Authors: Rosemary McLoughlin
Charlotte could now sit undisturbed, picturing the look on her mother’s face when she returned home triumphant, enjoying the respect that would then be due to her as a mother.
Standing back so she couldn’t be seen, Charlotte looked through the front window. Lochlann was at the gate in conversation with someone she didn’t know, which
wasn’t surprising as she’d only met four people since she’d arrived. Lochlann was talking, gesticulating, listening intently, and every now and then throwing back his head and
laughing. His eyes were lively and his body relaxed as he leaned against the gatepost.
Charlotte’s heart contracted. It was the old Lochlann she was seeing, the light-hearted one she remembered talking to Harcourt while she looked on at him, drowning in adoration, desire and
hopelessness, never thinking that one day he would be hers. Legally hers. And here he was, soon to come through the door, and she would have exclusive access to his company for the night.
He took leave of the man he was talking to and, still smiling, closed the gate, and walked up the short path. On the verandah he paused, and the smile left his face. He took deep breaths while
standing staring at the door.
He hates coming home, Charlotte acknowledged with sadness. He’s bracing himself.
She stepped further back so he wouldn’t know she had been watching, then waited to greet him. I don’t even possess a tenth of him, she thought. He’s inaccessible to me.
He turned back to look at the hospital on the hill and then the park to the right of it. He’s like a condemned man, she thought, taking his last look at the outside world before being
forced to return to prison.
It will be different when the baby comes, she reassured herself. Everything will be better then. We will become a tight little family unit, cut off from the rest of the world. Secure. Happy.
Exclusive.
Offer a reward,
Edwina wrote in her first letter to Charlotte.
One substantial enough to set someone up for life. There is no honour amongst thieves – those
two women from the lower orders will trample over each other to be the one to claim it and, once you have either one of them, you have Victoria. Advertise in every newspaper, magazine and
periodical in the country. I realise there will be difficulty with the names, all changed since they left here either through marriage or deviousness, but they will recognise their original
ones and rush for their reward. The name changes are a trial. Because of them there is no point in looking through the voting registers, which list every adult over twenty-one in the country.
If only they were men, it would be so easy to find them because of the compulsory voting system there. I have done my research. There is no point in looking up Department of Immigration records
or port entry records as they wouldn’t tell you where they went after they got off the boat and that’s the bit we’re interested in – in any case the private detective I
hired already did that or so he claimed. No, a reward is the only solution, and I presume you can see why you are the only one who can do it. Every con man, trickster and gambler in the country
will be after it and will try to claim it fraudulently. Only you know what Teresa and Dixon look like even after the lapse of years, and you would recognise Victoria because of the family
resemblance. I’m confident you can do it. Just don’t stint on the reward.
Your father has become a hypochondriac since he suffered palpitations and breathlessness two months ago. He panics when he feels any irregularities in his heart rhythm, which he says is
often. He is afraid of having a heart attack during the night, so has employed that ex-soldier Thatcher to sleep in the same room. What help he’d be is a puzzle as the few times
I’ve seen him, he’s been as drunk as his master.
I expect to hear from you with results in the near future.
Charlotte crumpled the letter, opened the door of the stove and pushed the pages into the flames.
The Hogan children, curious and expectant, hung back as Lochlann approached Spike, one of their larger, stronger stock horses. When he managed to mount without falling off the
other side or collapsing on the gelding’s neck they looked disappointed. He smiled at them, and they shyly ducked their heads. One of the younger girls giggled.
“So you have ridden before,” said Dan Hogan.
“I’d hardly call it that. Walking, trotting, high-trotting around an arena with eight other children for two hours on a Saturday for four years. It’s my wife who’s the
real rider.”
“So Scottie was saying.”
“She was only eight or nine at the time of her first hunt.”
“She won’t have lost it, you can be sure of that.”
“Good. I’m hoping she’ll get back to it after the baby’s born.”
“Something to look forward to. Ah, here’s Scottie. What kept you?”
