Washerwoman's Dream Read online

  Wilfred secured the horse to a post and led the two women through the double doors. The music had just stopped and men and women were returning to their seats. Framed in the doorway in her black dress Winifred was conspicuous and she was conscious of people staring at her and then a wave of suppressed mirth.

  Winifred gazed back at the women in light-coloured dresses that ended at their calves, with their necks bare and flowers at their waist and hair. She was suddenly conscious of how she looked in comparison. She moved closer to her aunt, who said, ‘Come along, Winifred. The music will be starting soon. We’ll have to find you a partner.’ They found seats along the wall, while Wilfred went to join a group of men who were standing talking.

  The music started and the master of ceremonies began to call for people to form a set for an eightsome reel. Winifred watched as young men approached young women, taking them by the hand and leading them to the centre of the hall. The music started and she sat beside her aunt, knowing that her dress was all wrong, certain that people were laughing at her as they danced past.

  Later, when a woman came and sat next to her aunt and they began to talk, Winifred stood quietly and made her way out the door into the night. She passed the glowing poles that lined the driveway until she reached the road and began to walk home. It was here her father found her sometime later, her face streaked with tears, certain that what her uncle had said about her was true: she was a great ugly thing that no one would want.

  * * *

  Wilfred was home for a few days, angry when he saw that there had been no advance in the clearing of the prickly pear since William had arrived; if anything, the pest was worse. He took his older brother to task. ‘I thought you’d be a help to me but all you’ve done is eat your head off at my expense. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.’

  ‘Ah, no, little brother, the boot’s on the other foot. It’s you who ought to be ashamed of yourself. You live like a peasant, you who were brought up in a decent God-fearing home where you were taught manners, how to dress, how to live like a gentleman. Look at you now … and as for that daughter of yours, she’d frighten the crows. Lydia has tried to do what she can but that girl’s a lost cause. My wife is different, she’s a lady. It was an insult to bring her here.’

  ‘Hush, dear,’ and Lydia put her hand on her husband’s arm, but he shook it off. ‘Keep out of this. This is between my brother and me.’ William stepped up to his younger brother and, pointing his finger at him, said, ‘The best thing you can do is to pack your bags, go back to England. See if your wife’ll have you back … that’s if she hasn’t found someone else by now.’

  Before his brother could answer William began to walk briskly down the road, while Wilfred leapt into his sulky, whipped up his horse and galloped off in the opposite direction.

  Lydia went into the hut where Winifred was sobbing on the bed. She held the girl in her arms, saying, ‘Hush, child. It’s nothing. Men often have their arguments but they blow over. Tomorrow they’ll be laughing about it.’

  Neither of the men returned for dinner, and the two women ate a solitary meal of cold mutton, and bread and treacle washed down with strong black tea. There was a feeling of sadness in the air. Even the sound of a cricket singing in the corner could not enliven the gloom. Lydia made an effort at conversation. ‘A cricket singing on the hearth means good luck. In China the children keep crickets in little cages like some people keep canaries.’

  Winifred did not respond. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying. She gave her aunt a lacklustre look and went and lay down on her bed without saying goodnight.

  Lydia washed the dishes and put the meat into the meat safe, then she stood the treacle tin back in its dish of water to protect it from ants. She took up her crochet hook and began to work on a lace tablecloth she was making to fit the bark table. When she heard her husband at the door she took the lamp and went to meet him.

  ‘Pack your things, Lydia. I’ve booked two seats on tomorrow’s coach. I’ve taken rooms in town and I’ve made an appointment to meet the land agent.’

  Winifred heard the news at breakfast. Her father had returned sometime in the night but, exhausted, she had slept through the sound of the sulky pulling up. She could only stare at her aunt, wondering how she would survive without her gentle presence. As soon as breakfast was over she washed the dishes and then, instead of waiting to help her aunt pack, set off for the creek where she sat for a long while wondering what would become of her now.

