Skylark (16 page)

‘He didn't even have the decency to move up the road,' shouted George, ‘let alone to a new town.'

In a rage he stormed into our sad excuse for a hotel and confronted Bully. ‘You have betrayed us all, Bully Hayes, when we trusted you. Well, here is a bit of news for you! Your precious wife has not one drop of Buckingham blood. She's an impostor! Use the Buckingham name in your billing and we'll sue!' His voice fairly shrieked.

I glanced quickly at Bully, fearful of his reaction and ready to flee if he turned on me, but my husband, not one whit troubled by this news, patted George gently on the shoulder, as if he were a pet dog.

‘Now George, now George,' he said. ‘Do you think I didn't know that? You can't fool Bully Hayes. But she has a voice and is a star in her own right, which is all that matters. She'll be plain Rosa on our billboards, if you wish. Let us be friends, eh? There's room in this town for the two establishments.'

But George, in tears by now at his humiliation, turned on his heel and ran back across the road. George had delighted in
Bully's joking, easy ways, had thought of him as a fast friend. I had often seen something close to adoration in his eyes when Bully was around. I believe a certain feminine quality in George was attracted to the sea captain. But unlike me, he was now not only spurned, but robbed. A bitter pill.

As soon as he had me, as soon as the Buckinghams made it clear that I would never again grace their stage, Bully's manner changed towards me. Even when the child grew large and I possessed less drive than a horse stuck in mud, he would drag me out on what he called a stage: a few uneven planks in one corner of his sod and canvas ‘hotel'.

‘Sing, Rosa, sing for the good fellows,' he would roar. ‘Give them “Villikins”! Give them “Bright Fine Gold”! Give these good customers whatever they want!'

He would wink and make rude gestures as if I were a piece of prime beef on offer. How can an artiste sing in such conditions? I began to lose heart. If heart goes out of a performance, what is left but empty tune? Souless words? Even more discouraging was the fact that those rough men didn't seem to notice my despondency. As long as my strong voice carried over their drunken shouts they were happy enough. If the liquor flowed and a woman provided entertainment — even one with swollen belly and sad face — they were mindlessly content.

Bully noticed, though. More than once he slapped me around for my doleful looks and dragging feet. ‘Cheer up, will you?' he would shout, usually drunk himself. ‘I didn't marry you to earn dark looks and silence. You are as much fun as a dead hen.'

I began to hate the man. Hate Arrowtown. I feared what would happen to me, and wished fervently that no child grew inside my thickening body. Goldfields, a symbol of hope to many, were to me cursed places of pain and disaster.

The Buckinghams would have nothing to do with me. I took to wandering through the muddy streets, past scattered tents and makeshift boarding houses. At the far end of the settlement the strange dwellings of the Chinese miners fascinated me. Here was peace and order: three men sitting smoking in front of a hut
built into a rocky bank; a little store stacked with unreadable tins of food and sacks of rice; pungent, spicy smells coming from the dark interior; vegetable gardens terraced into the side of the hill. How did they manage to coax vegetables to grow in this bitter place? I longed to pluck a fresh leaf of cabbage or feathery carrot, but didn't dare. The diggers who drank at the Prince of Wales and the Provincial hated these Chinese. Dirty Chows, they called them, heathens and worse. I was curious about them. Why did they never come to our entertainments? Were these reserved, hard-working men really evil? I remembered the kindness of the couple on that terrible day Maman and Papa died, and wished I could talk with these quiet men.

Once, as I walked lonely and cold down to their section of the camp, I heard singing. At the door of his hut a man squatted, young or old I couldn't make out. His eyes were closed and his face turned up to the weak sunshine, which had just broken through the usual sullen greyness. His song was high, nasal, utterly different from any music I had heard. Full of longing. He is lonely too, I thought, and stopped to listen. A fit of coughing broke up the song. The man sighed deeply, the breath rasping in his chest. I realised that he must be sick. He was the only person in the camp. The Chinese worked every daylight moment, often getting good pay-dirt from diggings already worked over by less scrupulous miners. On an impulse I began to sing for him — I forget what song, but something sweet and sad, I fancy. He opened his eyes then and watched me, still as a startled rabbit, but after a while smiling.

