The Denniston Rose (25 page)

HENRY STRINGER, SUPERVISING teacher at Denniston School, was on the side of the strikers. After school closed he would walk with the miners’ children back up to Burnett’s Face, partly as a bodyguard, for feelings were running high, but mostly so he could sit in on meetings and expound his theories about worker solidarity, stabbing bony fingers in the air or pacing restlessly in rooms that were always too small for him. At eighteen he was over six feet tall. His bony limbs jerked as if he were a wooden marionette; his words spluttered and gurgled, half the meaning lost in his eagerness to get them out.

The miners treated this unco-ordinated bean-pole with indulgence — as an endearing but hopelessly idealistic mascot. Their children, on the other hand, had learned to love and revere him. He was on their side, not only in the matter of the strike, but in the
matter of children versus adults. He talked to them as if they were equals. He spoke of the world beyond Denniston as if it were a marvellous treasure chest waiting for Denniston children to unlock. He laughed and threw his arms about and ran over the plateau with high, flailing leaps as if he were a child still. Henry Stringer and the six miners’ children careering home along the silent, rusting skipway was a sight few could keep a straight face over.

Brennan adored this teacher who would calmly haul off attacking children in the playground; who sprawled in Brennan’s home, listening to him play the cornet, waving his arms in time, singing along in a tuneless drone; who took seriously Brennan’s plan to be a builder of magnificent railway bridges and never to go underground into a dark and terrifying mine.

Mary Scobie would watch in amazement as her shy youngest son chatted and laughed with this gawky, bristle-headed young teacher. But she smiled, too, thinking of the hot, sweet, powdered-milk drink he served the children each day, a drink that he lovingly heated on the classroom pot-belly stove, then passed around in four tin mugs, exhorting reluctant sippers to drink deep, making them all laugh with stories of how tall they would grow and how strongly their muscles would develop. That hot milk, often accompanied by a handful of bread to dip into it, held the balance between health and slow starvation for the children, whose parents grew more and more gaunt as the months passed.

In the early days of the strike, before Mrs C. Rasmussen returned to train the infants, Henry Stringer took especial care of Rose of Tralee. That alone ensured Brennan’s adoration. Somehow Mr Stringer always looked the other way when Rose fell asleep at her desk. Bigger boys who laughed at Rose’s livid scar were themselves ridiculed mercilessly by Mr Stringer. A cardigan and a woollen hat, old but clean, were quietly popped into her shoe-bag.

‘Well, Rose of Tralee!’ Mr Stringer would shout, spittle showering the front row. ‘I will have to put you out here to be teacher, for you can figure faster than me! Is she not amazing, children?’

And Rose’s poor bruised face would glow with pride.

Michael Hanratty and Brennan were in opposite camps for the strike months. Michael was a junior member of the town gang that tormented the Burnett’s Face gang whenever they dared. The nuggety little miners’ children were no pushover, but their numbers kept dwindling as strikers left Denniston to seek temporary work. They became adept at running for cover or forming a fierce knot, back to back, as the town gang pelted them with stones or ambushed them with wild shrieks.

The one point of contact for the two boys was Rose of Tralee. They were rivals for her love but partners in her protection. Once, the worried boys went together to Mr Stringer. He listened frowning, his jerking arms and legs still for once.

‘Well, boys,’ he said, ‘you have done well to show your care. But there is little I can do when it is her own father beats her.’

‘He’s only a stepfather,’ said Michael, kicking at the leg of a desk.

‘It’s not fair if she hasn’t done anything wrong,’ said Brennan, his eyes fierce under black brows and shaggy hair.

Henry Stringer smiled at the indignant pair. ‘Well, my two young Galahads, I cannot interfere, but perhaps a word to the mother …’

‘That won’t do any good.’ Both boys were adamant on this point. They left the classroom disillusioned.

MICHAEL and Brennan never found out that their teacher did, in the end, against all wisdom, make an effort on Rose’s behalf.

That particular evening Henry Stringer downed a drink or two at Hanrattys’ bar — a relatively unusual experience for the young
man, and one that left him even more unco-ordinated than ever. He plunged out into a stormy night, heading for Minifie’s saloon bar over at the Bins.