  The girl thought of her uncle’s words — that she would frighten the crows — and knew it wasn’t true. Often when she was quiet by the creek a crow would come and perch beside her on a tree, regarding her with its bright eyes as she talked to it. She watched some green ants running up and down the trunk of a sapling and felt the warmth of the sun on her face. The sky was blue and cloudless and a fresh breeze rustled through the reeds, where a few ducks were dabbling as they searched for food. Suddenly she felt at peace with herself. Her aunt was leaving but she would see her again. Even if Uncle William hated her, Aunt Lydia loved her and she loved her aunt. She turned and began to hurry, worried that her aunt may have already left before they had a chance to say goodbye.

  She met her aunt halfway down the track. ‘Dear heart,’ Lydia said. ‘I thought I might have to leave without saying goodbye.’ She took Winifred by the hand. ‘Don’t fret, chéri. Once we’re settled you can come and visit. We couldn’t have stayed here forever and neither can you. You need to be with people in a proper house where you can learn to become a young lady.’

  It was a tearful farewell for Winifred as she watched the coach disappear in a cloud of dust, taking her aunt and uncle with it. Gone were the pink shaded lamp, the Spanish shawls, the silver teapot and, worst of all, gentle Lydia who had taken the place of her mother.

  Her father was not there to say goodbye and the girl stood by the side of the road disconsolately until she heard the sound of her father’s sulky. She watched as he threw the reins over the hitching post.

  Instead of greeting her he glowered at her. ‘What are you staring at? Get inside and light the stove.’

  She hurried into the hut, put half a loaf of bread and some prickly pear jelly on the table and boiled the black kettle, making the tea in the billy can. Then she put two mugs and plates on the bark table and waited for her father to come inside.

  He ate in sullen silence, and when he had finished, said, ‘You’re old enough to start work. I’ve found you a job and I’ve bought another block of land. We’ll be out of here by the end of the week.’ Before she could ask him any questions he left the table and went outside, where he stood smoking his pipe.

  9

  THE SKIVVY

  ON THE DAY THEY WERE to leave the prickly pear ranch, as her father called it, Winifred packed her clothes into a bundle and climbed into the sulky beside him. She began to cry as the horse drew away, looking back with longing at the little hut that had been their home for three years, thinking of her Aunt Lydia who had transformed it into a home with her pretty things, wondering if she would ever see her again.

  She felt her father’s eyes on her once or twice until he said, ‘It’s a two-day journey ahead of us and I don’t want you snivelling all the way. I want you to make a good impression. Where you’re going they’re only taking you as a favour to me. You’ll be helping in a shop among other things. They’ll expect you to smile.’

  Winifred turned towards her father and put her hand on his arm. ‘Please … Can’t I stay with you? I don’t want to go to a strange place to work.’

  He turned to face the front and said firmly, ‘No.’ Then he whipped up the horse and, holding the reins tightly, began to draw on his pipe.

  Winifred studied his face. His lips were turned down and he was frowning and she knew that she had no hope of making him change his mind. She thought about Uncle William’s outburst when he had told her father to go back to England. Unbidden, the words rose to her tongue: ‘I hate you … I want to go
home … to England … to my mother.’

  Her father turned towards her and the expression on his face frightened her. He raised his whip and flicked it sideways. She gave a cry of pain as it wrapped around her shoulders, biting through her thin cotton dress. Then he pulled on the reins, brought the sulky to a halt and gathered her in his arms.

  ‘Can’t you understand? There is no going back. The past is over … You have to grow up, learn to fend for yourself. Where I’m taking you you’ll be taught how to keep house … sleep between clean sheets. Then, in a few years’ time, you can get a proper job at ten shillings a week until you find someone to marry you.’

  He reached behind him and took a piece of damper out of a cloth. He poured a drink of water into a tin mug and handed it to her. ‘We’ll stop here for a few minutes, give the horse a spell.’ He jumped from the sulky and led the horse to the side of the road where there was a small patch of grass. Winifred followed disconsolately after him.

