Washerwoman's Dream Page 13

  There was a chill wind blowing from the south and she shivered as she stood by the front gate, wrapping her arms around herself to keep warm. The sky was very dark and the stars hung low. She had a sudden memory of the night before they left England, when her father had tucked her into bed and said, ‘No more rats on the roof and at night the sky will sparkle with diamonds.’ The stars did look like diamonds. He had been right about that. But as for the rats, they must have followed them from London. They had come in their hundreds once they put the corn out to dry, running through the opening in the wall, over their beds at night, leaving droppings on the table, trying to burrow their way through the wooden cask to get to the flourbag, until her father moved the corn onto the roof of the ramshackle lean-to where the horses were stabled. And there were rat-traps set everywhere so that she had to be careful not to tread on them. The mice weren’t so bad and once she found a nest with five naked little pink babies curled up with their eyes closed. When she showed it to her father he had grabbed a lump of wood and clubbed them to death and then scattered the nest, kicking the bodies into a patch of grass, saying, ‘The ants’ll have a feast.’

  ‘But they were only babies,’ the girl said with tears in her eyes.

  ‘In this world it’s dog eat dog. Everything feeds off something else. It’s them or us.’

  Now as her eyes became accustomed to the light she could see the shapes of trees and the outline of the sulky. She was still angry with her father, though her mood had softened. But instead of going inside she climbed into the sulky and tried to settle herself to sleep. It was no use. Her mind kept going back to London. There was Mrs Watkins who never had anything for herself. All her earnings went on food for the family, and Aggie who wanted to get married but couldn’t afford to. Her father had kept her mother and her in comfort with clothes to wear and food to eat. She had taken it all for granted and now, when she had earned some real money and could help her father, she wanted to spend it all on herself. She had chosen to come with him to Australia … She thought of the cold in England, how her breath came out like steam when she ran to school in winter and how her hands felt as if they would fall off because they were so cold. It was cold here in winter too, but it was different. The sun shone and in the middle of the day you could walk around in the open and feel it warming your bones.

  Curled up on the hard seat of the sulky she felt chilled through. Inside was her bed with its warm blanket and pillow. She wondered if her father was still awake; the lamp had gone out a long time ago. She climbed down from the sulky, and the horses stirred. She heard an owl hooting from a gum tree beside the road and the sound of mice squeaking in the heap of corncobs drying on the roof of the stable. Then, picking her way carefully through the grass in case she trod on a snake, she made her way back to the hut, opened the door stealthily and crept into bed, where she snuggled into her blankets trying to get warm until she fell into a deep dreamless sleep.

  Her father had already left when she woke. She no longer felt angry with him and had made up her mind to let him have the money to pay off the bills, certain that she could write more stories and get paid for them until they had all the money they needed.

  When she heard her father returning in his sulky, she went and opened the gate as usual, feeling apprehensive in case he was angry with her. Instead he greeted her cheerfully and handed her a newspaper packet. ‘Be careful with those … a woman gave me some eggs. We’ll fry them up for tea.’ She shut the gate after him and took the eggs into the kitchen where she laid them carefully on the table. She got out the black iron frying pan and put some dripping in the bottom, waiting until her father had unharnessed the horses and had a wash before she put it on the fire.

  Later, he said, ‘The woman who gave me the eggs has got a sister who’s a dressmaker. She’s here on a holiday and wants to earn some money. She brought some piece goods with her. The postmistress said to bring you in on Saturday and she’ll cash your cheque. Then you can get the things you need.’

  * * *

  The news of Winifred’s success travelled along the grapevine, particularly when the editor of Life wrote, urging her to send in another story, which they subsequently published. She kept on writing, buying clothes and little luxuries with the money she earned.

  By the time she was fifteen she had become known as ‘that clever little Miss Oaten’ and found herself being invited to afternoon tea in some of the more affluent households, often staying overnight because she had no way of travelling except on foot.

