A Waltz for Matilda (24 page)
Read A Waltz for Matilda Online
Authors: Jackie French
‘Do you really think this place is so bad?’ she asked at last.
‘No.’
‘Go on. Say it.’
He grinned. She could hardly see the scar on his face from this side. ‘All right. Maybe I was wrong.’
‘Say: “This is the best farm in the world”.’
‘This is the best farm in the world. No, really,’ he added quietly, ‘it’s slap up. The way you got the house an’ all, the veggies growin’. I’m sorry I said what I did.’
‘About the natives?’
‘Them too.’ He was silent a moment. ‘They ain’t what I expected. They’re … like white people.’
‘No, they’re not.’
‘All right. They’re not. But it ain’t like what Mum thought, neither.’ He gazed out at the shadowed cliffs again. A kookaburra yelled, up where a slender shaft of light still lit a cliff top. ‘She didn’t send me out here just to look after you, you know.’
Matilda waited for him to say the rest.
‘She … she cries when she sees my hand, my face. People stare.’
‘They’ll stare here too,’ she said honestly. ‘Till they get to know you.’
‘I know. But there ain’t as many people out here. I won’t be meeting new ones all the time. They’ll get used to me. Besides …’ He shrugged. ‘Old Thrattle gave my job away while I was in hospital. Couldn’t get no other job, neither, not looking like this. I reckoned there’d be more call for a bloke who was good with his hands out here.’ He looked down. ‘Good with one hand, anyhow.’
‘Tommy …’ She tried to find the words, then suddenly they were there. It was so simple, she thought.
‘I’m glad you’re here. Gladder than I’ve ever been. I … was
lonely. I didn’t know how much, till I saw you. And I didn’t know about the land tax, and probably a hundred other things. I do need you. And Auntie Love and Mr Sampson too.’
He held out his hand, his good one. ‘Friends again then?’
She took it. ‘Friends.’
He stood up. ‘I better go or it’ll be dark afore I get back to town.’
‘You could stay for dinner. It’s roast roo,’ she added mischievously.
He looked at her cautiously. ‘What’s it like?’
‘Tough,’ she said. ‘Sort of strong tasting. I’m getting used to it. We can’t afford to eat any of the sheep.’
He shook his head. ‘There’s Irish stew back at the boarding house. People will talk if I stay here.’
People are talking about me already, she thought. About Jim O’Halloran’s daughter who’d seen her pa die in the billabong, and refused to leave his land.
Tommy was right, though. Mostly they were only saying good things now, but she didn’t want to get a ‘reputation’. She could almost hear Aunt Ann say the word with a sniff.
‘When will you be back?’
‘Day after tomorrow? Got a bit of work to do for Mr Doo first, then I’ll bring the iron out for the shearing shed if he’ll sell it to me cheap. Think he’ll lend me his cart?’
‘I’m pretty sure of it.’
She watched him ride away along the track, even faster now downhill. How long would it take him to get to town? Less than an hour, she thought, but she’d rather have a nice solid horse than balance on two wheels.
She could smell roasting meat. Hey You had left to stand guard on the fire in case the sheep suddenly developed a taste for
roast kangaroo. She’d need to put some cabbage and carrots on to boil. Auntie Love never bothered with vegetables.
The sheep were slowly making their way up to the spring. Later, after they’d drunk, the other animals would come, more secretly: the wallabies from up among the rocks; the wombat who snuffled under the house each night, ignoring Hey You’s growls; and the possum who clambered across the roof. All of them part of her life. Her farm. Her home.
And Tommy would be back, the day after tomorrow.
DECEMBER 1894
Dear Mrs Ellsmore,
I hope you are well.
Last Sunday I wore the dress you sent. A preacher comes every two months to the church in town. My friend Tommy took me on the back of his bicycle. I had to be careful not to tear my dress. It got dusty but Tommy has made me an iron so I can wash and iron and wear it as often as I want.