I finished my song. It was healing for me, to sing in that quiet place to someone who listened, and was neither drunk nor lecherous. Perhaps it did him some good too, for he leaned into his little garden, picked some leaves and a carrot, and held them out to me. I crept forward took them and backed away. We neither of us had words to share, each wary of the other, but the music had been a bond.

I remember that day as light in the midst of shadow. The taste of those fresh vegetables! I must have been starving for them. From about that time I began to plan a way out.

S
CENE
: T
HE
P
RINCE OF
W
ALES AND THE
P
ROVINCIAL
, A
RROWTOWN

Revenge!

During that long, cold winter, a letter arrived which was more cheering than a whole day of blazing sunshine. After Jack’s one letter, so long ago, I had received not one — neither from him nor from anyone else. Who would write to me? Who would know my address? (Or my name, for that matter.) That precious paper, folded and grubby, was thrust into my hand one night after I had sung at the Prince of Wales. The bearer, a fresh-faced fellow newly arrived from Dunedin, whispered in my ear as he pressed the letter into my hand, ‘A circus lady asked me to bring it to you, here at the Prince of Wales. But she said do it secretly.’ He winked. ‘You got lovers in other places then, sweetheart? What about yours truly?’

I gave him a quick kiss, which Bully allowed as part of business; nothing with passion in it, but a touch or a kiss to keep the men hopeful and drinking. The letter disappeared quickly into my bodice, and for the rest of the evening I raced through my numbers and danced in quick-time, willing the entertainment to finish. Surely the circus lady would be my dear friend Maria! Oh how I had missed her. We had met just once these past two years, when Foley’s Circus and Buckinghams were performing together in Tasmania, and had had a good chat and a laugh. Four children she had by then, Maria making up for lost time as it were, and as motherly as a cat with kittens.

I devoured that letter as if it were a rich meal. The scrawl was hard to read in the flame of my little candle. Maria had dashed it down to get the news to me. This is the substance of what she wrote:

Rosetta dead! But how, and when? My heart near choked me with its thumping. And Jack looking for me! Oh, I was torn this way and that like a rag in a storm: joyous one moment, tormented the next. Surely if Jack was looking for me it meant he still had feelings towards me. But I was living with Bully. And would soon give birth to his child. When Jack found out he would surely turn away. I remembered how quickly he had turned from me when I sailed away to Australia. And even more pressing, how could I ever escape Bully?

I began to think — to dream — of Jack. Had he been happy with sweet Rosetta? He and I had been such friends. Surely we could be so again. What a world away that life seemed now. I was desperate to know about him, to write. Perhaps the Buckinghams knew an address. Jack would have been the one to tell them of Rosetta’s death.

On the morning after I received the letter, I walked across the road to the Provincial. I hoped to find Conrad, who was more likely to speak to me, but it was George who met me, frowning, at the door.

‘You’re not welcome here, Mrs Hayes, go back to your own establishment.’

‘George, George,’ I cried, ‘I have just heard news that Rosetta is dead.’

He looked at me stonily but said nothing. Clearly the death was not news to him.

‘You never told me! Have you no heart? I who played her part for so long?’

George looked a little shamefaced but preserved his silence.

‘But when? At least tell me where Jack is now.’

Conrad came to the door, half his face lathered, the other shaved clean. But even he shrugged to see who it was, and turned to go back inside.

I grabbed at his sleeve. ‘Jack was my dear friend. I need to write to him! In pity’s name …’

Conrad shrugged again. ‘Rosetta died some months ago. At the time we feared you might run away to Jack. Now instead, you have run away to Bully Hayes. At any rate we have no idea where he is. His letter simply said he was moving south.’

