Mud and Gold (66 page)

‘Will Pa show us how?’ Malcolm asked.

‘I don’t know, your pa’s always busy working
or he’s tired. I’m not even sure if he can swim himself, anyway.
Maybe I’ll see if he’ll let me take you over to Grandpa’s a bit
more over the summer, then we might try and talk Uncle John or
Uncle Harry into teaching you. Uncle Harry hasn’t got any boys of
his own, he might like borrowing you two for a bit.’

After their lesson in kicking, the boys
leapt about in the creek until they began to shiver from the cold
water. They scrambled over the rocks to the creek bank and
collapsed onto the grass, panting from their exertion.

‘The sun’s so hot it’ll dry you quite fast,
then you can get your clothes on and we’ll have some lunch,’ Amy
said. She lifted her wet legs out of the creek and went over to lie
on her side between the boys, watching the sunlight glistening on
the little rivulets of water that ran down their bodies.

The two boys looked so different that she
sometimes found it hard to believe they had both come out of her,
but the pair of them had inherited Charlie’s long legs and strong
build. ‘You two are growing so fast,’ Amy said. ‘You’ll be taller
than me in a few years. Maybe you’ll even be taller than your
father one day.’

She kept a close eye on the boys as the sun
dried them, anxious that Malcolm’s fair skin should not burn. As
soon as they were no longer visibly wet, she coaxed them into
rolling onto their fronts so that their backs would dry.

‘This grass is prickly,’ Malcolm complained
when he was lying face down.

‘I know, but you won’t be there for long,
just till you’re dry.’

The fine, downy hair on Malcolm’s arms
looked almost blond in the sunlight as she checked his graze. ‘That
swim’s given your arm a good rinse, it looks quite clean now.’ She
brushed the dried grass and small sticks off Malcolm’s back,
stroking the smooth skin down his spine.

‘That tickles, Ma,’ Malcolm said, wriggling
away from her touch.

‘It’s fun tickling you.’ She took advantage
of his face-down position to plant a kiss on his damp hair while he
could not see what she was doing, then she turned to brush David’s
back clean.

His hair had dried enough to form tiny curls
where it lay against his neck. A small pool of water had formed at
the tip of the longest lock. Amy kissed it away. David must be due
for another haircut if his hair was long enough for visible curls.
That meant seeing her little boy looking like a frightened rabbit
as his father waved the big scissors around his head, with David
doing his best to hold back the tears that he would be punished for
if they were seen. To Malcolm haircuts meant boredom and having to
sit unnaturally still; for David they had taken on nightmare
proportions since his first experience of his father’s wrath. She
did her best to promise him treats to follow each haircut, but it
was hard for the four-year-old to cling to the hope of something
nice to eat as he perched terrified on a chair watching the
scissors and knowing that a stick was close at hand if he
misbehaved.

David slithered across the grass to nestle
close. He laid his head on Amy’s chest and pressed his warm little
body against hers. ‘I like it when Papa’s not here,’ he said,
smiling up at her.

‘You shouldn’t say that, Davie,’ Amy
admonished. ‘We wouldn’t have anything to eat if Papa didn’t work
hard on the farm growing things and milking the cows.’

But she could not put any real rebuke into
her voice; not when it was such pleasure to lie in the sun with her
boys, Charlie’s sobering presence too remote to cast any shadow on
them. Malcolm had dropped his usual belligerence towards her, too
warm and languid to feel the need to be defiant. For a moment she
considered trying to draw him close for a cuddle so that she would
have a child in each arm, but when she ran her fingers across
Malcolm’s shoulders she felt him stiffen. She contented herself
with patting his arm.

‘My two boys,’ Amy murmured. ‘I’m lucky to
have you, aren’t I? It’s nice being together, just the three of
us.’

‘I wanted to go with Pa,’ Malcolm said
quietly.

‘I know, Mal. Don’t get upset about it,
lovey, you can go with Pa another time.’

‘I wanted to go with him,’ Malcolm
persisted. ‘He wouldn’t take me. He left me behind like I’m a
baby.’

‘He just likes to go off by himself
sometimes. He’ll take you when you’re old enough.’ Only when the
words were out did she realise their full import: when her son was
old enough, his father would take him whoring. She fought back a
rush of anger at the thought.

‘You always say that. When will I be old
enough?’

