The Thorn Birds (40 page)

She nodded. “Yes, Luke.”

A simple oversight on Luke’s part nearly scotched the wedding in midplan. He was not a Catholic. When Father Watty found out he threw up his hands in horror.

“Dear Lord, Luke, why didn’t you tell me earlier? Indeed and to goodness, it will take all of our energies to have you converted and baptized before the wedding!”

Luke stared at Father Watty, astonished. “Who said anything about converting, Father? I’m quite happy as I am being nothing, but if it worries you, write me down as a Calathumpian or a Holy Roller or whatever you like. But write me down a Catholic you will not.”

In vain they pleaded; Luke refused to entertain the idea of conversion for a moment. “I’ve got nothing against Catholicism or Eire, and I think the Catholics in Ulster are hard done by. But I’m Orange, and I’m not a turncoat. If I was a Catholic and you wanted me to convert to Methodism, I’d react the same. It’s being a turncoat I object to, not being a Catholic. So you’ll have to do without me in the flock, Father, and that’s that.”

“Then you can’t get married!”

“Why on earth not? If you don’t want to marry us, I can’t see why the Reverend up at the Church of England will object, or Harry Gough the J.P.”

Fee smiled sourly, remembering her contretemps with Paddy and a priest; she had won that encounter.

“But, Luke, I
have
to be married in church!” Meggie protested fearfully. “If I’m not, I’ll be living in sin!”

“Well, as far as I’m concerned, living in sin is a lot better than turning my coat inside out,” said Luke, who was sometimes a curious contradiction; much as he wanted Meggie’s money, a blind streak of stubbornness in him wouldn’t let him back down.

“Oh, stop all this silliness!” said Fee, not to Luke but to the priest. “Do what Paddy and I did and have an end to argument! Father Thomas can marry you in the presbytery if he doesn’t want to soil his church!”

Everyone stared at her, amazed, but it did the trick; Father Watkin gave in and agreed to marry them in the presbytery, though he refused to bless the ring.

Partial Church sanction left Meggie feeling she was sinning, but not badly enough to go to Hell, and ancient Annie the presbytery housekeeper did her best to make Father Watty’s study as churchlike as possible, with great vases of flowers and many brass candlesticks. But it was an uncomfortable ceremony, the very displeased priest making everyone feel he only went through with it to save himself the embarrassment of a secular wedding elsewhere. No Nuptial Mass, no blessings.

However, it was done. Meggie was Mrs. Luke O’Neill, on her way to North Queensland and a honeymoon somewhat delayed by the time it would take getting there. Luke refused to spend that Saturday night at the Imperial, for the branch-line train to Goondiwindi left only once a week, on Saturday night, to connect with the Goondiwindi—Brisbane mail train on Sunday. This would bring them to Bris on Monday in time to catch the Cairns express.

The Goondiwindi train was crowded. They had no privacy and sat up all night because it carried no sleeping cars. Hour after hour it trundled its erratic, grumpy way northeast, stopping interminably every time the engine driver felt like brewing a billy of tea for himself, or to let a mob of sheep wander along the rails, or to have a yarn with a drover.

“I wonder why they pronounce
Goon
diwindi
Gun
diwindi if they don’t want to spell it that way?” Meggie asked idly as they waited in the only place open in Goondiwindi on a Sunday, the awful institutional-green station waiting room with its hard black wooden benches. Poor Meggie, she was nervous and ill at ease.

“How do I know?” sighed Luke, who didn’t feel like talking and was starving into the bargain. Since it was Sunday they couldn’t even get a cup of tea; not until the Monday-morning breakfast stop on the Brisbane mail did they get an opportunity to fill their empty stomachs and slake their thirst. Then Brisbane, into South Bris station, the trek across the city to Roma Street Station and the Cairns train. Here Meggie discovered Luke had booked them two second-class upright seats.

“Luke, we’re not short of money!” she said, tired and exasperated. “If you forgot to go to the bank, I’ve got a hundred pounds Bob gave me here in my purse. Why didn’t you get us a first-class sleeping compartment?”

He stared down at her, astounded. “But it’s only three nights and three days to Dungloe! Why spend money on a sleeper when we’re both young, healthy and strong? Sitting up on a train for a while won’t kill you, Meghann! It’s about time you realized you’ve married a plain old workingman, not a bloody squatter!”

