Paper Daisies (24 page)

‘Nah, not much,' says Wheeler. ‘Blew the roof clear off the dunny by it, though – blew it to billy-o!'

‘Did they?' Buckley snorts and raises his glass. ‘Good on 'em.'

‘Did you used to live here too?' I ask him, and immediately regret doing so as the stonewall stare comes at me for overstepping my place in the scheme. But I am curious – curious about him – have been since he came looking for me along the riverbank this afternoon: he seemed to know the Turon so well.

It's a long stare before Buckley decides it's all right to tell me: ‘I've lived in a lot of places.'

There's another look passed between the men, another nod, and Wheeler says: ‘Small towns breed small minds – last one in gets the blame for whatever happened Tuesdee a fortnight gone at three o'clock and it's time to move on. But, let me tell you, fine traveller, as I'd tell anyone, you'll never meet a better feller than our Buckley here.'

I nod. He left on bad terms and the details are none of anyone's business. And I don't have to wonder if it is all that much harder for an ex-convict to shake off the sentence of the past. It must be. It must follow you like a bloodhound, follow you right across this continent, across half the globe from the Old Bailey. It is very much none of my business, but I can't stop my questions before they come. ‘Were you a miner?' I ask him.

‘I was,' he says, shaking his head as his old grim face cracks into a smile, one of forbearance, around teeth as grey and rough hewn as fence posts. He says, ‘Road building, mining. Beast of burden for all trades. Too old nowadays for any of that.'

‘We had some good old days, though, didn't we, Roo?' Wheeler says, placing a beer on the counter for me: I've played some card right here to get a drink without asking. He says: ‘Boom time!' and starts laughing, a great big wheeze of a belly laugh for his old friend, sharing some old laugh with him.

‘Aye –
boom
time, it was, all right.' Buckley rolls his eyes.

‘Boom time?' I ask them.

‘Back in '93, it was,' Buckley explains: two old men reminiscing. ‘Hill End was taking off again, so we thought. I was doing some ale carting up from Lithgow at the time, that's how me and Mick got to be cobbers, and I thought I'd go back in mining when the word went round that all these new companies were setting up. Wages can get good when the price gets high. Didn't happen but and work didn't last long either – what, couple of years, Mick?'

‘Yup, no more'n that. And me and the wife had waited twenty years for it too! You should have seen this place when we first got here in '73.' Wheeler is still there in his great wide grin, gold tooth winking at those better days. ‘It were town then, all right – the things that went on in this place. I couldn't tell you.'

‘Sit here long enough, he will,' says Buckley, dry again. ‘Wild Wheeler's we used to say. Fun times. Game of Heading 'Em every night, music going, dancing all round the coin toss.'

‘Ten thousand we had here in this town – not including Tambaroora neither.'

‘Ten thousand? No! Twelve.' Buckley ups the stakes, playing along with some old game between them. ‘We had half a million and seventeen at Tambaroora, don't tell
me
about a town.'

‘We had the whole
world
here, and you know it!' And then Wheeler sighs, to no one in particular: ‘Till they rolled up their tents and went home. Now there's about eight hundred stayers – maybe a thousand when the work on is good.' He tells Buckley, not hiding the strain of it: ‘I tell you, Carney's has turned out not more than ten or twenty ounces a hundred ton for months, nearly a year now. It is hard.'

I can't imagine how hard. To exist ever at the mercy of –

A door creaks open and I know it is her by the beat of that swift and heavy footfall. Berylda, there she is, emerging from the other side of the room: ‘Gentlemen.'

She has removed her hat. I haven't seen her whole face unshaded by her hat since last night. I can't move my eyes from her face as she steps towards us, but she doesn't look at me. She hasn't met my eyes since my carry-on over the new
Helichrysum
by the river; I'll change that, eventually, when I get a chance to talk to her alone again.

She seems preoccupied at the moment, though, looking about the room, frowning into every corner, something fretful about her, the tight clasp of her hands, and now she is asking: ‘Mr Wheeler?' turning about on her heel. ‘Mr Wheeler, is my memory playing tricks, or did you once have a calliope here?'

Berylda

‘
Y
ou mean the old Victory, Miss Jones?' Mr Wheeler's eyes light up.