‘You won’t be old enough to go to the hotel
for years and years, Mal, and a good thing, too. But your pa takes
you out other places with him—he often takes you to the
factory.’

‘Yes,’ Malcolm allowed. ‘But then we just go
on the cart. It’s not like riding a horse. Pa took me into town on
the horse once, we went real fast on the beach. He doesn’t take me
any more.’

‘He never takes me,’ David put in.

‘You’re too little,’ Malcolm said, proud of
his two years’ superiority.

‘Would you like to go with Papa, Davie?’ Amy
asked.

David thought for barely a second. ‘No. I
like it with you best, Mama.’

‘It’s good going with Pa, even just to the
factory,’ Malcolm argued. ‘You get to see lots of horses, and Pa
talks to the men and things. It’s all men down there. Pa says women
talk a lot of rubbish.’

It’s all women where your father’s gone.
I don’t suppose he bothers talking to them, though
.

‘But Papa gets grumpy. Then he hits us,’
David countered.

‘Yes.’ Malcolm lapsed into silence as he
pondered the problem.

‘He doesn’t hit you all the time, Mal, and
he hardly ever hits you, Davie,’ Amy said, anxious that the boys
should not paint their father in a worse light than he deserved.
‘Only when you’re naughty. Or sometimes just because he’s really
grumpy,’ she added in deference to the truth.

‘Why does he get grumpy, Mama?’ David
asked.

‘Papa works hard, Davie. When people get
tired they get grumpy.’
Going to whores tires him out, too
.
‘You just have to try not to annoy him when he’s tired.’

She disentangled herself from David and sat
up, stretching her arms. ‘We’d better see about eating this lunch.
You boys have had enough sun for one day, you’re going a little bit
pink, Mal.’ Malcolm would have trouble enough if his father found
out about his riding escapade without painful sunburn.

It was well into the afternoon by the time
they had finished lunch and then sat in the shade digesting it.

‘It’s nice here, but I’d better get back and
see if any of that washing’s dry,’ Amy said. ‘I need to butter some
scones for afternoon tea, too—your father will be home any time
now, he wouldn’t be very pleased to see me lazing around here
instead of working.’

From a slight rise on their way back to the
house Amy saw a horse and rider coming up the valley in the
distance.

‘That’s probably your pa. You’d better try
and stay out of his way this afternoon, Mal, in case he goes
looking at Smokey—oh, you’ll have to help him with milking later,
won’t you? Well, stay away from the house till then, anyway. I’ll
come and call you when it’s time. Don’t say anything about your
sore arm and maybe he won’t notice.’

Malcolm did not need any persuasion to make
himself scarce. He and David were well out of sight before Charlie
was much closer.

Amy hurried down to the horse paddock to
meet Charlie as he rode up a few minutes later. He dismounted, and
glanced at her approach in surprise.

‘What are you after?’ he asked.

‘Nothing. I just came to say hello.’

Charlie grunted in response. He led the
horse into the paddock and took off the saddle and bridle, leaving
the bay free to crop the grass. Charlie looked across the paddock
to where Smokey stood near the opposite fence, but before he could
take a closer look at the horse Amy spoke.

‘I’ve got scones buttered, and the kettle’s
on. You must be ready for a snack.’

‘Aye, I’ve a fair appetite,’ said Charlie.
Thus distracted, he walked up to the house, stopping only to put
the tack away in one of the sheds.

‘Where’s the boy?’ Charlie asked when he had
joined Amy in the kitchen.

‘They’re both playing over the back.’ It
vexed Amy that Charlie tended to forget he had a second son, but
she knew it worked to David’s advantage to be largely ignored by
his father. ‘I’ll call them when you’ve had your afternoon
tea.’

Two cups of tea and a plate of scones later,
Charlie looked pleased with himself. Amy studied his face,
wondering if she could succeed in shielding Malcolm. She had not
realised how avidly she was watching until Charlie narrowed his
eyes at her and said, ‘What are you staring at?’

Amy lowered her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t
mean to stare.’ Now instead of his face she could see Charlie’s
boots, a layer of dried mud thick around the edge of the soles. It
was hard to remember what Charlie’s feet looked like without boots,
now that she no longer shared his bed. That seemed to be the only
place he never wore them.
I wonder if he takes them off at the
whorehouse
.
I suppose he must before he gets into bed there.
He’s got that whorehouse smell again
. ‘Do you want another cup
of tea?’