“Couldn’t get the damn horse to move – until young Mick picked a switch for me. Now it’s a different story.” He gave Dixie a flick to demonstrate, and she jumped
sideways and forward.
“No mustering today,” said Dan. “Just looking for a cow that’s due to calve. Probably hiding in the bush. An easy day, then.”
Lochlann had already met Nell Hogan – she had cried in his surgery about her seventh pregnancy when she brought in her sixth child to be immunised. “It’s not as if I
don’t love them, Doctor. So many mouths to feed, that’s the worry.” Her next child was due around the same time as Charlotte’s first in six weeks’ time.
Charlotte had been invited to the farm as well but refused, as he knew she would. Lochlann made sure Matron Grainger was on duty at the hospital and that Mrs Parker would spend the day with
Charlotte, so that if anything did happen, which wasn’t likely, she’d be properly looked after.
Dan rode with the reins held loosely in the left hand, so Lochlann did the same. The eldest boy, Kevin, rode bareback and kept a little way back from the three men covering extra ground when he
became bored. Lochlann learned later that they had only four horses and three saddles so all the children couldn’t ride at once. This would sort itself out naturally, as Kevin was due to go
to boarding school on a bursary next term and they would all move up one, so the three-year-old would begin on the quietest pony.
They rode in a single file down to the creek, and crossed over the wooden bridge. On either side of the water lay the red earth exposed, due to years of erosion, and deeply grooved by the hooves
of cows making daily tracks over and back. The water was a greeny-brown colour, not the clear trout stream over pebbles found locally, but mud-based and churned up by the movement of the animals
who came there to drink.
Going up a steep hill was easier than going down, Lochlann discovered. He didn’t like the feeling of the horse disappearing in front of him, whereas leaning forward and having the
horse’s head higher and nearer was more reassuring.
The grass was green, the creek was full and the cows through the fence in another paddock looked fat. Four inches of rain had fallen during the previous three weeks, putting everyone in good
humour.
“Our last remaining cedar,” said Dan, pointing to a lone tree beside a spring over the next rise. “The farm used to be covered with them.”
The three could now ride abreast and talk. Kevin rode off to look at the monkey vine which swung between the earth and high branches above in the scrub. It was on the way back to join the men he
saw the cow, who had calved only a few minutes earlier by the look of it. Kevin couldn’t disguise his pleasure when he was the first one to spot it.
By the time the men got there, the calf was on its wobbly legs and sucking, its coat rippled from the mother’s licking.
“Good mother, that one. Managed well by herself again. I thought I might have to enlist your help, Doc, if she got into difficulties!”
The sky was cobalt blue, and the sunlight so strong the shadows were sharp-edged and black. There was stillness and silence except for the hum of insects, the singing of birds and the
‘swat, swat’ as the men flicked small branches to disturb the flies on their faces and arms.
“Son, you can bring in the cows.” Dan then turned to explain to Lochlann and Scottie: “It might be a bit early for them, but saves making a second trip.”
Kevin leaned over to open the gate. Not easy with one of the hinges broken. Because he took them for granted Dan didn’t remark on the skill and balance of the boy, the training of the
horse or the poor condition of the gate, cobbled together with barbed wire and fallen to one side, but Lochlann took in each detail with interest.
While Nell and the four older children did the milking, the three men drank the whiskey Lochlann had brought.
“Just as well the truck knows the way or we mightn’t make it home,” said Scottie when the time came to leave and they had clambered into it.
“You’re all right out here, but be careful close to town in case the police are out,” said Dan.
“They’ll be in bed by then,” said Scottie, “and they can’t very well take away the licence of a mailman. What would they do without me?”
“I wouldn’t bet on it.” He grinned at Lochlann. “You’ll be eating your tea off the mantelpiece, tonight, Doc.”
“I don’t feel a bit sore.”
“You will.”
After saying their goodbyes with promises to repeat the day before too long, Scottie and Lochlann took off in a spray of gravel and dust.