  She was still shy in company but her new clothes had given her confidence, and when she was asked what she found to write about, her face lit up and her grey–green eyes shone. ‘I’m very fond of crows. If you see them sitting on a branch … they’re like people … They talk to one another, squabble, fight … They’re so beautiful. Lots of people don’t like them but I do.’

  She was at the manager’s homestead at Jondaryan where she had been invited by Mrs Williams, the manager’s wife, to meet the mother of an itinerant minister. The woman was staying at Jondaryan while her son visited the stations further out to marry couples and baptise children.

  The two women exchanged glances at Winifred’s words and Mrs Williams said, ‘Fancy that, crows now. They’re such an ugly bird. My husband shoots them, vermin he calls them … make a terrible mess of the wheat.’

  ‘But they’re still God’s creatures.’ The minister’s mother smiled at Winifred. ‘Everything in this world was created by God.’

  Winifred wanted to ask if that meant fleas, mice, rats and snakes, but she didn’t like to argue with this staid woman in her black dress and bonnet. Fleas were beastly because they burrowed into your blankets and kept you awake at night. And she hated rats. And she didn’t care for snakes. One morning she had watched a huge brown snake slide across her bed while her father whispered, ‘Don’t move or speak.’ The snake kept going until it slithered through a hole in the wall.

  She was going to tell them about the time she saw ten crows standing in a circle around a dead crow. The birds looked so solemn that she thought they must be holding a funeral, but then she looked at the minister’s mother and decided she might not like it. She was intimidated by her, though she liked Mrs Williams and often spent the night at the station telling stories to the children, tucking them into bed and walking back home after breakfast. And when Mrs Williams had her last baby Winifred stayed for six weeks.

  Now Mrs Williams turned to her. ‘Winifred, be a dear, run into the kitchen and get another cup and saucer. Mr Williams said he’d be in for tea.’

  The young woman did as she was asked and was on the way down the hall to the sitting room when she heard the older woman say, ‘She’s a clever little thing and nicely spoken. Who are her people?’

  ‘Oh, she doesn’t have people as such, only a father. He does a few painting jobs for my husband. When there’s no work here he travels around doing odd jobs. He’s got a small holding. They came from London. I try to have her over as often as I can.’

  ‘Well, I hope she finds a good husband … she’s got a nice way with her and such a pretty face.’

  Then they heard her coming and changed the subject.

  Winifred enjoyed walking round Jondaryan, watching the shearers and the blacksmith working at his forge. There was the smell of fresh bread from the bakery, and they killed their own meat so that there was fresh meat every night and fresh eggs for breakfast. Sometimes she walked the children, who were not yet at school, down to the dairy to watch the cows being milked and to drink a tumbler of warm foamy milk. Other times she took them to a paddock where yellow daisies grew among the lucerne and showed them how to make daisy chains.

  Everyone called her Miss Oaten and she felt very grownup. One day she was invited to a party at Jondaryan. She wore her dimity dress and joined in the dancing, thinking back to that first dance when she had run away because everyone had laughed at her in her peculiar black dress. Now young men wanted to talk to her, and
she was flattered when Charles, the young man who played the piano accordion for the dances, invited her onto the verandah to take supper with him.

  ‘I haven’t seen you at the dances before,’ he said as he handed her a glass of lemon cordial and a slice of cream sponge on a plate.

  ‘I’ve been working in Toowoomba,’ she replied. ‘Now I live with my father near Bowenville. I’m staying at the homestead.’

  ‘I’ve been watching you. I like the way you move … as if you’ve got music in your soul. And you’ve got the most beautiful eyes.’

  Winifred felt the colour rising in her cheeks. No one had ever spoken to her like that before. He was older than she was, with a lean, strong body and a suntanned face, and she felt his grey eyes gazing into hers as if he could read her thoughts. She felt tongue-tied, not knowing how to answer.

  ‘Can I walk you home?’