‘Yes,' I say. ‘The steam organ – where is it?'

‘By gee …' His eyes dull again, with regret. ‘We haven't cranked her up for a while.'

‘Where is she?' She? ‘It.' Please don't say she is gone. I want the calliope to be here; Greta wants to listen to a tune, to enliven her from the fatigue that's overrun her. She is sore again now, too, and not only from all our rough travel today, I don't think; she is sore within, as sore as she was last night – from him – curling around the tenderness, and her discomfort enlivens me. ‘Please. She's not in this room?'

‘She's out the back, where she always were,' Mr Wheeler says cautiously, as one might respond to a question from one who is demented. ‘She were never in here, Miss Jones.'

‘Is that true?' Memory has played a trick then – I was sure the calliope was here, in this room, like a window in a wall, the mermaids either side of the pipes sitting atop a treasure chest.

‘True.' He smiles, a kind smile around a gruff pirate voice. ‘She'd blow us out the chimneys if she were ever in here. Never get her in the doors anyway. Come on out back, I'll show you to her.'

I follow him outside, to the back verandah, where the dusk has gone quickly black, but the shapes of the hilltops all around are visible yet, as velvet on crepe; the tower of a mine poppet head blacker still above the stables.

‘Here y'are, Miss Jones.' Mr Wheeler lights the way around the side of the hotel, hefting his battered old hurricane lamp up onto a hook for me to see. There, through the swinging shadows, it is, under a lean-to – on carriage wheels. Of course. Not a window but an ornately carved cabinet, all royal blue lacquer and marzipan scrolls, set up on a cart. It's just like any other calliope one would see at a fair.

‘But it was only five years ago – can my memory be such a muddle?' I wonder out loud. I am incredulous that I could have misremembered such an obvious thing. ‘I was so sure we were inside, Mother popping the cork on another bottle of ginger beer, and this hurdy-gurdy going …'

‘The way we want to remember happy things is probably the right way to remember them.' Mr Wilberry's deep and gentle baritone rolls out of the dark behind me. Go away, I want to shrug him off: I do not want your warmth any more than your platitude. You do not know me, and you are not going to know me. You won't want to once this excursion is ended, believe me.

I ask Mr Wheeler: ‘Open the doors, please, could you?'

‘Sure, Miss Jones.' He's jangling about his keys on their chain, telling me, ‘We did have the music going – most nights, we did, once. Not surprising you remember the music – she does blast it out, so you can hear her all the way to Bathurst, no exaggeration. But she's always been out here – run off the boiler, you see.' He points to the rusted hulk of a boiler at the back of the chimney breast beyond the lean-to here, then scratches his head, thinking, before he says: ‘Now, that's right, when yous were here that time, we had a Christmas fete on out in the yard and she was playing the whole time – egg and spoon races, ice-cream stand, talent competition and all that. I remember your father were very proud of you for something – you'd won a prize? At school? He shouted the bar. I remember that!'

‘He did?' That catches me round the heart. Oh Papa, did you really?

The cabinet doors fall open and I am caught again. Here are our mermaids: chipped and lustreless. The one on the right is missing her thumb. Their tresses lank, their scales dead. The treasure chest I imagined overflowing with coins and pearls is shut. Like this whole town; I suppose Gulgong would be going the same way. Dying, dulling. Oh, it's sad.

‘You want me to get the steam up to her for you?' Mr Wheeler is already stepping behind the cart to do so.

‘No. No, thank you.' I almost shout it. No. I don't want Greta to hear this now, nor see it. This ruin. Not tonight. Not ever at all.

‘Don't you dare start that thing up. No!' Mrs Wheeler bursts from the kitchen door onto the verandah to put an end to the question, shaking her finger at her husband and shrieking at him: ‘Don't you touch that thing, Michael!' She slams the doors of the calliope closed again.

Mr Wheeler opens his mouth: ‘We were only look –'

‘No,' she cuts him off, chopping the air with her hand and taking me by the arm. ‘That
thing
,
it has bad spirits in it. I hate it.
Waaa waaaa waaaaa
, it moans. It has nearly caused many divorces between us. Ever since he brought her up the Track. You know how many times I wish she had gone over the edge?
Waaaa waaaaa waaaaa
for every song. What's wrong with a piano and a normal person singing a normal song?' Mrs Wheeler is not normal: she can talk underwater, and hold seventeen conversations at once, turning back to her husband again now before she pulls me along, warning him: ‘Michael, you start that thing, I go back to Vilna.'

