body. He stirred, and pressed
against her. It hurt, but she clung to him. In the morning she
would have to move David’s things out to the verandah room; he was
old enough to sleep out there with his brother, and she needed this
room now. Because she was never going to share Charlie’s bed
again.

February 1891

Amy woke much later than usual the next
morning, with the sun already bright in the sky. For a few moments
she looked around the walls and wondered where she was. Memories of
the previous evening came flooding back and she was suddenly wide
awake.

She realised what had woken her: it was the
bellowing of the cows. They were hours late in being milked, and
were making their disquiet obvious. Charlie must have been even
drunker than she had thought to sleep through this.

David had rolled away from her in the night.
He was still asleep, with his head on the other edge of the pillow
and one arm flung out over the covers. He had the thumb of his
other hand in his mouth; she pulled it out gently. He stirred a
little without waking.

Amy slipped out of bed, and groaned as her
body complained at the movement. Steeling herself, she walked over
to the wall mirror. The face that looked back at her was almost
unrecognisable. Her cheeks were a swollen mass of bruises, she
could only just see out of a half-closed black eye, and one lip was
split by an angry-looking cut. Her hair was tangled, giving her an
even wilder appearance.

She turned from the apparition and crept out
of the room, then through the parlour till she stood outside
Charlie’s door, every step running shafts of pain through her. She
listened for any sound of movement, but heard nothing. Summoning
her courage, she opened the door and went in. Charlie lay just as
she had left him, still sound asleep and breathing noisily; he
looked as though he might sleep the day away, and she was in no
hurry to confront him.

But the cows needed milking. Amy remembered
the pain in her breasts when they were full of milk after Ann had
been taken from her; she felt them aching in sympathy for the poor
beasts with their swollen udders. Charlie was obviously in no state
to milk them, so she would just have to do it herself.

She gathered up her hairbrush from the chest
of drawers, closed the door on Charlie and went back to David’s
room. He stirred as she came in, turning a sleepy face to her. His
eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to cry out. Amy went to his
side, crouched on the floor by the bed and put her arms around him,
hiding her face until he had got over the fright.

‘It’s all right, Davie, it’s Mama,’ she
soothed. When she released him he stared at her wide-eyed, then
reached out and touched her cheek very lightly.

‘Your face is funny, Mama.’

‘I fell on the floor and I got hurt.’ It
wasn’t a lie, it just wasn’t all of the truth; but enough of it for
a three-year-old.

She couldn’t leave the boys here while she
went down to the cow shed; they would be sure to wake Charlie, and
he would be like a bear with a sore head this morning. He was hard
enough on them even when he didn’t have a hangover.

‘Davie,’ she said, ‘would you like to help
Mama today? Papa’s not very well, and he has to stay in bed. We
have to whisper so we won’t wake him up. I need you and Mal to help
me milk the cows. Will you do that?’

David nodded, his eyes alight as he climbed
out of bed. It was all a game to him. She helped him get dressed,
putting a finger to his lips when he got too excited.

‘Now, you must creep
very
quietly out
to the verandah and wake Mal up and tell him our secret. When he’s
dressed you can both come back here—see which one can be the
quietest.’

She lifted her nightdress over her head when
David had gone, and saw the injuries on her body for the first
time. Charlie’s vicious kick had been effective in more than
bringing on a miscarriage. Her back and her rib cage both had livid
bruises discolouring them. She tried to check her ribs for any
damage, but found that even a light exploratory pressure was
unbearable; one or more must be cracked. Angry red lines had etched
into her skin around the site of his kick; they puzzled her until
she realised they had been made by the bones of her corset when his
foot and the table leg had ground them into her.

It was obvious she would not be able to lace
herself in while she was in this state. She shoved the corset into
the wardrobe and closed the door on it.
That’s one good thing,
anyway
.
An excuse not to wear that for a while
.

Dressing was awkward enough without it.
Twisting her body around to fasten bodices and petticoats rubbed
her tender skin and set all her bruises throbbing. But she managed
to get her clothes on before David came back with Malcolm. The
five-year-old looked at her in awe.

