‘Did you know Pat had left Bill?’ the policeman asked brusquely, his eyes boring into hers as if blaming her for a fool’s errand.
Dulcie shook her head. ‘Please ring Sergeant Collins. I can’t stay here, it’s not safe.’
Perhaps it was the sound of something being hurled against the wall inside the house that made them take her seriously, for the foxy-faced one nodded and told her to keep out of the men’s way.
It was quite the worst day she had ever had. Bill stayed in the living-room, only coming out now and then to go to the dunny. Ted went off in the truck, but he was soon back, a couple of bottles of whisky in his hands. Yet even though they stayed in the living-room getting drunk together, a malevolent atmosphere seemed to permeate the entire house. Jake disappeared and Dulcie guessed he had enough affection for Pat to be unable to listen to Bill’s drunken raving.
Even Sly and Prince looked apprehensive, curled up by their kennels out on the veranda. They never came into the house, but then their days were spent out with the men, and they were confused by their master’s voice coming from the living-room.
Dulcie mucked out the pigs which Pat hadn’t even begun yesterday, she weeded the vegetable garden, and only returned to the house when she knew she must make some bread and something for the men’s supper. Yet all the time she was worrying that Sergeant Collins wouldn’t come, or that if he did he’d say he couldn’t help her. She didn’t know if her savings were enough to get the train to Perth and rent a room until she could find a job there, and besides, she might be picked up by the police there.
She was just taking a loaf out of the oven when Sergeant Collins rapped on the door, and she had never been so pleased to see anyone. Before either of them could say a word, there was a loud bellow of laughter from the men in the living-room, and Sergeant Collins raised his eyebrows.
‘They’re drunk,’ she said with a shrug. ‘I can’t stay here, Mr Collins, by tonight they’ll be like madmen.’
For just one moment as he looked at her, she thought he was going to tell her to calm down and see how things went, but instead he put one hand on her shoulder. ‘Go and get your things together and wait outside for me. I’ll go and speak to Bill,’ he said in a low voice.
Once Dulcie had run along to her room, Collins opened the living-room door, and almost recoiled from the smell of unwashed bodies, cigarettes and whisky.
Bill was sprawled out on the couch, a glass of whisky in his hand, the two red-headed cousins were slumped in chairs, equally drunk. There was another empty bottle on the cigarette ash-strewn floor, the hearth in front of the unlit wood stove littered with dog-ends they’d thrown in that direction.
‘I heard about Pat,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, Bill.’ He felt that he ought to say more, but the words stuck in his throat.
‘The bloody bitch walked out on me,’ Bill said, his words so slurred they were almost unintelligible. ‘How could she do that?’
Ted and Bert were both looking squint-eyed at Collins. He guessed they weren’t so drunk they hadn’t realized he’d come to do something more than to offer his condolences.
‘I came about Dulcie,’ he said quickly, seeing no point in beating about the bush. ‘She can’t stay here alone with you lot. It wouldn’t be right. I’ll take her home to my missus for the time being.’
‘But who’s going to cook for us?’ Bert asked.
‘You’ll have to manage yourselves,’ Collins said. ‘By the smell out in the kitchen she’s already made you something for today.’
Bill lurched to his feet scowling. ‘She ain’t leaving me now,’ he said angrily. ‘I need her.’
‘She’s just a child,’ Collins said firmly, drawing himself up to his full height of five foot eleven, and hoping one of them wouldn’t rush him. ‘You are all drunk, and it isn’t fair to expect her to cope with that, and looking after this place alone.’
As he looked around at the three men’s belligerent expressions and sensed the menace seeping out of Bill, he had real sympathy for what Pat had put up with for so long. He had no doubt that Dulcie would be in real danger if he didn’t get her out of here now. ‘Don’t even think of trying to stop me,’ he said as he saw Bill lurch towards an empty bottle to use it as a weapon. ‘Or you’ll have far more on your hands than your wife leaving you to cope with.’
He left then, shutting the door behind him, and hoped that Dulcie was ready.
She was, waiting nervously out on the veranda, her suitcase in her hand. She had changed the faded dress she’d been wearing earlier to a blue one. It was too short, and tight around her chest, and the blue ribbon in her hair and her short white socks made her look about twelve, not sixteen.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’m taking you home with me.’
