The Road to Gundagai (33 page)

Your ever loving,

Fred

She looked up as Mah finished her own note. Wordlessly, they swapped them. Mah’s was almost exactly the same as hers.

‘What’s he say?’ asked Ephraim.

Blue told him. Ebenezer nodded. ‘He’ll want you to show the sergeant the letter. It’s writ for him as much as you.’

‘Yes.’ Wherever Fred had gone it wouldn’t be to the north, nor to a fishing boat. A new name, a new place, new girls to grin at …

They are all leaving, she thought. Madame, Fred, Mrs Olsen. She caught Mah’s glance. It said, ‘At least we are still together.’

‘The Olsens get off all right?’ asked Ebenezer. He seemed smaller somehow in these vast stretches of paddock and river, as though as the circus dwindled he too shrank.

‘Yes. You really didn’t know anything about Mrs Olsen’s past life?’

Ephraim hesitated. ‘Enough not to go talking about it. You can say too much without realising it, once you get talking. Best say nothing.’

She looked at him sharply. ‘You mean there’s more?’ She put her hand up to her mouth. ‘She didn’t really kill him, did she?’

‘Of course not,’ said Ebenezer. ‘Not a nice woman like Mrs Olsen. She wouldn’t chop off no one’s head.’

Blue stared. Did Ephraim mean that someone else
would
kill? Madame perhaps? Blue tried to think. Madame could be ruthless, had no compunction about breaking the law of the land and of convention whenever she felt that what she wanted or needed was right. Like Mrs Olsen, Madame had the broad shoulders of a woman who had trained for decades for the trapeze. Ten or twenty years ago Madame might have had the strength to cut off a man’s head. But could she actually have done it?

No. Madame’s sense of right and wrong is as firm as tree roots in a rock, Blue thought wearily. The branches might wave whichever way the wind blows, but Madame would never do what she thought was wrong.

But if Madame thought a man should die? If for some reason she felt his bones should stay unburied? Hair has power, she’d said, as she tucked Blue’s locks away. Did bones have power too? Blue had a vague memory that the remains of evildoers had once been buried at the crossroads. Was there some evil that meant that a body deserved no burial at all?

She thought of the potion Madame had given her. If Madame ever killed, it would be like that, she thought. Not with a sword or an axe, but poison. Like I was poisoned …

No! Madame wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Blue was too tired. Too battered by too much. It was all too much. She glanced back at the house, secure in its green trees. She couldn’t even sit with Madame unless she knocked politely on the door and asked permission. The nurse would probably make her scrub her feet next time before she came in.

‘Miss Matilda said we can eat with the men,’ said Ebenezer. ‘Said we should go up to the big shed when we hear the bell.’

Blue nodded, with a vague sense of relief. At least they would be fed. They had roofs over their heads. There were many worse off.

It was little consolation.

Chapter 28

Mah changed into a dress for dinner, an old one of Blue’s she had brought with her, a pale green shift with a flounced hem. She slipped on her shoes and fluffed her hair. ‘What do you think?’

‘You look pretty.’ Somehow seeing Mah back in a dress made it seem as though the circus was gone for good. We’re just a huddle of people and a truck with a Big Top on it, she thought. The magic has gone. She smiled. And an elephant.

Mah held up another of Blue’s old dresses. ‘Don’t think this will fit you any more.’

‘It didn’t when Mum gave it to you.’

‘I had a look in Madame’s caravan. Gertrude’s taken all the dresses that might fit you.’

‘I thought she might.’ Blue shrugged. ‘If it’s a choice between harem pants and shorts at dinner, I’d better stick with shorts.’

‘Wait a minute.’ Mah pulled out a skirt. ‘Try this.’

‘It’ll be too short.’

‘Wear it low down. There, that’s right. Now tuck your shirt in and tie the scarf around your hips. There!’

Blue looked at herself in the mirror. It wasn’t Bluebell Laurence, the nicely brought-up young lady. It wasn’t a scruffy circus brat either. The dye was washing from her hair already, leaving it red partly streaked by black, tiger-like, strange but not unattractive. Sunlight and time had faded the scars on her neck, leaving them almost unnoticeable. I may not be quite sure who that girl in the mirror is now, she thought, but I like the look of her.

Mah handed her the shoes she had worn when she had escaped from her aunts’ house. Blue slipped them on.