I go back to Vilna
.
.
.
The words send me my mother's laughter, hurdy-gurdy heady under this very verandah, her arm in mine. Where is Vilna? I had asked her, on that summer night five years ago.
Lithuania, darling, I think – Harry, Harry? Where's Vilna?
she called to Papa.
Lithuania or is it Russia?
she asked him. Lithuania, it is, but my memory stops there at Papa's smile as he turned to us:
What did you ask me, my dear chickadee?
The jolly sound of Mother's wedding rings clanking on a door handle with his sweet silly name for her:
chickadee
. Her name was Rosemary. Harry and Rosemary Jones, my perfect parents, stepping through some other, perfect dream. Too perfect.

Lost again amidst Mrs Wheeler's shrill cawing now, at the door that leads back to the saloon: ‘I wish those Frenchman would have shot it to bitses long ago.'

‘Frenchmen?' I have quite lost the conversation altogether. ‘Shot what?'

‘The calliope, Miss Berylda.' She squeezes the inside of my arm. ‘The night after Mr Wheeler had this awful thing dragged up the Track there was a big fight in the yard. Frenchman and the German miners that were staying here – they started fighting. Bang, bang, bang. They wanted to kill each other over Alsace. They bring all of Europa into my house.
Three
of my chairs were broken. But the calliope kept on going
waaaa waaaa waaaa
all the whole time
–
it has the devil on its side. It must.'

‘Oh?' That does sound like a funny tale, a Wild Wheeler's legend no doubt, but I have no sense of humour left to me even to smile at it. I am so tired, so overrun myself, I am little more enlivened than a corpse. I doubt I can even blink my eyes.

‘Yes. Terrible business,' Mrs Wheeler continues with a click of her tongue, pulling me through to her small rear parlour, patting my hand, in this overly fond and familiar way of hers. ‘But enough of that. I was wanting to look for you – what would you and your sister like to be eating? I have roast beef from only yesterday and potatoes and chicken soup and –'

I force my mouth to move, to respond: ‘Soup and bread will be fine. We're very tired. Might we have it served in the room?'

‘In the room? You want to eat in the
room
?' Poor Mrs Wheeler, waited an age for guests and they don't want to eat in her saloon.

But my patience slides off the mantelpiece and shatters on the hearth stone right here: ‘Yes. Please.'

‘Oh. If you are sure. All right then. I have Katie bring supper on a tray, yes?' Mrs Wheeler acquiesces, and within half a breath she begins prattling again: ‘You are not unwell, are you? It is a very long way, if you are not used to it. I thought your sister looked a little bit pale. She's not sickening, is she?'

The black night swoops through the window and envelopes me. ‘Sickening? No, I hope not. Only tired.' My sister is only tired. Only pregnant. Only ruined.

My nerves are ruined too; thoroughly. I prattle back at her: ‘Mr Wilberry is a vegetarian, I must tell you, please make good provision for him in that regard. And. Hm.' Petty spite adds: ‘He and Mr Thompson must have the best of whatever is in your pantry and your best wine too – my uncle, Mr Howell, will pay the account by telegraph when we return to Bathurst, if that is all right with you?'

‘Yes, of course,' Mrs Wheeler beams, eyes disappearing into plump cheeks, and off she goes again – about how wonderful Mr Howell is, et cetera, et cetera. She's a Free Trade party fan through and through: who else will save us from miners wrecking the whole country with their unions and their punch-ups? Astonishing. This would almost be hilarious on any other night.

On this one, I shudder now where I stand: Alec Howell won't be alive for long enough to arrange payment of the bill if I can help it. I shall be paying it. With my money. Our money. Speaking to the accountant. Oh please, yes – I shiver with dread and yearning both.

While Mrs Wheeler has moved on again, pointing out the bookshelves and the magazines here in the little parlour room that we must help ourselves to, pointing out again that the ladies' bath and convenience is outside at the far end of the verandah, but not really outside because it's under the awning all the way, call for Katie at any time for hot water, nothing will be too much trouble for us, babble, babble, babble, and then asking me a question about something else I fail to listen to.

