Washerwoman's Dream Read online

  Her father was silent for a while, drawing on his pipe and looking into the distance. ‘She said … she said I was too much of a Don Juan for her. And she wouldn’t take any more of it. That’s what she said to me before she left the ship.’

  Winifred saw him swallow and for a moment she thought he was going to cry. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘She said I looked at other women, but I didn’t, I loved your mother. She didn’t love me. We only stayed together because of you.’

  ‘Did she love me?’

  Wilfred rose and went inside the hut, returning with a bottle of whisky and a glass. He poured some of the liquid into the glass and drank it down in one gulp. ‘I don’t know … I really don’t know. She gave you life, perhaps that’s all we should expect.’

  That night Winifred dreamt she was back in London walking beside Mrs Watkins with her barrow. It was Christmas Eve and the shops were glowing with coloured candles and there was mistletoe. Suddenly an urchin ran up and kissed Mrs Watkins on the cheek and called, ‘Happy Christmas!’

  ‘Be off with you, you little rascal,’ and she threw a speckled apple at him, which he caught and began to bite into while juice ran down his chin. Mrs Watkins walked on, laughing. And then Winifred saw her mother hurrying ahead. Her father caught up with her and tried to take her arm, but Louisa shook him off. Winifred could tell that she was angry.

  When she woke in the morning her father was still asleep. She remembered that it was Christmas Day. She heard the sound of the puppy whimpering and ran outside, where she saw the empty whisky bottle lying on its side. She carried it around to the pile of rubbish and then ran over to the little dog and hugged him.

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ she said. ‘You don’t know anything about that, but there’s a nice bacon bone for your lunch and a piece of plum duff.’

  On New Year’s Eve they were invited to Jondaryan to celebrate Hogmanay. Winifred dressed carefully, brushing her hair until it shone, and tying it with a red ribbon. She pinched her cheeks to put colour in them and bit her lips to make them red. She was filled with anticipation at seeing Charles Steger again, but she was disappointed. Someone played the pipes for dancing, and though she enjoyed the Eightsome Reels and the Dashing White Sergeant, without Charles the evening fell flat.

  * * *

  It was six weeks before Wilfred went away again. He spent the time repairing fences while Winifred tried to hold the wire taut as he hammered in small pieces of wire which he twisted into barbs with a pair of pliers, railing at her when the wire twisted out of her hands, until she would dissolve into tears and run back to the hut while he called after her, ‘You’re not worth your salt.’

  Every day he made her take the horses for a run. ‘You have to let them know who’s boss. I can’t afford to keep lazy beasts hanging around the paddocks all day, eating their heads off when there’s work to be done.’

  If she had a fall he’d make her get on again, until one day she said angrily, ‘It’s all right for you. You don’t have to ride a horse. You drive around in your sulky like the King of England.’

  He gave her a stinging blow on the leg with a stick. Instead of crying she stood and faced him. ‘I may be your daughter but I am also a woman. I don’t deserve to be hit. You have made my life hell. Taken me from a place I liked … Mrs Williams was kind to me. No wonder my mother left you.’

  Wilfred stared after her as she went into the hut and came out dressed in her riding habit. She went into the paddock and caught Ginger and put the saddle and bridle on him, then led the horse to the sliprails while her father stood watching. ‘Open the sliprails,’ she said and he obeyed. Without saying goodbye she kicked the horse’s rump and Ginger went cantering down the road in the direction of Jondaryan.

  Later she marvelled at her actions and how Ginger had obeyed her. She reasoned that it was because she had been so angry, too angry to be afraid of the horse, too angry to be afraid of her father. She could earn her own living, except that he needed her to look after the cattle for him. It was always what she could do for him. He had never considered her needs — to go to school, to have books to read and people to talk to.

  They never mentioned the quarrel again. She returned home the next morning wondering if he would still be there. When he heard the sound of her horse outside he came out of the hut, opened the sliprails and helped her to dismount. ‘We’re out of bread,’ was all he said. ‘There’s some damper if you’re hungry. The fire’s going and the billy’s on the boil.’