  ‘But it’s only across the paddock to the house.’

  ‘We’ll go the long way,’ and he laughed, seeing her confusion, then undid the blue ribbon she had tied around her hair and tucked it into his pocket. ‘Wait for me out here.’ Then he went back to the makeshift stage where the people crowded around eagerly waiting for the music to begin again.

  She remained where she was, listening to the music and gazing across the paddock to where hurricane lamps glowed on fence posts. The night had begun to close in and it looked like rain. Mrs Williams came to the door. ‘There you are, my dear. They’ve finished their supper. Would you help me carry the things back to the house. There’s some cakes left … the children will have a feast tomorrow.’

  Winifred did as she was asked and was in bed when she heard the sound of horses leaving and people saying goodbye. She wondered if the young man had waited for her on the verandah; she felt a little disappointed, yet was glad that she had come back early, not sure what he had meant about taking her the long way home and sensing that Mrs Williams would not have approved.

  Winifred stayed on at Jondaryan after the dance, knowing she was welcome, the days lengthening into weeks, not admitting to herself that she was hoping to meet the young man again.

  Mrs Williams was glad of her help and gave the girl an old riding habit which she had altered to fit, then told the stablehand to find her a quiet horse so that she could go riding with the children.

  It was a blissful time for Winifred as she rode through the paddocks in the early morning, once going down past the shearers’ huts that lined the river bank in the hope of catching a glimpse of the young man from the dance. Instead she was embarrassed to see so many men sitting naked to the waist with their shaving mugs and razors, trimming their beards. And further out in the river she could see men swimming, and fancied they were naked. She heard one man say, ‘That’s a fine filly,’ and wasn’t sure whether he was talking about her or her horse. She turned and flicked the reins and her bay mare cantered away.

  That night over dinner Mr Williams said, ‘There’s a young man in the woolshed asking after you.’

  Winifred felt her colour rise and concentrated on eating her slice of baked jam roll.

  ‘His name’s Charles Steger. I think he’s sweet on you,’ Mr Williams laughed. Then, seeing her confusion, he changed the subject and began to talk about the wool clip.

  The next day her father sent over a message that he needed her at home.

  * * *

  Winifred missed the comforts of life at Jondaryan and the sound of the children’s voices as they clustered around her bed in the morning, hoping for a story. Now she had to fend for herself, make her own bread, eat a solitary meal with only the crickets for company and the sound of cattle moving through the grass. Her father had bought a mob of cattle. He wanted her to look after them while he was away working in the far north-west. He had also bought two horses so that she could muster the cattle and ride into town for supplies.

  She had objected bitterly when she found out her father was planning to leave her there to manage alone. ‘I know nothing about cattle!’ she cried.

  ‘You don’t need to know anything. All you have to do is to watch that they don’t get out. I’ll be back when it’s time to get them to the saleyards. It’s been a good season. There’s plenty of feed. If I can make some money I can improve the property.’

  It was a hard and lonely life for the young girl. She was afraid of the cattle and found the horses were difficult to look after. Sometimes she tethered them on a long rope, afraid to let them loose in case they swam across the creek that bounded their property on one side, or got caught up in the prickly pear that had taken over the back of the land. She knew that if one of the sharp spikes of the pear penetrated the horses’ kneecaps they would go lame. Then there would be nothing to be done except wait for the spike to work its way out the other side, and that could take months.

  Her father sent her money from time to time so that she could buy chaff for the horses to supplement the grass, which was over her head in some places, though the cattle soon ate it down to a stubble — then she had to move them to another part of the property until the grass grew again. The slight young woman found it difficult, seated on a horse that had a mind of his own, to move the beasts, many of them wild cattle that had escaped into the prickly pear and found their way onto the road. Unlike the horses the cattle were impervious to the prickly pear because of their thick hides.