Inside he stops, blinking like an owl at the noisy shouts, the thick pipe smoke, the smell of stale ale and sly grog. But this young man, who has been headlong and stubborn all his short life, falters only a minute. Shaking the rain off his back like a wet dog, earning curses from those nearby, he crashes his way through the dark and crowded room until he locates the bar — a rough-sawn plank laid between two wooden barrels. Red Minifie, a red-eyed, gap-toothed apparition from hell, glowers behind the bar waiting for his order.

Henry Stringer clears his throat.

‘I’m looking for Mr B. Genesis.’

‘By God, you’ll have to do better than that if I’m to hear a word!’ roars Red. ‘Listen to the lad: he has a pretty woman in his throat!’

Leaning forward across the bar, Red Minifie grabs a handful of Henry’s coat, draws him close and places a wet and stinking kiss full on his lips. Henry Stringer jerks back as if shot, trips over a table behind and crashes to the floor. Everyone guffaws. Henry, scarlet with fright and embarrassment, jumps to his feet, hits his head a resounding crack on a low beam, and down he goes again, poor lad, with not a soul offering a hand of friendship.

This time he comes up mad as a meat-axe, arms flailing, voice a high-pitched scream. ‘Mr Genesis! Is Mr Genesis here?’

The blacksmith, weaving drunk, pushes through the crowd. For a moment Henry’s stout heart fails him. Scarred and ugly, thick as a tree trunk, shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows despite the cold, Billy Genesis is looking for a fight. He waits, fists on hips, face two inches away from Henry’s. A soft growl rumbles in the room. Men are preparing for entertainment.

‘Well,’ says Henry, offering a hand, ‘I am Mr Henry Stringer, the school teacher.’

Billy ignores the hand.

‘I have some concern about your step-daughter, Rose.’

Henry speaks quietly, but when Rose is mentioned, suddenly, eerily, all sounds ebb away. The whole dark saloon-full listens.

Billy Genesis lowers his head. He is about to charge.

‘I do not wish to intrude on domestic matters,’ Henry is babbling now and backing away as he speaks, ‘but Rose is a clever girl. I mean … The bruising … I cannot help observing that her school-work suffers. Her physical condition …’

Billy lashes out with one meaty arm. The drinkers murmur at the sound of flesh splitting.

‘Then damn well stop observing!’ screams Billy, laying in the boot. ‘Keep your eyes in your books and off my Rose!’ He swats Henry back down as he attempts to rise.

‘“Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire!”’ shouts Billy Genesis, raining down blows, until others haul him off and bundle him outside to cool off in the rain.

Someone pulls the shaken and bleeding Henry Stringer to his feet. Another dusts off his cap and replaces it carefully on his head. There is respect in the gesture. No one will look him in the eye. Henry opens his mouth to ask a question, then closes it again. The sense of shame in the room, the shuffling silence, defeat him. Red Minifie opens the back door and stands by it. Henry limps through, keeping his distance.

After that night, Henry Stringer never touched liquor of any sort. Rose’s plight continued to haunt him, but what could he do?

ROSE SHUTS HER eyes tightly to remember, then opens them quickly before she falls off the chair. Two pounds of flour: that is eight cups. She lowers the cupful carefully into the big bread bowl so the flour doesn’t fluff out and mess up Mrs C. Rasmussen’s clean kitchen. Little moths and worms struggle in the grey flour. She pinches them up and drops them one by one into the cracked mug Mrs Rasmussen has put there for them. Now two dessertspoons of yeast. They look like brains frothing on top of the warm water.

Mrs Rasmussen comes in the back door. A slab of misty cold air comes with her. She shakes out her coat and scarf and hangs them to steam on the rack over the coal range. Her cheeks are rosy but her fingers, when she pulls her gloves from them, are white. She claps them together and laughs at their whiteness, and stamps her feet on the wooden floor.

‘Oho!’ she says, her eyes round with surprise. ‘I am only just in time with the salt. What a busy little cook.’