  It was late the next day when they arrived at Toowoomba, a rundown shop in front of a dwelling run by a Mrs Sybil. Winifred’s heart sank when she was led inside by her father and introduced to a stout woman with dyed red hair who called her father ‘ducky’. She smiled at the child through blackened front teeth but there was no corresponding smile in her eyes.

  ‘You must call me Mother Sybil.’ She put her arms around the girl and looked across at Wilfred. ‘She’ll be like a daughter to me … Don’t worry about her. I’ll take good care of her.’

  Then she held the girl at arm’s length, taking in the skimpy cotton dress, the thin frame, the small breasts. ‘I was expecting someone more mature. How old is she?’

  ‘Fourteen,’ her father lied. ‘She’s small for her age.’

  They sat together in the parlour with Mrs Sybil and drank tea and ate thinly sliced buttered bread while Wilfred talked about the block of land he was buying where he planned to run a few cattle and take a few outside painting jobs.

  ‘You’re a marvel,’ the woman simpered. ‘You’ll be rich as houses before you know it, won’t he, my love?’ and she patted Winifred on the knee, her lips parted in a thin smile, ‘and then he’ll take you to England to meet the Queen. I can just see you in a white satin gown with long white feathers on your head … You’ll marry some handsome man just like your dad. Now run along to the shop. There’s a tray of home-made toffees. Help yourself.’

  The girl was glad to escape. She made her way through the hall to the front of the shop where there were a few fans and shawls and on top of the counter a tray of sticky toffees wrapped in paper. She took one, removed it from the paper and began to suck, feeling soothed by the sweetness on her tongue. Then she went back into the hall and heard Mrs Sybil say, ‘Will you take a drop then? I always have a little something at night. It keeps the damp out of my bones … There’s always mist at the top of the range.’

  As Winifred stood at the door of the parlour she saw Mrs Sybil lift a stone jar off the mantelpiece and pour some clear liquid into her father’s tea cup and then into her own. Her father lifted his cup in the air, ‘To your bright eyes,’ he said as he drained it in one gulp. ‘Now I must be off. I’ve a long trip ahead of me.’

  Winifred was seized by a feeling of terror. She knew that at any moment her father would get to his feet and drive away, leaving her with this raddled hag with the atrocious red hair, who she knew had no intention of treating her like one of the family. As Wilfred rose to his feet she clung to his hand and followed him down the dark hall, through the shop with its shawls and fans and the tray of home-made toffees, to where he had hitched the sulky. She threw her arms around his knees and clung to him as he tried to get in the sulky, begging him to take her with him.

  He pushed her roughly to one side and said between clenched teeth, ‘Behave yourself! If you make a show of me I’ll tan the hide off you.’

  She released her hold and with tears streaming down her cheeks watched as he whipped up the horse and rattled down the street.

  That night, as she lay between two blankets on a stretcher on a back verandah, where a length of hessian served as a blind and mosquitoes buzzed around her face, she wished with all her heart that she was back in their little hut on the Downs. Later she heard a sound that she was to hear often during the coming nights — the sound of men’s voices and women’s laughter. Winifred never knew what went on in the upstairs rooms because she was not allowed inside the house once she had gone to bed.

  Each morning she was expected to rise early, wash herself at a tap in the yard, get dressed and light the fire. She’d boil the kettle to make a pot of tea and toast some bread, which she carried upstairs to where Mother Sybil would be waiting, her hair in curling papers, a crimson shawl around her shoulders. Winifred would put the tea tray on a table beside the bed and draw back the red silk curtains, pausing briefly to glance at the mist rising from the valley, listening for the whistle of the steam train as it laboured up the Toowoomba Ranges, until Mother Sybil would say, ‘There’s work to do. I don’t pay you to stand around.’

  The girl would stoop and pick up the chamber pot under the bed, then carry it downstairs to empty into the slop bucket at the door, before rinsing it under the tap in the yard and returning it to the upstairs room where she placed it in the commode. Sometimes there were chamber pots to empty in other rooms and beds to make. Once this was done Winifred returned to the kitchen and filled a jug with hot water, which she carried upstairs and poured into the washbasin decorated with red poppies to match the chamber pot.