Together they turned away and went back inside, leaving me standing in the street, large with child and so cast down I could not hold back my sobs. What a fool I had been. The Buckinghams, my good, fine friends, hated me; Jack was looking for me, but surely had no idea of my circumstances; and on top of all this mess, Bully was as sour as a crock of turned milk when it came to his new wife.

By this time I knew that Bully had already been married — was still married! The great idiot boasted of it. I toyed with the idea of letting the police know, a stupid thought as the voluntary militia had more than enough to deal with in this wild outpost. Bigamy would be the least of their worries. Running away from the Arrow was not an option. Especially in my condition. And in any case, I feared Bully would chase after me. But if I could get Bully to move to a more civilised place, somewhere near the sea, perhaps some escape could be made. Then I thought of another plan which might drive Bully away from Arrowtown — or at least put me in the good books of the Buckinghams.

First I had to catch George at a good moment. Not easy. Their business sank day by day. Bully had managed to lure the Inimitable Thatcher to our hotel. If I hadn’t hated my ‘husband’ I would have had to admire him for that. However had he persuaded that famous singer and his wife, Annie Vitelli (who
rivalled me for power and range of voice), to perform a season at our pitiful Prince of Wales? I had seen the Inimitable on our travels in Australia, but there by the Arrow River was the first time I met the famous couple face to face. Such a handsome pair: he tall and fair, she slight and dark. He would walk around the town with Annie on his arm as if they were taking the air on the Riviera or some other grand place, stopping to raise his hat at any passing scruffy taverner or policeman, chatting easily, probing for interesting gossip to fuel his scurrilous songs. Then he might sit in front of the barber’s shop, taking his morning shave, pencil in hand, to scribble away, humming and laughing at his own wit. By evening the new song would be polished and ready to delight.

Everyone was flocking to us. Annie and I sang together; Charles Thatcher roared out his ‘locals’: mocking the authorities, laughing at the hard life of the diggers, railing at the unfairness or the rain or the good luck, whatever was topical. The man was a miracle, the way he could put together words — rhymes and chorus — then have us all joining in with a will, as if we’d known the ballad all our lives. A veteran, the Inimitable: hadn’t he been singing at Bendigo years ago, when that rush was on?

It was seeing him at the barber’s that planted the seed of my idea. I accosted George Buckingham in the street and put it to him quickly before he could turn away.

‘George, you want to get even with Bully, and so do I.’

He looked at me as if I had crawled out of some slimy hole. ‘You have made your disreputable bed, now lie on it,
Rosa
.’ He put especial scorn into my stage name.

I bit back angry words. Another time I would have slapped his weak and sneering face. ‘Bully Hayes has a weakness,’ I said. ‘A secret that he is sensitive about. A disfigurement. If it came out, he would be a laughing stock.’

George began to look at me with more interest.

‘I have a plan,’ I said, ‘but will not talk about it here in the open. Bully Hayes is a jealous and violent man.’

‘And you are no better,’ he said.

I sighed. ‘If you are interested, I will talk further with you and
Conrad tonight after the entertainments. Bully sleeps like the dead after a night of drinking.’

George looked bleak at the talk of entertainment. I felt sorry for the fellow. Bully Hayes, for all his faults, possessed some
entrepreneurial
charm that George lacked. It should have been George who enticed the great Inimitable to his superior establishment. Now he was losing money at a great rate. He nodded once and walked away.

That night I slipped quietly across the road to the back of the Provincial. The Thatchers had gone to their little room in a boarding house nearby. Bully had only the one bedroom at the Prince of Wales and he was snoring in it.

George and Conrad were sitting at a little table in the room behind the stage, a flickering lamp lighting the small pile of coins from the night’s takings. Conrad stood and brought me a chair. I was dog tired, but determined.

‘I will tell you Bully Hayes’s secret shame, and a plan I have to make you good money at his expense,’ I said in a low voice, giving my words mystery and allure to draw them in. Mrs W.H. would have approved.

The two men nodded, wary of a trap, but interested. George looked tired and pale. The hard life on the Arrow didn’t suit him, though he was an entertainer born and bred.