  Each night before she turned out the kerosene lamp Winifred would thank God that she was still alive. Once a bull calf went berserk and charged her horse, grazing him on the side. The horse gave a dreadful whinny of pain and bolted towards the house. He cleared the sliprail in one bound and went galloping along the dirt road while she pulled on the reins, calling, ‘Whoa! Whoa, Ginger!’ until the horse ran under a low-spreading tree and she was thrown off. The horse came to a halt about a hundred yards away. When Winifred had recovered from the spill she limped to where Ginger was standing, foam around his mouth and a deep red gash in his side from the horn of the bull. Weak and trembling, Winifred led him along the road and back into their property, where she put him in the stable and filled his nosebag with chaff, wiping the sweat from his coat and shooing away the flies that were worrying the open wound. Then she went into the hut and returned with a handful of dripping, which she spread on the horse’s flank to cover the cut, not knowing what else to do.

  The incident frightened her and made her angry because her father had left her there to cope alone with fences that had gaping holes, a mixture of tame and wild cattle which she had no hope of controlling, and two stupid horses that were impossible to ride. When she went inside the hut to make herself a meagre meal that night, she put her head on the table and wept tears of frustration and rage.

  Her father came home on Christmas Eve. She had made no special preparations, not expecting him, and was surprised when she heard him call out, ‘Come and open the sliprails. I’ve got a surprise for you.’

  The surprise turned out to be a dingo pup. He handed the pup down to her from the sulky and she took the small creature in her arms. He was thin, with yellow eyes, and she regarded him with mixed feelings. She would have preferred something small and fluffy like a kitten.

  ‘He’s from a wild litter. I got him from one of the natives where I was working in exchange for a few twists of tobacco. He won’t need feeding. He can fend for himself, there’s plenty of rabbits.’

  Winifred put the dog down and he ran round in circles, sniffing the ground. She began to laugh and her father joined in. ‘I thought you might be lonely here by yourself. The dog’ll be company and he can keep the cattle in order.’ He took a length of rope out of the sulky and fastened the dog to a tree near the hut. ‘He can stay there until he gets used to the place, otherwise he might run off.’

  The girl picked up an empty tin from the pile of rubbish behind the hut and filled it with water from the tank. As soon as she put it beside the dog, he began to lap thirstily. ‘There’s a star called after a dog … But Sirius is too big a word for a little s
crap like you … I’ll call you Star,’ and she bent and patted him.

  Then she followed her father into the hut where he unpacked his swag. First he put a pudding tied in a cloth on the table. ‘A plum duff the cook made, and here’s a shoulder of smoked bacon from when they killed a pig. And I picked up some chops from the butcher on the way through. We’d best eat them tonight before they go off in the heat. The dog can have the scraps.’

  As she listened to her father Winifred thought he seemed happier than she’d seen him for a long time. Once they had eaten he carried two chairs outside where it was cool and lit a little fire downwind, piling on green leaves so that the smoke would keep the mosquitoes away. And then he lit his pipe and lapsed into silence.

  To Winifred it seemed as if they were the only two people in the world as she sat listening to the ripple of sound from the bush, the once alien calls that had now become part of her life. A frog croaked in the water tank. An owl hooted in a gum tree, the horses stirred in the barn. The only new sound was that of the puppy which began to whimper when a dingo howled in the distance, until he finally settled back to sleep.

  Wilfred blew a cloud of smoke from his pipe. ‘Things have been hard for you here on your own. It won’t be for much longer. I’m making good money and in a little while I’ll be able to build a better house. But first I need to fence in another paddock and get some dairy cows — now that the cheese factory’s opened there’s a good market. They tell me they’re sending cheese to England.’

  ‘It’s a long way. Won’t it go bad?’

  ‘Not as long as it goes in the coolroom.’

  ‘Would you like to go back to England?’

  ‘No, there’s nothing there for me.’

  ‘What about my mother?’ Winifred was surprised at her temerity. ‘Why didn’t she come with us?’