“You’d think those Hogan kids were your brothers and sisters, they look so like you with their dark hair and blue eyes,” said Scottie. “You must be related.”
“Oh, it’s a common Irish colouring – we call it ‘black Irish’. But perhaps we are related. I know there was a Hogan back there somewhere. My father says he’ll
do our family tree when he retires but it could be difficult with so many records destroyed in the twenties. And none kept during the worst parts of the Famine.” He was speaking slowly with
long pauses as he was nicely inebriated.
“Wouldn’t that be a coincidence if he found a mutual forebear?”
“Not really. Ireland is a small country. It would be more of a coincidence if he didn’t, when you come to think of it.”
It would please Lochlann to be directly connected to the Hogan family as he had taken a liking to all of them. Dan was hospitable and sociable in some ways, but on the whole he was locked into
his family and kept his distance from neighbours and relations. Nell was self-effacing, confident in her own home but shy outside it. The six children were all athletic, bright, capable and
attractive.
“Will the missus be cranky with you when you get back?” asked Scottie.
“Can’t think why. This is my first drink and first day off for months.”
“There you are, then. You can’t speak fairer than that. Jean had the mother visiting, so she was glad to see the back of me. I won’t come in. Give the missus my
best.”
After taking a while to open the door, Lochlann almost fell against Charlotte who was poised as if waiting for him.
“Have you been drinking?”
“Of course I have,” he beamed at her, bending to give her a kiss but missing the mark. “Best day I’ve had in ages. Scottie declined to come in, sends his regards. Drove
well, considering. Only went into the ditch twice.” He manoeuvred himself into his chair and grinned up at Charlotte. “There’s a lot to be said for living on the land. Perhaps
we’ll buy a few acres and run a couple of horses.”
“Is that the drink talking?”
“No, I mean it.” Lochlann’s speech slowed with every word. “They gave me one of the children’s horses – not a pony, mind you – and nobody laughed. Too
polite. Can’t wait for the next time.”
“You’re going again? Leaving me here all on my own?”
“You weren’t on your own. Mrs Parker was here. Besides, you were invited. You could have come.”
“I’m not moving until the baby’s born. You know that.”
“That’s your own choice. There’s no medical reason for you to stay put.”
“So you keep saying, but I’m not taking any chances. And what would I do out there anyway while you were playing cowboys? Talking to the saintly Mrs Hogan, and her million children
with all their germs?”
“Six and another on the way. Hardly a million. And they’re exceptionally healthy.” He eyed the covered plate on the back of the stove. “Dan told me I’d be eating
off the mantelpiece tonight, but I think I can manage the table.”
Charlotte picked up the plate with the meal Mrs Parker had prepared earlier, lifted it high and dropped it on the floor, saying, “Looks like you’re both wrong.”
Lochlann examined the mess of the broken china and splattered food as if it were intrinsically interesting.
“I think this calls for another drink,” he said at length, his face clearing as if he had solved a mathematical problem. He moved unsteadily across the room to take a glass and the
whiskey bottle from the dresser.
With a pulse throbbing wildly in her neck Charlotte left the room and slammed the door behind her. She lay fully clothed on the bed, trying to calm herself for the sake of the baby. Why had she
done that? she chastised herself. Why couldn’t she control her temper? Dropping the plate on the floor was the sort of thing Nurse Dixon would do and she swore long ago she would never follow
her example.
Lochlann was singing. Was he trying to remember the words or was he having mouthfuls of whiskey during the intervals when there was silence?
As Charlotte quietened, she saw the unfairness of her outburst. Today was the first time he’d taken a drink since their arrival in Redmundo, either because he took seriously his
responsibility as the only doctor, on call twenty-four hours a day, or because the consequences of his last bout had been so catastrophic. It wasn’t that she was against his drinking.
She’d actually always liked to have him drunk. It made him more approachable. What she didn’t like was the evidence that he enjoyed himself so much when he was out of her company.
“
But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow
,” Lochlann sang with feeling.
Indeterminate sounds and humming followed.