  She changed into her working clothes and made some tea, carrying it down to the paddock where her father was working, calling to Star to follow her, though he went streaking in the opposite direction after a rabbit instead.

  Before he left her father said, ‘I don’t know when I’ll be back. It’s a long way to where I’m going. Way past Charleville and I can’t drive the horse too hard … There’s a good job waiting for me. There’ll be odd jobs to do and I’ll be helping the manager hand out the rations and doing the ordering. I’d take you with me if you weren’t needed to mind this place. If you want anything you can always ride over to Jondaryan. But you mustn’t leave the place, not overnight. The dog’ll keep you company.’

  Winifred stood at the sliprails, holding the lantern as her father drove through and onto the dirt road, with Ginger tethered to the sulky. ‘Because I need a spare horse,’ he had said.

  She kept quiet, knowing that he always did what suited him, without any thought for her, angry that he had taken her best horse.

  Now he paused and, leaning down, touched her lightly on the head with the handle of his whip. ‘Be good,’ he said and then he called to the horses and they went trotting down the road and out of sight.

  She heard Star growling and whistled, and the dog came bounding through the bush and lay panting at her feet. Winifred bent to pat him and he licked her face. ‘You’re all I’ve got now, Star. You mustn’t run away and leave me.’

  He followed her down the path to the hut, where she tied him up beside the door. Then she went inside. The sun had risen and she blew out the lamp and put it on the table beside the remains of her father’s hurried breakfast. Instead of washing the dishes, and putting the bread away, as she normally did, she threw herself on her bed and, seething with rage and resentment, began to weep bitterly.

  11

  FALLING IN LOVE

  THE NEXT WEEK WINIFRED RODE into town on Topsy, the horse her father had left her. Winifred knew it would be a slow ride because the old mare would travel in circles and go down on one leg if they met anyone on a horse. When she had asked her father about Topsy he had said, ‘I got her for a song. She was trained in a circus. The owners had a soft spot for her and threw the saddle in. She’ll do — you just have to learn how to handle her.’

  The horse was in a docile mood and they met no one else on the road. By the time they got to town Winifred felt very relaxed and she patted the old horse as she tied her to the hitching post in front of the post office. She was hoping for a letter from Shaw Fitchett. But she was disappointed. She had sent in a story about her life with the cattle. It was the first piece she had written for a long time because she had been kept so busy. Now, with the fences mended the cattle no longer strayed, and she occupied herself by writing, finding that it helped her overcome her feeling of isolation.

  As she was leaving the building she paused to read a notice advertising a dance at the local hall on Saturday. She read it a second time. The idea of going to a dance tempted her. Except for riding into town to check the mail and buy supplies, she met no one. She knew her father would not approve of her going alone to a dance, but she put that thought out of her mind. He was far away and would never find out.

  When she arrived at the dance she felt sorry she had come. Standing alone at the door she felt shy and awkward, trying to pluck up the courage to go in. And then she saw Charles Steger. He was playing the accordion and her heart began to beat faster. He looked up and smiled, and beckoned to he
r to come in. With heightened colour she skirted the dancers until she was beside him. There was a vacant chair and she sat down until someone asked her to dance and she joined in.

  Later Charles asked if he could ride home with her and so they set off, her horse going down on one leg whenever they met a horse coming the other way, until Charles took the reins and pulled savagely on Topsy’s bit. He brought his horse to a halt and lifted Winifred onto his mount’s back then set off again, Charles holding Topsy’s reins in one hand while Winifred gripped him round the waist. Each time Topsy went down on one leg he struck the horse with his whip, making Winifred flinch.

  ‘It’s the only thing they understand. You’ve got to let them see who’s boss,’ he said.

  When they reached Winifred’s gate, Charles let down the sliprail and led Topsy into the stable, where she lashed out with one leg and narrowly missed him. ‘Mein Gott, that horse’s not fit to ride!’ he said. ‘I’ll come over some time and give it a lesson it won’t forget.’