As Collins pulled away from the house he heard Bill yell something from the front door, and the sound of breaking glass as he threw the empty bottle at his car. When he glanced sideways at Dulcie he saw she was crying.
‘You’re quite safe now,’ he said. ‘I’m taking you home with me. My wife will take care of you.’
She cried for some little time, and Collins let her, for he could imagine what she’d been through today. The police at Norseman weren’t noted for their gentleness, they had to be tough, their usual customers were the gold miners, whores and other itinerants who ended up in Kalgoorlie. Breaking up fights, two-up games, dealing with drunkenness, theft and prostitution was what they knew, and one little kid caught up in what was no more than a domestic row wouldn’t trouble them. But it did trouble him. He wouldn’t mind betting that most of the whores up there had started out much like Dulcie, nudged into that way of life because they had no one to guide them.
The saddest thing about it to him was that a girl on the threshold of womanhood should see such ugly things. Would she grow up to think Bill’s behaviour to his wife was normal? If a man treated her marginally better than Bill did Pat, would she imagine she was lucky?
Dulcie fell asleep on the journey. Her head lolled against the window, her dress had ridden up above her knees, and her hands lay relaxed in her lap. Collins thought he ought to feel pleased she felt safe enough to drop off to sleep, but as he looked down at the many bruises and small scabs on her legs and knees, the calluses on her hands and the broken nails and lack-lustre hair, instead he felt only shame that this should happen to someone so alone in the world.
Chapter Thirteen
‘You aren’t going anywhere just yet, Dulcie,’ Molly Collins said in answer to Dulcie’s question about finding a new job. ‘Sean and I have decided that you need a little holiday before you even start to think about that. Today I’m going to take you to have your hair cut. After that we’ll take a walk along the beach, then maybe we’ll buy some material so you can make yourself a new dress. That’s enough for one day.’
Dulcie’s eyes welled up with emotional tears. Since Sergeant Collins brought her to his home three days ago, she had been overwhelmed by his and Molly’s kindness. They considered it a quite ordinary police house, but as it had electricity, a refrigerator and wireless and stood on the corner of Pink Lake Road, just a short walk to the sea-front and shops, Dulcie thought it was the height of luxury.
Mrs Collins wouldn’t even let her do anything to help her, and she fed her food that Dulcie’d never even seen before. She slept in the bedroom of their daughter who was away at university, surrounded by dolls, teddy bears and pictures of film stars, and yet as she lay in the comfortable bed, Alfie their cat curled up beside her, she kept thinking it was only a matter of time before she would be plunged back somewhere awful again.
‘Don’t cry, my dear.’ Mrs Collins came closer and enveloped her in her arms. She was a small, stout lady in her late forties, with a youthful face and gentle brown eyes. ‘You’ve had a miserable time up there with the Masters, but it’s all over now.’
Dulcie sobbed. It was a strange thing that while she loved the hugs and cuddles Mrs Collins gave so readily they always made her cry even more.
Mrs Collins tipped up Dulcie’s face to look at her and smiled. ‘Now, come on, wash your face, brush your hair and we’ll go out, get your hair done and buy some dress material. I’ve got a nice pattern I bought to make a couple of dresses for our Wendy before she went off to Sydney. I thought you’d look real beaut in pink, what do you think?’
Three weeks later Dulcie was in the kitchen helping Mrs Collins by laying the table for the evening meal when Sergeant Collins came home from work. He ‘cooeed’ from the front door, which Dulcie had come to notice meant he had exciting or interesting news.
Mrs Collins turned from her position at the stove where she was making gravy, and looked expectant. ‘Want a beer, love?’ she called out. ‘Or can it wait till you’ve told us?’
He came into the kitchen. ‘Told you what?’ he asked with a wide grin.
‘Whatever it is that’s brought you home so perky,’ she laughed.
‘I’ve got the perfect job for Dulcie,’ he said. ‘At least I hope she’ll think it is.’
‘I’m sure if you think it’s a good one, I’ll love it,’ Dulcie said.
She had come to trust his and his wife’s judgement in everything. They insisted that they would contact Reverend Mother at St Vincent’s by telephone rather than let Dulcie write a letter which might be ignored. The nun, finding herself speaking to a policeman, who in no uncertain terms pointed out that no inexperienced young girl should ever have been sent to the Masters’ place to work, had little option but to agree that he should now find a suitable position for Dulcie. It was their suggestion too that she should have her hair cut and styled, and that she should make herself some dresses to go with her fashionable new hair-style.
