Sarah Thornhill (7 page)

Think you'll find it's as I promised, Mary said. Never see where I done it.

Oh well, Sophia said. I best not try too hard then, had I?

That's all right then, Pa said. I'll have another of them scones, Meg, and Jack, you got nothing to eat lad, get yourself one of them cakes going begging. And a fill of your cup.

Mrs Langland started on about her joints again.

Dr Mitchell said I had the loosest joints he'd ever seen, she said. I put my foot down, it's flat on the floor, I got no arch at all.

Goodness, Ma said. Fancy that now.

Pa took a bite out of his scone so the crumbs rained down on his lap. Ma frowned and shook her head at him. He must of thought she was frowning because when people visited you were supposed to speak up and
make yourself pleasant.

Why Sophia, he said, you're near as tall as me. Course you got your height off your pa. Funny the way a child will favour their Ma or their Pa. See Dolly there. Spit image of her mother, God rest her soul.

Pleased with himself. Thought he'd done well.

Now that's plain silly, William, Ma said. Sophia's nothing like as tall as you are. Nothing like. Just the angle, isn't it, Mrs Langland? And Sophia dear, that's a lovely way you done your hair today.

Pa got the hint, didn't say any more. But it made me think. I'd never known I was the spit image of my mother. It meant she was still alive, in a way, in me. Must be the same with everyone, carrying the people that had gone before them, their ma and pa and their grannies and grandpas, all the way back to Adam and Eve.

It made the room interesting, to look at all the faces. Mary took after Pa, easy to see that, the big face with the round cheekbones and the blue eyes not quite the same. Will too, he had Pa's square chin, the wide mouth. Sophia was like her mother, only not so fat. But there was Jack, side by side with Mr Langland, and there was no likeness whatsoever.

You can see how Jack don't look like you, Mr Langland, I said. Must favour his mother same as I favour mine.

Soon as I heard the words I wanted them back. Mr Langland's teacup stopped in mid-air, Pa took his fingers out of his waistcoat pocket, Mrs Langland's hand went up to her cheek like she'd seen a snake under the table. There was a terrible quiet. Ma put the teapot down as if it was glass. You could hear it click on the table.

Jack had taken a bite of his cake, but when he saw everyone go like statues he went still with it in his mouth. His eyes went to Mr Langland, but Mr Langland was looking nowhere at all.

Twenty years ago Mr Langland had lain with a native woman. That was why Jack was in the world. But who she'd been and how they'd come to lie together was known only to Mr Langland now. No one asked, no one spoke of it. As if that woman had never been. Except that Jack carried her blood in his veins and something of her features in his face.

This tea's cold as a stone, Ma said. Will you call Anne for a kettle of hot water, William.

So everything got going again, Pa went to the door and called, Mr Langland drank his tea and wiped his lips, Mrs Langland got interested in a fleck of something on her skirt.

Jack was looking down at his knees. To have that moment again and keep my thoughts to myself! The clock chimed out the hour and I hated it because it only went forwards, never back.

When Langlands finally got up to go, Jack and me hung back.

Jack, I whispered. Could cut my tongue out. Saying, you know.

Well, he said. That's it. Everyone knows, Jack Langland's mother a darkie. But not a word said. Not ever.

Not your pa? I said.

Pa won't have it spoke of, Jack said. What he says is, you can pass for Portugee. You can pass, so do it.

Mrs Langland was making heavy weather of the steps outside. I heard Ma calling, Take Mrs Langland's hand, William! No, the other one, for heaven's sake! There was the crunch of feet on the gravel and the squeak of the gates.

Truth is, Jack said, be easier in my mind if I knew. Her name, who she was. How she come to be my mother. Did she know me, did I know her, even for a week. All I know is, she was a native woman. And died.

This was a Jack I'd never seen before. Not the cheery Jack we all knew, but a man with a shadow of sadness going along with him through his days.

Even that lad does the firewood, he said. Or that feller Jingles. Never be any more than doing the wood, mucking out the horse shit. But know what name their ma had, where they come from.

You'd be no different if you knew, I said. Still be Jack Langland. What's it matter?

But I knew it did matter. The peas and the pipe,
oranges
and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's
. I had those few pictures of my mother that I'd go over and over. Why would I do that if it didn't matter?

You know them New Zealanders, Jack said, and I thought he wanted to get off this tender ground. The tattoos on their faces. Every one of them lines is a story, you know how to read it. Who's the feller's kin. Back through the fathers and grandfathers, all the way back down the line. Who you come from, where you fit. Out there plain on your face. Why they sit through the pain of it.

The gate squeaked, gravel crunched.

William, will you oil that blessed hinge! Ma called.

I see what you're saying, Jack, I said. Knowing what's made you.

Put a hand on his arm, the words nowhere near what I wanted them to say, but hoped my touch would tell him.

You're a good soul, Jack said.

Pulled me to him, put his face in among my hair.

Sharing my troubles with me, he whispered. I thank you for your good heart, Sarah Thornhill.

Then footsteps on the verandah, we got ourselves apart. The feel of his arms round me and his words in my hair stayed with me all the rest of the day. The softness in his eyes when he looked at me, in among the talk of all the others, told me it stayed with him too.

N
EXT MORNING
Jack said he'd be off to Mrs Herring's, cut her some backlogs for the winter. I was casting around for a reason to go with him but Ma made it easy.

Dolly, you go with Jack, she said. I got a nice smoked hock for Mrs Herring and one of the cheeses, poor old thing be glad of them.

All right, Ma, I said, some sly streak in me making out it was a burden.

Jack rowed, I sat in the stern. He'd taken his jacket off and I put it round my shoulders. Heavy, and the warmth of Jack still in it. His face with each stroke coming in close to mine, then away.

