Sarah Thornhill (28 page)

Me and Daunt sat by the fire of an evening as we always had, but he didn't read or scratch in the ledger. Sat staring at the fire, leaving silences between us like an invitation.

More than once I went to tell him. John, I'd say, but then I'd have to stop.

Yes? he'd say. What is it, Sarah dear?

I'd shake my head. I could see how easy something could disappear. Pa was gone and I'd be gone one day, and so would Jack. Even Ma would have to die in the end. All it took was each one of us deciding not to say. Once the story was gone, there'd be no bringing it back. All those things might as well never of happened.

Shame would keep us silent, shame and the wishing that it was different. Dick and that woman who'd sent me down a johnny-cake, they'd tell their children the story. There was no shame in it for them, only grief. But who would listen to them?

The knowing was Pa's poisonous gift to me, and I was sick with it. But I couldn't be sorry I knew. The woman who'd smiled and laughed and went about her days with a light heart was no better than a fool, or an accomplice.

I got some things one day, put them in a gunny-sack. Leg of mutton, pound of butter. A loaf. Potatoes and greens. Not all we had, of course. Just all I could carry.

I'd never been to where the blacks lived, but it was easy enough to follow the narrow track their feet had made in the grass. It was a bigger camp than the one at home. Eight or ten humpies and a couple of fires with people sitting round. They glanced at me sideways and looked away. I knew one of the women, she'd been up the house a few times, and there was a boy that I'd trusted with a billy one day and he'd brought it back shiny with the scouring it'd had. The old woman with the bad eyes. A little girl, five or six, with a blanket. When she saw me looking she pulled it up over her head.

I stood on the edge of the clearing with the gunny-sack hanging from my hand. Standing at their door, same way they stood at mine.

The woman I knew got up and moved towards me. Stopped a few yards off. I held out the bag. Held it out so long my arm started to shake. Then I put it down on the ground, got some of the food out.

The others were watching now.

The shining meat, the loaf of bread. Like stones in my hand. Like rubbish. Pa had been the beggar before. I'd be the beggar now.

As cold as charity
. Now I knew how true that was. Cold for the one getting the charity, but dead as ice for the person giving it, when giving was a way of admitting something so bad you couldn't let yourself think it.

No use to anyone, not in the long run. The food eaten and gone, nothing changed the day after. I didn't know what else to do, so that was what I did. But the bitterness, knowing I had no better thing to offer. No way to mend what had gone so wrong.

The woman stepped forward and took the food from the ground. The boy walked over, picked up the sack. They went back to the fire and put the things down beside them.

Nothing said, no look exchanged. The clearing silent except for the whistle of the breeze. I was hardly breathing. A lizard could slow itself down, be no more than a pulse of blood ticking at its throat. That was as much as I wished for, to be a living stone.

When I got back to the house it was near dark, Daunt waiting for me on the verandah. He said nothing, took me by the hand, led me like a blind person. Sat me in the armchair. Went away, got back with a basin of water and a flannel, washed my face as if I was a child, put my hands in the water between his and smoothed them together. Had a towel over his shoulder, dabbed at my face, dried my hands.

All the while not a word.

Sat me up at the table, put a bowl of soup in front of me. Opened my hand and put the spoon in it and I ate a little. He led me into the bedroom, put me to bed, got in beside me. I lay with my back to him and separated from him by a small distance. It was a dead-dark night, me and Daunt nothing but breath and body.

There's a lot no one ever spoke of, I said. In our family.

Yes, Daunt said. Yes, Sarah dear. You've not been the same since you got back.

Having to find the words made me tired.

Thought it might be to do with your father, he said.

Yes, I said. Yes it is. To do with my Pa.

Saying
Pa
was like undoing a knot. Everything fell out, every single last twist. Out in the air in words it was a filthy thing.

When I was done it seemed nothing could ever be spoken again.

Daunt felt for my hand among the bedclothes.

Sarah my dear, he said.

He would think of what he might say to comfort me. But comfort could only be a lie.

That's a terrible thing, Sarah dear, he said. A terrible sad thing.

He was holding my hand as if to stop me falling, but if I was going to fall, his hand told me we'd fall together.

I didn't go to the blacks' camp again. They walked up to the house now and then, as they always had. They knew something was wrong. The woman who'd taken the food from me that day looked into my face.

Been sick missus? she said.

Yes, been sick, I said. Better now.

I went to the cupboard, got both the loaves, all the eggs, the smoked hock that was going to be our tea. Made up a package of sugar, a bag of flour. Went to the press, got a couple of blankets.

Word got round: Mrs Daunt was a soft touch.

I was ashamed every time I handed over the things. The women didn't thank, and for that I was grateful.

I
WAS
out on the hill late one afternoon with Sadie, she was three going on four, the girl and Pa in the ground nearly two years. Daunt had got a goat from somewhere that thought it was a dog, followed us everywhere, sat beside us now on the hill.

Sadie loved as much as I did the light and shadows the clouds made on the land, the brush of air on our skins. Every day the sky was a new thing, the feel of the air, the shapes of the clouds. The roos hopped up close. She knew to be still, they'd take us for part of the rocks, shift round on their long feet, curl their tails up like another leg behind them, twitch their ears.