The Collins’ advice and care had made Dulcie blossom in every way. She had managed to stop tormenting herself about Pat, she had after all found peace now.
Rested and well fed, Dulcie had put on a little weight, her complexion was almost as smooth now as it had been when she was a child. Her hands were softer and her nails cared for. Yet it was her hair which Dulcie prized most, for in the hands of an experienced hairdresser it looked beautiful. Because of the long-term neglect, several inches had to be cut off, but not in the brutal manner of St Vincent’s. She had what they called a ‘feather cut’, short and bouncy, that brought back the natural wave and enhanced the pure blonde colour. When she looked in the mirror, for the first time in her life she saw a pretty girl staring back, the feathery effect framing her face, emphasizing features she’d never known were dainty until now.
So if Sergeant Collins was to tell her he had a job on a fishing boat, or even in the gold mine at Kalgoorlie, she would believe it would be right for her.
‘It’s with the Frenches,’ he said, pulling up a kitchen chair and sitting astride it, leaning his arms on the back. ‘You’ll remember John Withers and young Ross that picked you up? Well, they work there too.’
‘I couldn’t forget them,’ Dulcie smiled ruefully. ‘They’re the ones that dobbed me in.’
‘Now, you know they meant it kindly,’ he reproved her. ‘Anyway, it’s a real good farm, Dulcie, only a few miles out of Esperance. They’ve got all the modern amenities, not like the Masters’ place. Bruce French and his wife Betty are getting on now, and they are good people, anyone will tell you that. Young Ross has come on a treat since he got taken on by them, and heaven knows what he’d been through before he turned up at their place.’
Dulcie’s mind shot back to that day at Salmon Gums, and the brief conversation she and Ross had had. ‘Was he in an orphanage too?’ she asked curiously.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised, though no one’s ever been able to get a word out of him about it. Bruce found him sleeping in his barn a couple of years ago. The poor kid was starving and sick, they took care of him until he was better, then decided to give him a job and see how he shaped up. Bruce reckons it was the best gamble he’d ever taken. Anyway, what d’you think, want me to take you out there tomorrow to meet them?’
It was another new experience for Dulcie to be asked if she wanted to do something rather than being ordered. ‘Yes please,’ she said. ‘Would I be doing the same work as for Pat and Bill?’
‘Much the same. Land-clearing, wood-chopping, cleaning out the dunny. Milking the cows. Cooking, cleaning and waiting on the table.’
Dulcie’s eyes flew open in horror involuntarily, she’d thought it was going to be a better job.
‘Don’t tease her, you great galah,’ Mrs Collins said sharply, smacking her husband on the shoulder. ‘Don’t pay no mind to him, Dulcie,’ she said, and turning to the girl she tweaked her cheek affectionately. ‘Betty French is a lovely lady, if she wants a girl to help out, it will be around the house, and you just wait till you see it, it’s as lovely as she is.’
Sergeant Collins grinned at Dulcie. ‘Yes, it’s like Molly says, Betty’s getting on, and a bit shaky on her pins. You’ll have a nice room in the house, good food and a pound a week wages, how does that sound?’
‘Wonderful,’ she smiled. ‘I just hope they like me.’
‘They do already just from what I’ve told them about you,’ he said. ‘Now, didn’t someone mention a beer?’
Dulcie’s first impression of the Frenches’ place as Sergeant Collins turned up the dirt track towards it the following afternoon was that it could be a farm in England, for the rainfall was much higher here than in Salmon Gums and the grass was thick and lush. Brown and white cows were standing almost knee-deep in clover either side of the track, there were English trees too, not just gums. As they approached the homestead, her heart quickened, for though it was similar in style to most Australian homes she’d seen, a single storey surrounded by a wide veranda, it was new, brick-built, the veranda painted a glossy green, and with a carefully tended garden in front of it.
She remembered how her heart had sunk when she arrived at the Masters’ place, yet in the eighteen months she’d been there she’d grown so used to the dilapidated state of it, the empty kerosene and oil cans and other refuse that hung around it, she’d stopped seeing the ugliness of it. But care shone out of the whole of this place. As Sergeant Collins pulled round on to a gravelled area at the side, she noticed that even the tractor left there was shiny red and new-looking.