The paper bag with the salt is wet so Mrs Rasmussen brings the wooden box from its place by the range and scoops the soggy white stuff into it. Rose takes two teaspoons before it goes back to dry along with the washing and the coat.

All the time little songs are running in her head, about the warm steamy kitchen and the bread and Mrs Rasmussen’s big soft stomach. Her mouth can’t stop smiling.

‘Ah, Rosie,’ says Mrs Rasmussen, bending to pick out a stray worm. ‘The prices things are these days you’d wonder how the miners can afford to eat at all. Where will it all end?’

‘Is Uncle Con the Brake richer than the miners?’

Mrs Rasmussen laughs in her golden-syrupy way. ‘No one on the Hill is rich, Rose, and if the strike continues much longer not a single body, not even your Uncle Con, will have the price of a loaf of bread.’

Rose thinks about being rich, and her treasure hidden in Conrad the Sixth’s tomb. When Mrs Rasmussen goes into the bedroom to change she looks at the big black purse on the stool by the door. Rose wants to open it. The purse is like a secret cave calling her, but also she doesn’t want to go. Then her feet jump down anyway so she has to. Her fingers leave floury marks on the leather and she wipes them with her sleeve. Inside is a little purse with two sixpences, some pennies, three shillings and a florin. She takes a sixpence and a penny, closes the purse, snap! and runs back to her stool. When Mrs Rasmussen comes back Rose is rolling the dough around in the bowl, punching it and slapping, and singing a song about loaves of crusty dusty bread.

Mrs Rasmussen looks at her purse. There is still a floury spot on it. She looks at Rose but she doesn’t say anything, or open her purse.

Rose feels hot. She smiles at Mrs Rasmussen and doesn’t say anything either. She punches the silly dough hard. Her singing stops.

After a while they hear shouts outside. Through the window they can see two men fighting, rolling on the ground and punching. One has blood on his face. Mrs Rasmussen growls like an angry dog. She picks up the bucket of cold grey water by the back door, stamps out onto the porch and flings an icy sheet over the fighters. The watchers cheer, but not as if they care, and walk away. The two men shake themselves and stare with mean eyes at Mrs Rasmussen, but she stands there on the freezing porch, staring right back, until they walk away, one towards the men’s quarters and one up the track towards Burnett’s Face.

Mrs Rasmussen slams the door and sits down hard in her rocking chair.

‘What are we coming to, Rose?’ she says. ‘Hatred is an ugly thing.’

‘Do you hate those men to throw water on them?’

Mrs Rasmussen laughs. ‘No, sweetheart, the hatred is theirs, between Camp and miner. Oh, it’s a dangerous thing, Rose, like a spark in dry brush, and at present all Denniston is like dry brush, waiting for the spark to ignite it.’

‘How can a fire catch in this misty winter?’

‘Rose, Rose, I am talking metaphorically. If that miner from Burnett’s Face had badly wounded the new recruit or vice-versa we would have war up here in a few short hours, and many dead or damaged. It is the same old story the world around.’

‘I don’t know that same old story — you never told me.’

Mrs Rasmussen smiles. ‘Come and sit here by the fire. You must learn, little one, the difference between truth and lies, between give and take.’ Rose squirms and looks away, but Bella continues. ‘That is a lesson for you. But the same old story I talk about is that violence
is evil and breeds more violence and ruins good men’s lives. Take your Uncle Con the Brake, who was a great and important man in his own country. One day a single word from a friend sent him into a rage. From that sudden rage came one thoughtless blow of his fist that ended the man’s life, who was his friend, and ruined his own. My Conrad had to run far away and can never, never go back to his home country, where he should be a hero and leader.’

‘Why is his life ruined if he has the best house on the Camp and the best wife too?’

Mrs Rasmussen smiles but her face is sad. She hugs Rose. ‘You are too sharp for your own good, my girl. But violence is still wrong. And so is stealing.’ Then she adds with a small sigh, ‘And I am not sure that Con thinks he has the best wife any more.’

That night Rose’s mother puts hot sausage stew on the table, with potatoes and carrots, and a cup of sweet cocoa afterwards. Rose knows it is not her own birthday, and Billy Genesis has not come in for his dinner yet, so it can’t be his. Rose asks if it is her mother’s birthday.