  Then he lifted Winifred down and she was assailed with the raw male smell of him — of sweat and tobacco and horseflesh — as he held her to him briefly. ‘Next week I’ll call for you in the waggon. I’ll ask my father to lend it to me.’

  She whistled to Star who came bounding through the paddock and began to dance around her legs until Charles put out his hand and the dog drew back and snarled. ‘Where did you get this vermin?’ he asked, kicking out with his foot. ‘I’ve a good mind to shoot it.’

  Winifred bent and put her arms around the little dog. ‘My father gave him to me, he’s mine.’

  ‘Your father should have known better. Dingoes are no good. They kill sheep, goats, chickens. The government pays people to shoot them, and there’s a dingo fence to keep them out. You won’t have him long. You’ll find his scalp hanging on someone’s belt.’

  Winifred stared at him, a stricken look on her face.

  ‘Don’t worry. As soon as he’s old enough he’ll run off to join the pack.’ He bent and kissed the tip of her nose. ‘I can see there’s a lot I have to teach you.’ He walked out the gate, closing it behind him, and jumped on his horse. With a flourish of his whip and a wide grin he went galloping down the road.

  The dances in the district continued, with Winifred a familiar figure at Charles’s side, until she soon became known as Charlie’s girl. The first time she heard it her heart swelled with pride.

  At first he said goodbye at the sliprail, until one night there was a heavy storm. He drove the waggon through the gate and ran with Winifred into the hut to take shelter from the rain. She made some tea and sliced some bread while he waited for the thunder and lightning to abate.

  It was still raining an hour later, the sound of thunder combining with the noise of rain on the tin roof, the little hut lit by sheets of vivid lightning one minute and then only the flickering light from the candle the next. A wind sprang up and a shutter blew open. Winifred jumped onto her bed, struggling to close the shutter until Charles leant across and pulled it tight. Then he turned her to face him and she found herself in his arms. She made no attempt to free herself, feeling the heat rising in her body as he began to kiss her face, her throat, her hands. Then he pulled her down onto the bed and she felt powerless to resist as he undressed her, whispering, ‘I love you. I love you. I love you.’

  When she woke the next morning he had gone and she wondered if she had dreamt it, until she saw her clothes lying in a puddle of water on the floor where the rain had trickled in under the door. She looked outside. Steam was rising from the ground as the sun drew up the moisture and the grass glistened with dew. She put on her riding habit and went to the barn to saddle the horse. Then she rode to the bottom boundary where she could hear Star worrying the cattle, her heart singing as she remembered the night before and the sound of Charles’s voice whispering, ‘I love you.’

  Winifred was to see Charles twice more when he came to call for her in the waggon to take her to a dance. She had made up her mind not to ask him into the house again until they had made plans for their wedding, but when he stopped by the side of the road and held her in his arms and kissed her, before laying her down on blankets in the back of the waggon, she was unable to resist, knowing that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. She had fallen hopelessly in love, and her whole life centred around Charles and how soon she would see him again.

  And then, without any warning, he stopped coming. She waited for him by the gate, running out each time she heard the sound of horses’ hooves; she even enquired after him at the store, where she was told that he had gone away with a team to prepare for shearing. Though she refused to admit it to herself, she could not block out the thought that he had deserted her.

  Weeks went by and she began to feel sick in the morning, putting it down to her disappointment that Charles had not written. But then her waistline began to thicken and she was seized with terror. She knew that she was going to have a child and, even worse, her lover had abandoned her. She wondered how she could have been so foolish. She had done wrong and now she was going to be punished.

  She remembered hearing snatches of whispered conversations between her mother and Mrs Watkins and she tried to remember the remedies they had talked about. She’d heard of a man in Lambeth who fixed women up and how a girl who worked at the steam laundry with Aggie had been to see him and died and they found her body floating in the Thames.