I saw a movement, a man walking on the road from Gammaroy. That usually meant some feller on his beam ends, nothing in his pack, come to cadge from Mrs Daunt.

I was thinking what I had in the cupboard. Most of yesterday's loaf, could give him that, and there was a shank of mutton, if he has a dog the poor creature will be glad of the bone.

But the man coming along in a knee-high cloud of dust was alone. That was out of the ordinary. As a rule these poor old fellers had lost everything, always some sad story, but a dog where all their love and longing went.

As he got closer it seemed to me that under the hat his face was dark. That was unusual too, a darkie on his own humping a bluey.

A fold of the land hid him for a minute or two, then showed him again, first his hat, then his face, close enough to call out to, and I stood up. Could see now that his face wasn't dark of skin, but from a net of lines, patterned like a beetle's back.

At first I thought poor feller, what in God's name has happened to him, it was like no pox marks or burns I'd ever seen. Then I saw it was tattoos. But not just coloured skin. Every one of the lines on his face was a ridge of scar. A picture carved into the living flesh.

I knew two things in the same thought. They were marks made as a great work of pain. And the man who owned the face was Jack Langland.

Sadie was frightened, I felt her run into my legs and wrap her arms round them so I stumbled, caught my toe on the hem of my skirt. Jack put out his hand, caught me by the forearm, went on holding it.

It's not ever Jack, is it, I said.

He said nothing, only put back his head and laughed so all the lines twisted into new shapes. I half expected his tongue to be tattooed.

I was trying to calm the child burrowing into my legs, too frightened of this laughing striped man even to cry, and down at the house Blackie was barking her silly head off, and that brought Daunt out to see what was going on. Looked up to the hill, at the man and the child and me all wound together, and started up towards us, Blackie straining at the leash.

Well, Jack said, Well, here we are.

Looking at me the way I was looking at him, as if my face was carved like his and had to be read slow, one bit at a time.

Jack, I said. A few things happened since you been gone.

Yes, he said.

Pa told me things, I said. Well, not Pa. I saw Dick.

You been told, then, he said. You know.

Yes, I said. Dick told me.

I moved towards him. It wasn't that he moved back exactly, but he tightened himself away from me.

Pa made sure I knew, I said. The one thing he did right.

I heard he died, Jack said.

His eyes, there were his eyes that I'd never forgot. That colour I'd never seen on any other man.

Wasn't sorry when I heard, he said. Hope he had a hard time of it.

He did, I said. Died burned up with it.

Then Daunt was striding up the last bit of the hill and Jack turning to meet him.

Jack Langland, Mr Daunt, he said and put out his hand. Met you at Mrs Daunt's father's place years ago.

It was a funny roundabout way of saying it.

I was a friend of his son Will that drowned, Jack said. You might remember.

The manners Daunt had learned at the school he'd hated stood him in good stead, even when he had to deal with a man with a carved face.

Oh yes, he said. I recollect you, Mr Langland, and I see you have been in New Zealand.

Yes, indeed, Jack said, been there this last few years, whales keeping me busy.

Both as if they'd taken a bet not to say a word about a face like nothing else on earth.

Did you come on foot, Daunt said.

He was calm, looked Jack in the eye, but I knew my husband and knew he was flustered.

Not from New Zealand! Jack said, stopped himself from laughing aloud. Walked when I had to, Mr Daunt. Kind souls give me a ride on their carts some good part of the way.

I pictured the cart pulling up behind the man trudging along. Hop in friend! some cheerful feller or other doing a kind deed would sing out, then see the face under the hat. My word that would startle the wits out of your average bullocky doing the Quirindi run.

Come to see Mrs Daunt, Jack said, though no one had asked.

Mrs Daunt
. Did I have to call him
Mr Langland
?

He'd never called me Dolly, or Sarah. Only ever
Sarah
Thornhill
. It was that name,
Thornhill.
He wouldn't say it.

Bit of old history needs sorting out, Jack said. Hoping she might see her way clear to helping me with it.

Old history, Daunt said, and I was thinking for God's sake Jack, you don't want to talk about our old history, surely to heaven, not this late in the day!

About the girl, Mr Daunt, Jack said. The girl I fetched from New Zealand, God forgive me. You would of heard she died. Bit of business needs attending to.

You're welcome among us, Mr Langland, Daunt said. Welcome as long as you care to stay.

The words were warm, but I knew all of John Daunt's tones and knew this was not a warm tone.

A kind offer, Jack said. I thank you for it, Mr Daunt.

He led the way down the hill so I could see the long hank of hair hanging down his back. He went ahead of us, even though the hill was not his but Daunt's, and in the normal way the owner of a hill would go first. It was so Daunt and I could walk together. He knew we'd need a moment to sort ourselves out. What man could be pleased to see his wife's old love on his doorstep? When I smiled, Daunt smiled back, but there was a wariness to it.

At the house he was hospitable, pouring his best Jamaica and settling Jack in his own armchair. I made myself busy in the kitchen, busier than I needed, getting the meal ready and seeing to Sadie. All the ordinary everyday things had gone strange because of Jack being in the next room. There was the glass in his hand that I'd washed and put away a hundred times, but now it was like a thing I'd never seen before.