Dinner was served in a big room off the men’s quarters, next to the kitchen. It held a motley collection of chairs from at least six dining suites, an upright piano in the corner and a table that looked like it could seat fifty, and possibly did during shearing season.

Now there were a dozen men seated at it, including to her surprise Joseph and Mr McAlpine. She had thought they’d have had someone cook for them down at the manager’s house. It was unmistakeable, large with a wide verandah opening onto a conspicuous lack of garden — it was the only one of the Drinkwater houses without one — and it boasted a solid coach house that she supposed housed the car.

Both men stood up as she and Mah approached. ‘Good evening,’ said Mr McAlpine. He held out her chair for her. Joseph held out a chair for Mah.

The courtesy almost made her cry. Everything makes me feel like crying just now, she thought. How long had it been since a man or boy had held out a chair for her? For the past year she had mostly perched on bales of hay. ‘Thank you.’

She sat as vast platters of food were plonked on the table by a man with a grey beard that could hide an emu’s egg, a potato-sack apron, and the trousers, faded check shirt and workboots that all of the Drinkwater men seemed to wear. Even Joseph had lost the flannel trousers he’d worn earlier, and replaced them with what were undoubtedly work clothes, and his own.

Somehow it felt good that he owned clothes that fitted into her new world, as well as ones from her old one.

The food in front of her wasn’t like either the careful creations of Mrs Huggins or the fragrant stews that Madame had decreed were what her circus dined on. Here were giant piles of charred chops, oozing juice and fat, two vast mounds of mashed potatoes, another two of weeping cabbage boiled with hunks of carrot, glistening with melted butter, and more butter in coolers along the table, along with baskets of black-crusted white bread, already sliced, as well as three-quarters of an enormous sweating cheese.

The men ate quickly and efficiently, some with knife and fork, others with knife and fingers, using their forks as spoons to scoop up the mashed potato.

Joseph carved the meat from his chop, neatly slicing away the charred bits. He smiled at her. ‘Cookie’s puddings are better than his chops.’

‘I heard that!’ The whiskered man peered out of the next room, a wooden spoon raised. ‘You got any complaints about my cooking, you say them to my face.’

Joseph held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘Just saying how good your puds are, Cookie. That’s why I come and stay with my ugly mug of a brother. Just to get a piece of your pie.’

‘Yeah. Well.’ Cookie subsided back to his oven.

‘Last bloke who gave Cookie any lip got a mouse sandwich.’ The man across the table had three teeth, all of which had made quick work of five chops, now only well-chewed bones on a last scraping of potato. Like most of the men, he’d left the cabbage and carrot alone. ‘All neat on his plate that sandwich was, innocent as corned beef and chutney. Then he bit down on it.’ The three teeth showed again in a grin. ‘You could have heard him roar all the way to Sydney.’ He held out a hand, all ingrained grime and muscle. ‘I’m Ringer Higgs.’

‘Belle,’ said Blue automatically. She glanced at Joseph and Mah, then added, ‘It’s Bluebell actually. You can call me either Belle or Blue.’

‘Me aunt grew bluebells,’ said Ringer. ‘Or it might have been dahlias. One o’ them flowers anyway.’

Blue concentrated on her food while Ebenezer and Ephraim quietly introduced themselves. She was hungry. No lunch and a long day, and the chops were tender, even if they were charred, and the mashed potato was rich with butter.

Something thudded on the table next to her. ‘Apple pie and cream,’ said Cookie, ‘and if our flash Mr Joseph has seen a better pie in Sydney I’ll be glad to take it up with him outside.’

Joseph grinned. ‘It’s the best in Australia. All right?’

‘You ain’t tried it yet.’

Joseph took a slice, tasted, and waited five seconds, all eyes upon him. ‘The best in Australia. Official.’

Someone clapped ironically. Cookie saluted with his spoon. Blue found herself grinning too.

The pie was as good as Joseph had said — if not the best in Australia, at least a contender for the prize. She was just scraping the last off her plate when one of the men sat at the piano.

‘
She’s my love bird
,’ he sang.