So Meggie slumped in the window seat Luke seized for her and rested her trembling chin on her hand to look out the window so Luke wouldn’t notice her tears. He had spoken to her as one speaks to an irresponsible child, and she was beginning to wonder if indeed this was how he regarded her. Rebellion began to stir, but it was very small and her fierce pride forbade the indignity of quarreling. Instead she told herself she was this man’s wife, but it was such a new thing he wasn’t used to it. Give him time. They would live together, she would cook his meals, mend his clothes, look after him, have his babies, be a good wife to him. Look how much Daddy had appreciated Mum, how much he had adored her. Give Luke time.

They were going to a town called Dungloe, only fifty miles short of Cairns, which was the far northern terminus of the line which ran all the way along the Queensland coast. Over a thousand miles of narrow three-foot-six-gauge rail, rocking and pitching back and forth, every seat in the compartment occupied, no chance to lie down or stretch out. Though it was far more densely settled countryside than Gilly, and far more colorful, she couldn’t summon up interest in it.

Her head ached, she could keep no food down and the heat was much, much worse than anything Gilly had ever cooked up. The lovely pink silk wedding dress was filthy from soot blowing in the windows, her skin was clammy with a sweat which wouldn’t evaporate, and what was more galling than any of her physical discomforts, she was close to hating Luke. Apparently not in the least tired or out of sorts because of the journey, he sat at his ease yarning with two men going to Cardwell. The only times he glanced in her direction he also got up, leaned across her so carelessly she shrank, and flung a rolled-up newspaper out the window to some event-hungry gang of tattered men beside the line with steel hammers in their hands, calling:

“Paip! Paip!”

“Fettlers looking after the rails,” he explained as he sat down again the first time it happened.

And he seemed to assume she was quite as happy and comfortable as he was, that the coastal plain flying by was fascinating her. While she sat staring at it and not seeing it, hating it before she had so much as set foot on it.

At Cardwell the two men got off, and Luke went to the fish-and-chip shop across the road from the station to bring back a newspaper-wrapped bundle.

“They say Cardwell fish has to be tasted to be believed, Meghann love. The best fish in the world. Here, try some. It’s your first bit of genuine Bananaland food. I tell you, there’s no place like Queensland.”

Meggie glanced at the greasy pieces of batter-dipped fish, put her handkerchief to her mouth and bolted for the toilet. He was waiting in the corridor when she came out some time later, white and shaking.

“What’s the matter? Aren’t you feeling well?”

“I haven’t felt well since we left Goondiwindi.”

“Good Lord! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t you notice?”

“You looked all right to me.”

“How far is it now?” she asked, giving up.

“Three to six hours, give or take a bit. They don’t run to timetable up here too much. There’s plenty of room now those blokes are gone; lie down and put your tootsies in my lap.”

“Oh, don’t baby-talk me!” she snapped tartly. “It would have been a lot better if they’d got off two days ago in Bundaberg!”

“Come on now, Meghann, be a good sport! Nearly there. Only Tully and Innisfail, then Dungloe.”

It was late afternoon when they stepped off the train, Meggie clinging desperately to Luke’s arm, too proud to admit she wasn’t able to walk properly. He asked the stationmaster for the name of a workingmen’s hotel, picked up their cases and walked out onto the street, Meggie behind him weaving drunkenly.

“Only to the end of the block on the other side of the street,” he comforted. “The white two-storied joint.”

Though their room was small and filled to overflowing with great pieces of Victorian furniture, it looked like heaven to Meggie, collapsing on the edge of the double bed.

“Lie down for a while before dinner, love. I’m going out to find my landmarks,” he said, sauntering from the room looking as fresh and rested as he had on their wedding morning. That had been Saturday, and this was late Thursday afternoon; five days sitting up in crowded trains, choked by cigarette smoke and soot.

The bed was rocking monotonously in time to the clickety-click of steel wheels passing over rail joins, but Meggie turned her head into the pillow gratefully, and slept, and slept.

Someone had taken off her shoes and stockings, and covered her with a sheet; Meggie stirred, opened her eyes and looked around. Luke was sitting on the window ledge with one knee drawn up, smoking. Her movement made him turn to look at her, and he smiled.