‘You are too sharp for your own good.’

Rose doesn’t feel sharp but everyone says it. ‘Why are we having a party, then?’ she says.

Her mother throws her hands in the air. ‘Questions, questions! Today I feel like a party is all. Eat and enjoy while you can.’

Rose eats while she can.

‘And be ready to move.’

Rose stops in the middle of a mouthful. Her mother’s eyes are fierce and black.

‘With no fuss,’ she says, ‘and no outcry about fancy friends.’

While Rose tries to swallow, her mother adds, ‘That madman Billy Genesis will not be coming.’

Her mother beats with a spoon on the table — a dancing rhythm.

‘La la diddy la la
la
,’ she sings. She tosses her wild hair and stamps her feet. Rose backs away from the table. Her mother has gone mad.

‘La la diddy diddy,’ sings her mother. ‘Oh Rosie, Rosie, we have won the war, just see if we haven’t!’ She hugs and squeezes Rose. Her hands are hungry and fierce — almost as bad as Billy’s.

‘I don’t want to go
far
away,’ whispers Rose. ‘Just away from Billy Genesis.’

‘Well then, be happy that you have half your wish!’ sings her mother. She catches Rose’s hands and tries to make her dance too. ‘I also will have my wish, Rosie, and you,
you
, my Rose, are my little pot of gold who makes all come true!’ She plants a smacking kiss full on Rose’s mouth. ‘Down down dilly down the Incline, off off and away,’ she sings, ‘with a sailor by my side, yo ho, with a bonny man by my side.’

Rose can smell fiery drink on her mother’s breath.

Questions are buzzing in her head like flies. About school and the Rasmussens and Billy Genesis and the bonny man by her side. When her mother stops singing the questions come out in a rush, like round balls, and her mother picks each question up and throws it back, not caring where it goes.

‘Never you mind your pretty head about my bonny man. You will know soon enough …

‘Billy Genesis knows nothing yet. So trap shut, please. He will kill us both if you blurt one word …

‘I will fetch you from school at the right moment — tomorrow, the next day, maybe — and you will come quiet as a lamb, you understand?

‘How can I know where we will live? On the road, on the sea — one place or another. We will see the wide world, Rosie, where sun shines and a body is free!

‘School? You have learned enough of that. Now is time for a new learning …’

Rose can feel screaming coming up her throat so she tries to keep talking. She asks if the new bonny man is a violent man, because Mrs Rasmussen says violence is evil.

Her mother slaps the table hard. ‘Mrs Rasmussen, that soft bag of dough, has her head in the sand. All men are violent, Con the Brake included, there is no escape from it. But,’ she adds after gaining her breath, ‘there is good and bad violence and Billy’s is the bad sort.’

Suddenly the screams escape. They fill every part of Rose’s head. Her arms smash at the plates and the walls and her mother. She flings around the room screaming and wailing.

‘Mother of God!’ screams her mother. ‘The whole Camp will come running!’ Her hard arms wrap around Rose and squeeze until no air is left to fill the screams.

When Rose can breathe again she says she doesn’t want to live with any new uncle, or with her mother or away in a new place.

Her mother slaps her hard on her ear. ‘I said we would have none of that. Be happy. Be grateful your mother makes a new life for you. Now, get off to bed and bolt your new bolt if you know what’s good for you.’

Inside her room Rose pulls the bolt across and waits to hear it click. She carries the heavy iron candlestick that Billy Genesis made at the forge over to the little table. The glow makes the room look warm, even though it is freezing cold. Rose likes her own little room now. The bolt has made it safe. For a whole week there have been no visits. By the light of her candle she folds her clothes neatly to be ready for school, then she hops quickly between the cold sheets and beats her feet up and down until the bed warms up. In her head she says the twelve times table, and then the eleven. She sings both
verses of Rose of Tralee. She adds up all the money in her treasure box, pounds shillings and pence, thinking of them all in their right columns.

In the end she manages to fall asleep without thinking about leaving school or leaving Denniston and Michael and Brennan and Mrs Rasmussen and everyone.