  Winifred was free for a few minutes after this while Mother Sybil dressed. She could indulge herself with toasted bread and jam and no one to see how much she ate. She would wash it down with a cup of tea with milk and three teaspoons of sugar, rising hurriedly to wash the dishes when she heard Mother Sybil’s footsteps on the stairs and her voice calling, ‘You’re not still in the kitchen? There’s the shop to be dusted … and I’ve a batch of toffees to make. I hope you haven’t been helping yourself to the sugar.’

  On Saturday the older woman took a bath. It fell to Winifred to carry the jugs of hot water out to the bathhouse in the backyard. Once she peeped through the cracks and was amazed at the sight of the woman’s body overflowing the bathtub, her breasts swinging as she leaned forward to scrub her back. The girl found it hard to reconcile this almost mystical being, her body glistening white like some exotic sea creature, with the red-haired harridan in the tight corsets who scolded her and sometimes slapped her across the face if she burnt a saucepan or let the milk boil over when she was making a custard.

  Thinking about it in bed, an image floated into her mind of a night in Lambeth when it had been too hot to sleep, and she had crept downstairs to see if her parents were still awake. She had opened the door a crack and seen her father bending over her mother, who was sitting naked in a tin tub of water while he washed her back. And then she saw him lean forward and kiss her on the shoulder. Her mother looked up at him and smiled and her father gathered her in a towel and carried her to bed.

  The child tiptoed back upstairs. When she woke the next morning she could not be sure whether or not it was a dream. Now she wondered whether her father still loved her mother and if he was unhappy at losing her. He had told her there was no going back, that the past was dead. Perhaps her mother was dead too and that’s what he meant. She had thought her mother might have written a letter but then she wouldn’t know where to send it. Winifred wished now she’d stayed in England. Even if her mother had died, Mrs Watkins would have looked after her.

  Winifred had a lone friend in the man who came once a week to empty the lavatory pan. She would listen for the sound of his cart rattling down the street until it was close enough to smell. The first time the man called he caught her inside the privy, reading from the scraps of cut-up newspaper that served as lavatory paper. He pulled open the trapdoor in the back, ready to slide out the pan and replace it with an empty one, but retreated to the corner of the yard where he sq
uatted on the ground, chewing a grass stalk, until she emerged looking around to see where he was. He raised his cap, ‘Mornin’, miss. Nice day, ain’t it? You must be the new skivvy.’

  Winifred watched as he slid out the full pan and replaced it with an empty one. Then, with the heavy pan on his grey-flannel-clad shoulder, he grinned at her and ran down the passage, back into the street where she heard the rattle of the pans in the back of the cart as the horse moved slowly along the road.

  Once he brought a boy with him. He was about her own age and the two exchanged glances. Winifred gave him a toffee from the shop, hoping that Mother Sybil wouldn’t notice; but at the end of the week, when she normally received a few pence, the woman said, ‘That’s five toffees you’ve had this week, including the one you gave the sanitary carter’s son. You’ll get no money this week — you’ve eaten it all.’

  The girl had been promised two shilling a week when her father had left her there. Later she was told it was too much. ‘You’re only worth a shilling a week but I’ll be generous and make it one and threepence.’

  * * *

  When her father wrote that he would be in the area and would come to visit, Winifred waited nervously, hoping that if she could speak to him privately and tell him how she was being treated he would take her away. But on the morning of his visit Mother Sybil told Winifred to have a bath. The girl was embarrassed when the woman came into the bathhouse while she was sitting there naked and dropped a handful of bath salts into the water before scrubbing her back and washing her hair, rinsing it with a tin dipper of warm water.

  Later Winifred stood shame-faced, while Mother Sybil rubbed her breasts and thighs with a white towel, patting the pubic hair that had begun to sprout and saying, ‘You’re coming along nicely. Once you get rid of the dirt you’re a pretty little thing. We’ll make something of you yet.’