‘I beg your pardon, Mrs Wheeler?'

‘I asked you, what are your plans for tomorrow? What are you going to do on your visit? Tell me all about your plans.'

No. Enough. Be quiet. I want to return to my sister; I must. And before I fall over. I am swaying in my boots. But I have just enough wit left to me to see an opportunity here, to set tomorrow's plans in train, to find out exactly where Dr Ah Ling's thatched hut might be, how far away. I say: ‘This visit is partly for study, Mrs Wheeler. I shall commence my degree in Medicine at the Sydney University in a few weeks' time and –'

‘You are saying what to me – oh?' Mrs Wheeler holds the back of the chair near her to steady herself. ‘Miss Berylda Jones! You are a wonder. Oh not only beautiful! You look at my words – I said to Mr Wheeler all that time ago, I said that girl is so intelligent. I said she is a clever one to watch –'

‘Yes,' I interrupt her before she can set off around the world again. ‘Yes, and so I am hoping I might make a visit to the famous Dr Ah Ling tomorrow – to ask him about that case, where he cured the miner, the one with the cancer in his arm. I am sure you would know of it. The story was in the papers, in Sydney. My uncle is most interested in the case too – he'd heard about it when he was last here, a few weeks ago, but didn't have time to quiz the man himself. Does the doctor live in town, or far from …?'

Mrs Wheeler pulls her chin into her neck, grimacing as one might at an open drain. ‘You want to visit that ching chong witch doctor?'

‘Yes, I –'

Must listen to a diatribe on Celestial slipperiness first. ‘But you don't want to visit him, Miss Berylda. You cannot trust a Chinaman. I know more about medical business than him – I can tell you! You cannot trust anything a Chinaman says or does. Oh but the way they come and go; only to make their money, not their home. They take from the mouths of our little children, and then they go back home and fatten their own. All thieves. All the ching chong coolies that were here when we first came to the Hill – I thought we came to China! They are nearly all gone now.' She nods as if she might be personally responsible for that achievement. ‘And they took all of the gold with them!'

‘Yes,' there is never any room in that open drain for argument, is there, ‘but Dr Ah Ling is a doctor, a herbalist, reportedly a successful one, and I would like to ask him how he cured the tumour.' And that's entirely truthful. I do want to know about it, even now; tell Flo all about it, too, this Chinese medical miracle, even though the picture of her scrunching the newspaper at me over her cocoa seems so long ago. Has it really been only a fortnight since I left Sydney? So long ago since yesterday, since Greta was ruined and I was betrothed – to the devil real and plain. And I must know: ‘Where does Dr Ah Ling live?'

‘Ah Ling, you talking about in here?' Mr Wheeler appears at the door from the saloon.

‘Yes,' I reply and exhaustion begs,
please
: ‘Where does he live?'

‘He's out at Tiger Sam's, Miss Jones, past Tambaroora towards Hargraves. Tobacco farm, but it's off the road a bit. What you wanting to know –?'

‘I don't know that we'll want to be going out there, Miss Berylda,' Buckley's voice follows in from the gloom; I can just glimpse him by the hearth, throwing the remains of his cigarette into the coals. ‘I'll go out there for you, whatever you might need from him.'

No. You will not forbid me, Buckley.

‘If you're going out there, Roo, pick us up a sack, will you?' Mr Wheeler says over his shoulder.

‘A sack?' Buckley replies, sharp, surprised.

‘Man's got to eat.' Mr Wheeler laughs; a wheeze like a broken accordion. ‘How else do you reckon we're making ends meet then? You have to do what you can, don't you. You have to go round through Golden Gully way, though, too, for Tambaroora, if you're going – Mudgee Road's got a tree come down on it, waiting on a bullocky to move it.'

I could scream it out of my way: you will not forbid me. Rage scalds through me so that I cannot grasp at any response. I place my hand on the side table by me, grasping only the edge of the crocheted doily upon it.

‘I will accompany Miss Jones to wherever she needs to go.' Mr Wilberry has come in from the verandah now too. The long slow strides spin the parlour around me as he steps towards the door. I must fix my mind to the threads under my palm. Be still. Be calm. Breathe in. Breathe out.