‘
My tweet tweet love bird

She’s so sweet

Goes tweet tweet tweet

My sweetie pie love bird
…’

It was as unexpected as if the dogs outside had begun to baa like sheep. She had been so used to thinking that all the fun in the world was enclosed in their small world of the circus. Yet here it was, springing up in a shed full of men. She blinked as Cookie appeared, minus his apron, carrying a ukulele. He strummed along with the piano.

‘
Tweet tweet sweet

My sweet sweet sweet

Ladyyyyy bird!
’

Mr McAlpine stood up and bowed to Mah. ‘Would mademoiselle care to dance?’

Mah grinned. He swept her into an energetic Charleston, arms and legs flying, as men stood and clapped the beat, and the piano and ukulele players pounded on.

‘Belle?’ Joseph stood too and held out his hand.

Blue flushed. ‘I can’t dance. Not like that anyhow.’

‘Oh, crikey, I forgot.’

He looked so stricken she tried to smile. ‘Really, it’s all right.’

‘No, it isn’t.’

‘It’s fun to watch anyway.’

And it was. Tune after tune, Mah with partner after partner. The Charleston gave way to polkas, some of the men dancing with each other, first bowing with elaborate courtesy. Ebenezer and Ephraim watched, as silent as they’d been during the meal. They looked small among the farm workmen, without the height of their top hats, lost in this new world, without the easy expertise they had at the circus.

The electric lights came on, the generator out the back thudding not quite in time with the piano. Mah leaned against the piano, out of breath, pretty and flushed as Ringer began to sing in an almost tuneful baritone.

‘
It’s all for me grog

Me jolly jolly grog

It’s all for me beer and tobacco!

For I’ve spent all me tin

In the shanty drinking gin

And across the western plains I must wander
…’

Was Fred wandering across the western plains? Did they do this every night, Blue wondered, or was it just for her and Mah?

Perhaps a bit of both, the usual few songs around the piano after dinner extending into an impromptu dance. Did Miss Matilda and her husband ever join in? But not now, she thought. Not after his stroke. And she had forgotten Madame, up in her bedroom. How could they enjoy themselves, while she lay there?

Joseph caught her looking towards the house. ‘They’ll call you at once if there’s any change. One of the nurses will be with her all night. Nurse Blamey might be a tartar, but she knows what she’s doing. One of the best with stroke patients.’

She nodded. ‘Thank you. Mr Thompson — how is he really? Sorry,’ she added. ‘I don’t want you breaking any confidences.’

‘You’re not. I’m not his doctor. He’s getting better. Didn’t know if he’d pull through at first, but every day there’s an improvement. He was overdoing it last year. Seemed to think he could fix Australia’s whole unemployment situation with a few new inventions. But he and Matilda are both a bit alike in that. They take on everyone’s problems with enormous energy.’

‘Including the circus’s?’ said Blue.

‘And my family’s. I’ll tell you about that one day. Just now you look all in. Andy?’ His brother looked around. ‘We need to see the girls back to their caravan.’

‘We can do that.’ Ebenezer and Ephraim stood up. They looked uncomfortable, not so much out of place as wishing they were far away.

‘We’ll walk you down too.’

The McAlpine brothers collected a couple of lamps at the door. Outside, the dogs chewed the last of the dinner scraps, their ears pricking up as the strangers passed. The moonlight had found the river and turned it into a golden highway between its sandy banks. The night smelled of sheep droppings and dog and the lingering scent of chops. Above them diamond lights shone a wagon wheel of stars. It was as though the whole universe turned on its axis from this paddock by the river.

All her life she had longed to travel, the family holidays or business trips, the adventure of the road ahead with the circus, the dreams of Gundagai. Suddenly, absolutely, she wanted to be nowhere else than here. It was almost as if her feet had grown roots into the ground, as if the heartbeat of the earth pounded into her body.

Joseph had let the others get a little way ahead. He looked at her curiously in the lamplight. ‘Penny for your thoughts.’

Blue shook her head. ‘I’m not sure what I’m feeling. I just feel, I don’t know. The river, the hills. I’ve never been here before, but somehow I feel …’

‘Like you belong?’

‘Yes. Does that sound silly?’

‘No. It’s what my dad felt when he first saw Rock Farm. That’s where I grew up. Flinty, my sister, feels that way about it too. I don’t think it has to be where you’re born. Do you know the old Shaker hymn?’

She shook her head again.

He began to sing, his voice light and tuneful.

‘
’Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free