Suddenly Rose is awake. Something is crashing next door in the kitchen. It sounds like the table being thrown around. Rose pulls her knees up in the bed and hugs them. She keeps her head under the blankets but the sounds still come, thud, thud through the wall. Her mother is screaming. Billy Genesis sounds like a wild animal, swearing and growling. He’s in a rage. Something else smashes. Billy howls as if he’s been hurt. Rose hears a door bang and her mother’s footsteps running away. For a while there is silence. Then more stumbling and crashing. Billy is throwing things at the wall.

Then everything is quiet. Rose thinks Billy might have passed out with the drink.

But then, just as she’s drifting into sleep again, something jars her awake. Rose is out of bed and flying in her nightgown across to the trunk under the window. Billy Genesis is crashing against her door.

‘Rosie, Rosie!’ His voice is thick and blurry. The whole room shakes as he crashes. Rose stands on the trunk, trying to pull open the window. The catch is icy cold and her hand is shaking so hard she can’t do it. She feels as small as a white moth beating at the window.

‘Rosie! Rosie!’ Billy crashes again. The bolt holds. Then nothing happens and Rose thinks she might be safe. She stands on the trunk, shivering. She is not sure what to do. Maybe Billy is waiting under the window.

There is another huge thump and a splintery sound. The whole
door, and Billy with it, crash into the room. Rose can’t breathe. She presses against the cold wall, trying to be flatter than paper. She can hear him blundering around, swinging his arms.

His hand touches her. It closes tightly around one ankle. Everything in the room turns red and wild. Rose falls on him, scratching and biting, kicking to free herself. She would give all her treasure to be able to reach that paler shadow of the open doorway and run away. Even if it’s freezing outside. Even if it’s a snow storm. She kicks again and Billy stumbles back. Rose’s hand finds the cold iron of the candlestick and she swings it wildly in the dark, back and forth. It hits some part of Billy with a soft thud. Billy grunts in surprise. Rose can’t see where he is. She keeps waving the candlestick back and forth but it connects only with black air. Then she hears a sound like the thud of an axe into wood. Billy has fallen and lies still. She stands there in the dark panting and trying not to scream. Cold wind blows in.

The lump that is Billy is snoring — a loud, ugly sound. Rose pulls the blankets off her bed and throws them on top of him so she can’t hear the sound.

Then she runs next door into the house. No one is there but the room is full of broken things — the chair, both plates, the coal-box and the shelf. She shuts the door, bolts it and stands by the coal range until she stops shivering. She thinks about going to the log house but Mrs Rasmussen will be asleep. And she will be cross because of the evil of violence. Rose thinks about crawling into the men’s quarters, but she doesn’t like going there any more. So all night she sits by the coal range, wrapped in a rug, waiting for her mother to come home. Billy’s heavy breathing, sawing through the wall, never stops.

Her mother doesn’t come home.

As soon as it’s light, Rose, holding the rug tightly around her,
tiptoes to the door, unbolts it and pokes her head around the empty hole that used to be her door. Billy is still under the pile of bedclothes. His snores sound strange. They catch sometimes, then start up again with loud snort. She needs her school clothes but they are under the bedclothes too.

Rose creeps her hand under the sheet. She makes a little noise and pulls her hand back when it touches his cold body. Her hand has blood on it. Inch by inch she pulls the blanket back from his head. Rose jumps because his eyes are half open, but they’re not seeing anything. A beetle is crawling on his chin. His horrible hair is dark and sticky with blood.

Rose looks at him. The beetle starts crawling down his neck.

Quickly she feels for her clothes. There is not much blood on them. She runs back to the kitchen, which is now grey with morning light, and dresses by the dying fire. Her mother is still not home.

Rose knows what to do. She runs past the log house and up the path to town. Patches of snow sit like hats on all the rocks. Her breath steams. There is no wind this morning, and the mist has gone. She is excited. This is an adventure! Mrs Hanratty waves from the water-heating fire outside. She doesn’t knock on Hanrattys’ door but goes straight in and up to Michael’s room. Brennan is there too, which is surprising. Rose thought they were enemies now.