I took breath and eyed them both sternly, looking from face to face in the dim lamplight. ‘First, I need a promise from you. Payment, if you like, for what I will divulge.’

‘Oh dear sweet God,’ muttered Conrad, ‘get on with it, Rosa. We are dead weary and need our sleep. Out with your condition.’

‘I require Jack Lacey’s address.’

Both boys stared. ‘You are a married woman, Rosa,’ growled George, ‘and a loose one, God knows. No need to ensnare the decent widower of our sister.’

I explained that I was
not
a legally married woman. That Bully had tricked me, to lure me away from the Buckinghams. That I hated Bully Hayes as much as they did, even though I carried his child, but feared to leave him, which was the truth. I knew
enough of Bully Hayes to realise he would not let me go. Not unless he wished it himself.

‘Please believe,’ I said, speaking in deepest sincerity, ‘that I miss Jack, who has been my friend for many years. I wish to comfort him in his time of loss. Simply that.’

‘No need to lay it on so thick,’ said Conrad dryly. ‘We have seen your theatrics too often to be drawn in.’

The trouble was, they didn’t know Jack’s address. ‘Somewhere north of Whanganui’ was all they could tell me. Hardly better than Maria’s note. But we came to an agreement anyway. My hope was that Bully would be driven out of town.

‘Bully Hayes is missing one ear,’ I said, smiling, though the danger of speaking the words sent a shiver down my back. ‘That’s why he wears his hair so long. He was caught cheating at cards and they chopped it off as punishment out in the Islands or Australia. But, my friends, he is deathly embarrassed by the lack of that ear. He is a vain man and would do anything to keep it secret.’

The Buckingham boys grinned. ‘And your plan?’ George, who was smart, had an inkling already.

‘Set a rumour around the camp that the ear is missing,’ I said. ‘Offer a prize to any barber who will cut his hair short enough to prove the rumour true.’

‘Good, good,’ whispered Conrad, who had also caught the drift. Anyone born to entertainment could see the opportunity.

‘And when the rumour is proved true, write a farce and put it on at the Provincial. I will help with the lines.’

George bristled. ‘We are more than capable of writing our own farce, Rosa.’

‘Well, the songs at least. Your new girl will not have the wit.’

Conrad showed some concern for me at last. ‘But if Bully finds out it was you spilled the beans?’

I eyed him sharply. ‘See that doesn’t happen. I would never survive his rage. Let the rumour come from some digger who has just left town.’

We talked it through, thinking of how to stage it. The timing. The restless Thatchers would be heading north to the new
goldfields on the West Coast two weeks hence. Let the rumour out now, tempt a barber (I had Stanley Jones in mind, for he was a tough fellow, feared for the sharpness of both tongue and razor), then be ready with a farce to drop into the void left by the departing Inimitable and Annie Vitelli.

My blood was pumping and the baby kicking to the beat. The plan was dangerous — Bully would be enraged. But what fun! What a piece of theatre! Suddenly I felt that my life was not at a dead end. Surely a good future lay ahead.

Well, the rumour began to spread. One night, after a particularly unruly session at the Prince of Wales, Annie Vitelli whispered to me, ‘Your husband … do tell me … has he only one ear?’ She dug me in the ribs, giving me her wickedest grin.

We were sat on the bench in the tiny room behind the bar, our bare feet sharing a tub of hot water, for we had both been on those poor feet, showing a bit of ankle and singing, for four hours or more. (It was all very well for the men. The Inimitable sometimes sat on a stool to sing his ballads and the crowd cheered and joined in, but they would not tolerate a seated woman. Annie herself was newly with child: a fact she bemoaned, for there was no way her Charles would stop his wandering minstrel ways, so she must follow.)

I cast my eyes to heaven. ‘Annie Vitelli, you must know better than to ask such an intimate question. It is more than my life’s worth to answer.’ But I sent her a wink that said there might well be truth in the rumour.