  Winifred had no one she could go to for advice. She had not seen her Aunt Lydia since she and William had left her father’s house. And in any case she would be too ashamed to show herself, knowing that Uncle William would find out and sneer at her. There was Mrs Williams at Jondaryan, but she knew she could never face her. The only other person was the postmistress who had cashed her cheque, but she was a gossip who couldn’t keep a secret.

  She became a recluse, letting the cattle wander at will, living on tea and damper when her supply of tinned goods had run out. She still nursed the hope that Charles would return once the shearing had finished and they would be married and all would be well, until one night she woke from a vivid dream. She had been on her bay mare, flying high above the trees, her hair streaming in the wind. Far below she could see the cattle standing in her father’s paddock, the smoke curling lazily from the chimney of their hut, and beyond it the creek, brown after rain. As her horse carried her higher and higher she laughed, feeling an incredible sense of lightness. She was free. Behind her she could hear Charles on his black stallion and she glanced over her shoulder, her eyes sparkling, daring him to catch her. She heard his laughter and the crack of his stockwhip. Then she felt an incredible pain as the whip snaked around her waist. The next thing she was falling. She woke with a feeling of unease, wondering how she would manage if Charles didn’t return.

  Winifred was seven months’ pregnant when her father returned home. She was lying down in the hut when she heard the sound of horses at the front gate. For a moment she imagined that Charles had returned. Charles who had told her she was beautiful … words that touched her heart because he loved her. She thought back to her pride when she had heard people say, ‘That’s Charlie’s girl,’ knowing herself to be wanted and loved. Everything was going to be all right. He had come to get her.

  She smoothed her hair and took off the apron made of sugar bags which she had wrapped around her spreading figure, feeling clumsy and awkward, wondering how he would react when he saw her and whether he would still love her. She hesitated in the doorway. She had lost the slim waist he had admired. Her hair was matted and she had grown out of her dress that was stretched tightly across her stomach. She did not know whether she could bear to face him looking the way she did.

  Suddenly she hated him, hated him for what he’d done to her. He had said he loved her and then had gone without a word. Just then she heard her father’s voice. ‘Winifred, will you come and open this blasted gate.’ She looked around with a feeling of terror, wondering where she could hide, but there was nowhere. H
er father had been away a long time. He did not know about her and Charles. If only Charles had come, they could have faced her father together.

  Winifred heard her father call again. She grabbed a blanket from her bed, wrapped it around her like a shawl and went to meet him.

  As she opened the sliprail and dragged it back so that her father could drive through, the blanket slipped. But her father was intent on unharnessing the horses and unpacking a roll of fencing wire and a few supplies for the house. It wasn’t until she said, ‘I’ll put the billy on,’ and she turned to go into the hut that he really looked at her. She had grown heavier and there was something different about her gait. He grabbed her by the wrist and spun her around to face him. He took in the distended stomach with a look of shock. ‘You filthy slut! You’ve been with a man!’ And he forced her to her knees. ‘Who was it? I’ll kill him!’

  Winifred crouched there, hiding her face, until he brought his whip savagely across her shoulders. She screamed and made an effort to rise, but he held her fast. ‘I’ll find out his name if I have to beat it out of you.’

  She began to cry. Great gulping sobs, holding him around the knees, her face hidden, until he pulled her up and helped her into the hut. Bit by bit he dragged the story out of her. Later, his face like a thunder cloud, he forced her into the sulky and drove her to the Steger farm at Evergreen, where Barbara Steger and her daughters were in the kitchen making knockenbrot. Wilfred stepped up to the fence and called out, ‘Come out, you German swine, and see what your son has done to my daughter. He’ll marry her or I’ll shoot him.’

  The women came out, hands covered in flour, and the older woman sent Kate running to fetch Vater Carl. Winifred sat in the buggy, tears streaming down her face, wishing she was dead, while Charles’s mother and sister stared at her with undisguised hostility.

  PART TWO

  12

  THE GERMAN CONNECTION