‘No, I can’t sit around here all day. It’ll
be time to get those cows in shortly.’ He pushed his chair back,
but remained sitting. ‘The boy can help me with that.’

‘I’ll call him, then.’

The boys appeared soon afterwards, both of
them standing in the kitchen doorway and eyeing their father
nervously. Charlie stood up and went outside, Amy and the children
following. As Charlie turned in the direction of the cow shed,
Malcolm a few steps behind him, Amy relaxed a little. She was sure
that once Charlie started the long job of bringing in the cows and
milking them he would forget all about Smokey, and by the morning
the horse would probably have got over the worst of his
lameness.

Charlie stopped abruptly. ‘I’d better have a
look at Smokey first, see if he’s over that bit of stiffness. You
wait there, boy, don’t go wandering off.’

‘I’m sure Smokey’s all right, Charlie,’ Amy
said, a little too quickly. ‘He can wait till tomorrow, you don’t
want to waste time now rushing around after him.’

Charlie ignored her and headed for the horse
paddock. Amy’s mind raced as she tried to think of ways to distract
him. But he would either disregard her or get angry if she
obstructed him, and neither of those would do Malcolm any good.

Malcolm’s eyes ranged around with a hunted
expression, but he did not stir from the spot where his father had
told him to stay. Amy moved to stand close beside him. She let her
arm rest on his shoulders in a helpless attempt at comfort, but he
did not seem to notice.

They were not left waiting for long. Charlie
strode back up to them, his face livid.

‘He’s lame! My horse has gone lame! What the
hell’s happened to him?’

None of them made any answer, and Charlie
ranted on.

‘Something’s frightened him—he shied away
from me, he never does that. Something’s made him bolt, and he’s
strained himself in that stiff leg. He’ll be no use for days.’

He slowly became aware of the unnatural
silence of his audience, and looked at the three of them with
dawning suspicion.

‘Do you know anything about this?’ he asked
Amy.

‘He… he must have got a fright, like you
said,’ Amy hedged.

‘What frightened him, then? Eh? What’s been
going on behind my back?’

While Amy struggled to think of an answer
that might satisfy him, Charlie’s attention turned to Malcolm.

‘What have you been up to, boy? Have you
been plaguing my horse?’

‘I… I didn’t…’ Malcolm began. But the threat
in his father’s face pushed him over the edge into panic, and he
made an ill-conceived attempt to run for it.

Charlie’s thought processes might have been
slow, but his reflexes were fast enough to react at once to a calf
trying to dodge away from him. He snaked out his long arms and
caught Malcolm before the boy had gone two strides, twisting
Malcolm around to face him and holding him firmly by both
shoulders.

‘I didn’t mean to lame him, Pa,’ Malcolm
gasped out.

‘Don’t be hard on him, Charlie, he didn’t
mean any harm,’ Amy said. Charlie ignored her.

‘Haven’t I told you not to interfere with
the horses?’ he demanded. ‘Haven’t I said you’re to keep away from
them when I’m not here?’ He shook Malcolm roughly.

‘I-I didn’t mean to—I just wanted—’ Malcolm
took a gulp of air and spoke in a rush. ‘I wanted to ride him—I
just went for a little ride—I wanted to ride him like you do—I
wanted to go to town with you but you wouldn’t take me—you never
take me—you think I’m too little—I wanted to ride him but he kicked
me off—’

‘You’ve lamed that horse, you little
bugger,’ Charlie said, angrier than ever. ‘I told you to keep away
from them. That bloody horse could have killed you,’ he finished in
a roar, but Malcolm was far too frightened to understand that his
father’s anger was all the worse because of his fear for Malcolm’s
safety. ‘Right, I’m going to teach you a lesson,’ Charlie said,
half dragging Malcolm out of sight behind the shed where he kept a
stick handy.

Amy sank onto the back step holding a
fearful David close to her, weeping quietly at the familiar sound
of Malcolm’s yells. ‘Davie, you must try and be a good boy,’ she
said through her tears. ‘You must always do what Papa says so he
won’t get angry with you. Promise me you’ll try.’

‘Yes, Mama,’ David said.

When Charlie reappeared, trailed by a
sobbing Malcolm, David stared at his father and clung harder to
Amy.