‘I’m all right, Mal, there’s no need to
stare at me like that,’ she said, trying to reassure him. But he
was not frightened, merely impressed.

‘That’s a
huge
black eye,’ he said.
‘How did you get one like that?’ He sounded as though he wished he
could have one, too.
It’s not that hard, Mal. Just make your
father angry enough and he’ll give you one
. No, that wasn’t
quite fair; Charlie might be harsh, but he didn’t hate his sons as
it seemed he hated his wife. In his own way he loved them;
especially his precious first-born.

‘I fell on the floor,’ she repeated. ‘You
two sit on the bed and wait while I do my hair.’

They sat obediently enough and swung their
legs for a few minutes. Amy tugged at the knots, trying to tease
out the worst of them with her fingers. Her scalp was tender on the
back of her head where Charlie had grabbed at it. When she probed
gingerly with her fingertips she could feel that a small patch of
hair was missing; a little dried blood came off on her fingers.

The boys, growing bored, started kicking one
another’s legs, and scuffling in an idle way. ‘Stop that!’ Amy
said. ‘You’ll wake your father.’ That quietened them briefly, then
Malcolm tickled David, who gave a high-pitched squeal of
indignation. It was unfair to expect them to sit still.

‘How about you go down to the cow shed and
wait for me there,’ Amy said. ‘See if you can let the cows into the
yard,’ she added, not with any great hope they would manage it.

The boys erupted from the room and raced out
the back door. Amy stood very still for a moment to listen for any
signal that Charlie might have been disturbed, but the house was
silent.

The raw patch on the back of her head meant
she couldn’t pin her hair up or put on a bonnet, so she left it
falling around her shoulders and down her back. It felt strange to
wear it loose; she hadn’t left the house with her hair down since
she had been declared a woman at sixteen.

On her way out of the house, she paused in
the kitchen to get something for the boys to eat. Her dough of last
night was still lying on the table, cold and hard now. She found
some of yesterday’s bread, not too dried out yet, and cut thick
slices from the loaf. That and two apples from the box by the back
door would have to keep them going till she could get them
breakfast.

To her agreeable surprise, the boys had all
the cows in the yard with the gate closed behind them. The two of
them looked very pleased with themselves.

‘What clever boys!’ Amy said. ‘You got them
in all by yourselves—that’ll save us a
lot
of time.’ She
knew that all they had had to do was open the gate, hold it open
until the cows, eager for relief, had all filed in, then close it
after them; but they could easily have upset the animals by rushing
around or shouting, making the job of getting them into the yard a
good deal harder.

‘I know how to do it,’ Malcolm said proudly.
‘I help Papa sometimes.’ And he often enough earned a beating for
upsetting the cows. Today Malcolm seemed to be taking the
responsibility seriously enough to overcome his usual
boisterousness.

Amy led two cows into bails and showed
Malcolm how to tether their heads and tie a leg rope to one hind
leg. He tied the second one while she milked the first. Crouching
on the hard little stool was painful, but there was something
soothing about pressing her face against the cow’s warm, soft flank
as she squeezed its teats and heard the satisfying swish of milk
going into the bucket.

She and the boys got into a pattern of work
together: Malcolm leading the cows in and tethering them, and
letting them out into the paddock when they were done; Amy milking;
then the two boys carefully carrying each bucket between them over
to the row of milk cans and pouring the milk in. They spilled a
little each time, but they were trying so hard that Amy could not
possibly scold them. The spilt milk puddled into the cow dung on
the earth floor of the milking shed; even at such close quarters
the pungent smell was too familiar for Amy to do more than twitch
her nose at it.

Amy found herself becoming sleepy as the
morning wore on. Her hands got into a rhythm that took little
concentration; the shed was warmed by the sun as it rose higher,
and by the body heat of the cows. Each cow seemed to have a look of
trust and even gratitude in its liquid brown eyes as it was led in.
It was only pain that stopped her from dozing off where she
sat.