Mrs Herring was on the bench outside her door, pipe in her mouth, fowls round her feet where she'd sliced the kernels off some cobs. Watched us come up from the jetty, jostling each other as if the track was too narrow, for the secret pleasure of touching.

Well, she said. Jack Langland and Dolly Thornhill.

Her shrewd old eyes, hidden in a web of creases, they missed not a thing.

I thank you kindly for the victuals, Dolly, she said. Thank your ma for me. Now I wouldn't be trusting Jack on his own, you best go up there along with him, make sure he does it right. Wouldn't you say, Dolly?

Jack sawed the wood the way he did everything, strong and steady. Got the log up in the cradle and never took his eyes off the line of cut, never stopped till the length fell off. I stacked each one, watched him start on the next. He'd taken off his shirt to work and I could see his arms roped with sinew, browner where they got the sun, his back and shoulders with the muscles moving under the skin. I was sorry when he was done.

Going back down to the hut, we saw another skiff at the jetty.

That's Dick Blackwood, Jack said. Tough old bird if she can take Blackwood's liquor.

Dick Blackwood! I said.

Now I see what you're thinking, he said. But leave it alone, I would.

We'll see, I said, but I had my mind made up.

Dick Blackwood was sitting with his hand round a mug of tea. A tall strong-looking feller not much older than Jack. A shaggy head of hair could do with cutting, and a beard hiding half his face.

Dick, you'll know Jack Langland, Mrs Herring said. And this is Dolly Thornhill.

Dolly Thornhill, Dick said.

Gave me a stare, the kind takes in a lot. But not much warmth in it.

Dick Blackwood, I said. Seen you up and down on the river.

Have you now, he said. Spying out from up there at the house.

Heard you could be kin to me, I said.

Something in his face made me stop short of saying
brother
.

You heard that, have you, he said. Well, Dolly, go back far enough, you could say every man and woman on this earth is kin to every other. That right, Iris?

Wished I could make him out better among the beard. Might of been smiling or might not.

Sent off, I said. Sent off, that's what I heard.

Sent off! he said. Listen to this, Iris! Says I was sent off!

Smiling all right now, but not a nice smile. I was wishing I'd listened to Jack, kept my mouth shut.

I never known for sure, I said. No one said, just I thought.

Listen, Dolly Thornhill, he said, and he wasn't smiling any more. I never been sent off from nowhere. Anywhere I gone, I gone of my own free will. You hear different from that, by God you heard wrong.

Then he was standing up, pulling his blue cap on.

I'll be off now, Iris, he said. You ready for another quart, send me word.

I stood at the door of the hut, watching him get into his boat and row away. He might of been watching me under his cap, pulling back on the oars, same way I was watching him. When he was out of sight I tried to catch Mrs Herring's eye.

Is that Dick Thornhill? I said.

But she was making a to-do of getting the fire hot again. Bent down blowing at the coals.

Let it be! Jack said. Let it be, now!

Never said I was wrong, did he? I said. Never said he wasn't Dick Thornhill.

But I was talking to Mrs Herring's back. Getting those coals to flame was all she was going to do. When they flared up she stood and wiped her hands on her pinny.

Jack got the right idea, Dolly, she said. Some things best you let them be.

I took a breath, my blood was up.

Now that's enough of that, Dolly, she said. What I want to know is, you two sweet on each other or what?

Jack looked at me, I looked at Jack.

No or what about it, Mrs Herring said and laughed so you could see the dark gaps in her mouth.

Never met a girl like Sarah Thornhill, Jack said. Never in all my life.

Put his arm round my shoulders.

Who in the world wouldn't be sweet on Jack Langland? I said and put my arm around him. Could feel the skin behind the cloth of his shirt.

What a funny old world it is, Mrs Herring said. And tell me this, Dolly, what do they say about it at home? You and your good-looking sweetheart here?

Offhand, but I could feel her listening for the answer.

Oh, I said. That'll be all right.

That's good, she said. Glad to hear that, Dolly.

The tide was with us on the way home, running strong down the river. Jack sat in the stern, no need to row, just that lovely surge and bubble when he shifted the steering-oar and the water broke up round it. Our wake left a pale line with kinks along it where he'd pushed the oar.

So, Sarah Thornhill, he said. Sweet on me, are you?

Sweet as honey, Jack, I said.

Leaned forward and he leaned in to meet me, his hand along my cheek. My first proper kiss.

Come here alongside of me, he said after a while. Where I've got you close.

There was something in his voice as he said it, tender and a bit wavery, that told me what he felt.

We sat side by side, Jack's arm around me and mine around him, watching the farms slide past. Doyle's, with the skiff pulled up on the sand, then on the other bank, Fletcher's corn, yellow straws scratching against each other in the breeze, and a kookaburra in a tree telling the world he'd got his lizard, and wasn't it the funniest thing you ever heard. At Cobb's, the children down at the river, Kathleen the big girl had a rod and line and the little one that wasn't right in the head mooning around. Waved when they saw us and we waved back, but not letting go of each other.

It was the same old river I'd known all my life, the same mud on the banks, the same people. But coloured through with happiness because I loved Jack Langland and Jack Langland loved me.

When we come in sight of where the Branch went off to the left I craned past Jack to look up it. It rankled, the way Dick laughed at me.

Now listen, I see what you're thinking, Jack said. But best leave well alone. You saw how he was.

He wouldn't answer, I said. And did you see his eyes, Jack? Pa's eyes!

Grabbed the steering-oar, pushed it hard over.

We find out once and for all, I said. Get an answer out of him. Do it for me, Jack.

He shook his head but did it, had us heading up the Branch in a stroke or two. Past Devine's, past Matthew's, past Maunder's. Maunder's was far as I'd ever gone, the last of the farms. The Branch narrowed after that, the hills closed in.