“A nice bride you are! Here I am looking forward to my honeymoon and my wife conks out for nearly two days! I was a bit worried when I couldn’t wake you up, but the publican says it hits women like that, the trip up in the train and the humidity. He said just let you sleep it off. How do you feel now?”

She sat up stiffly, stretched her arms and yawned, “I feel much better, thank you. Oh, Luke! I know I’m young and strong, but I’m a woman! I can’t take the sort of physical punishment you can.”

He came to sit on the edge of the bed, rubbing her arm in a rather charming gesture of contrition. “I’m sorry, Meghann, I really am. I didn’t think of your being a woman. Not used to having a wife with me, that’s all. Are you hungry, darling?”

“Starved. Do you realize it’s almost a week since I’ve eaten?”

“Then why don’t you have a bath, put on a clean dress and come outside to look at Dungloe?”

There was a Chinese café next door to the hotel, where Luke led Meggie for her first-ever taste of Oriental food. She was so hungry anything would have tasted good, but this was superb. Nor did she care if it was made of rats’ tails and sharks’ fins and fowls’ bowels, as rumor had it in Gillanbone, which only possessed a café run by Greeks who served steak and chips. Luke had brown-bagged two quart bottles of beer from the hotel and insisted she drink a glass in spite of her dislike for beer.

“Go easy on the water at first,” he advised. “Beer won’t give you the trots.”

Then he took her arm and walked her around Dungloe proudly, as if he owned it. But then, Luke was born a Queenslander. What a place Dungloe was! It had a look and a character far removed from western towns. In size it was probably the same as Gilly, but instead of rambling forever down one main street. Dungloe was built in ordered square blocks, and all its shops and houses were painted white, not brown. Windows were vertical wooden transoms, presumably to catch the breeze, and wherever possible roofs had been dispensed with, like the movie theater, which had a screen, transomed walls and rows of ship’s canvas desk chairs, but no roof at all.

All around the edge of the town encroached a genuine jungle. Vines and creepers sprawled everywhere—up posts, across roofs, along walls. Trees sprouted casually in the middle of the road, or had houses built around them, or perhaps had grown up through the houses. It was impossible to tell which had come first, trees or human habitations, for the overwhelming impression was one of uncontrolled, hectic growth of vegetation. Coconut palms taller and straighter than the Drogheda ghost gums waved fronds against a deep, swimming blue sky; everywhere Meggie looked was a blaze of color. No brown-and-grey land, this. Every kind of tree seemed to be in flower—purple, orange, scarlet, pink, blue, white.

There were many Chinese in black silk trousers, tiny black-and-white shoes with white socks, white Mandarin-collared shirts, pigtails down their backs. Males and females looked so alike Meggie found it difficult to tell which were which. Almost the entire commerce of the town seemed to be in the hands of Chinese; a large department store, far more opulent than anything Gilly possessed, bore a Chinese name:
AH WONG’S
, said the sign.

All the houses were built on top of very high piles, like the old head stockman’s residence on Drogheda. This was to achieve maximum air circulation, Luke explained, and keep the termites from causing them to fall down a year after they were built. At the top of each pile was a tin plate with turned-down edges; termites couldn’t bend their bodies in the middle and thus couldn’t crawl over the tin parapet into the wood of the house itself. Of course they feasted on the piles, but when a pile rotted it was removed and replaced by a new one. Much easier and less expensive than putting up a new house. Most of the gardens seemed to be jungle, bamboo and palms, as if the inhabitants had given up trying to keep floral order.

The men and women shocked her. To go for dinner and a walk with Luke she had dressed as custom demanded in heeled shoes, silk stockings, satin slip, floating silk frock with belt and elbow sleeves. On her head was a big straw hat, on her hands were gloves. And what irritated her the most was an uncomfortable feeling from the way people stared that
she
was the one improperly dressed!

The men were bare-footed, bare-legged and mostly bare-chested, wearing nothing but drab khaki shorts; the few who covered their chests did so with athletic singlets, not shirts. The women were worse. A few wore skimpy cotton dresses clearly minus anything in the way of underwear, no stockings, sloppy sandals. But the majority wore short shorts, went bare-footed and shielded their breasts with indecent little sleeveless vests. Dungloe was a civilized town, not a beach. But here were its native white inhabitants strolling around in brazen undress; the Chinese were better clad.