The iron is Tommy’s invention, it is hollow with a wood handle welded on top. You put hot coals in it, so you do not have to heat it up on the stove like other irons, because I do not have my stove yet. If your housekeeper would like one, Tommy could make you one. You can write to him care of Mrs Lacey’s Boarding House, Gibber’s Creek. He is a very good workman.
He has made me a stove for Christmas too! He is going to bring it out in Mr Doo’s cart tomorrow. I have not seen it yet. He says it is a new invention as well, as it is made of two layers of metal with air in between them so the room does not get so hot.
I do not see how air can stop a room getting hot, but Tommy says it does and his inventions work nearly all of the time.
I wish my father could have met Tommy. My father made things from wood and Tommy makes them from metal, but I think they would have liked each other.
It hasn’t rained yet, not since I have been here. Everyone at church said the drought is getting worse. Tommy and Mr Sampson and I have put pipes from the spring here down to a trough for the sheep. They do not stand in the water now, so the spring stays clean. We have put more pipes down to the cornfield too. It is a big cornfield, so we can feed the sheep corn too. I move the pipe twice a day so in a week the whole field gets wet.
Mr Gotobed, who was a friend of my father, says he has never seen corn grow so fast. He brought me a cartload of sheep droppings from Mr Drinkwater’s shearing shed to feed the corn, but perhaps Mr Drinkwater does not know where his sheep droppings were going, so please do not tell him.
I have my own shearing shed now. It has a wood floor so the clean side of the wool does not get dirty, and a corrugated roof, but no walls as we did not have enough iron. There is also a corrugated iron dip for the sheep to get them clean under and
kill maggots
treat them for parasites.
We sheared over a hundred sheep. I bought more sheep cheap because we have grass and water and other places do not. Tommy lent me the money but I have paid him back now that we have sold the wool and some ram lambs.
Mr Gotobed and his friends came to shear, they would not let me pay them because of my father, but I think my father would have wanted them to be paid properly, so I gave the Workers’
Institute in town money to buy books instead. I now think maybe that was not the right thing to do though, because I will borrow the books and I fear that Mr Gotobed and his friends will not. They would rather have spirituous liquor, but that would not be good for them so perhaps I was right to get the books. It is very difficult.
Thank you again for the parcel. I am very grateful indeed. I hope you and Florence have a very merry Christmas.
Yours respectfully,
Matilda O’Halloran
PS I know I wrote a lot about my friend Tommy but he lives in town, he only visits here so there is nothing improper.
PPS I hope I am not being rude, but if Mr Drinkwater’s sons visit you again could you tell them it is not Christian to shoot natives?
There are not many natives here as nearly all have been taken away to the reserve except those who work on the stations, but sometimes they might look like wild natives so the boys may make a mistake, and even if it is a mistake it is still not Christian. I know my Aunt Ann would have said so. I hope you agree, Mrs Ellsmore, and that I am not being forward in asking you this.
Sometimes it is hard to know what is good manners. There is no one I can ask here, Tommy is a boy so he does not understand about manners like women do.
Yours respectfully again,
Matilda O’Halloran
A scream woke Matilda early on Christmas morning. For a moment she blinked in the darkness.
The hut was silent. Matilda lay back. She must have dreamed the scream. Through the window the moonlight made tree shadows on the ground. She wondered if the cross had turned over yet. It must be hours till morning. She shut her eyes …
‘Graaaarrhk!’ It was as much a snarl as a scream.
Matilda flung herself out of bed. ‘Auntie Love?’ Why hadn’t the old woman woken? Why hadn’t Hey You barked?
She stumbled out to the living area, suddenly aware of one problem with the new stove. Tommy had been right: it didn’t heat up the room as much, and it stayed alight all night more easily. But the fire was hidden in its metal box, which meant there was no red glow to see by.
She fumbled for a slush lamp and a match.
The shriek came again. Something swung toward her. Her eyes were growing used to the moonlight now. She ducked as it swished above her head.
‘Ghhhghhhh!’ Something small and furry thudded onto the floor, then scampered out the door. The possum! It must have been trying to tear the cloth to get into the pudding.
She reached up and felt the pudding carefully, but could find no sign of a tear. She smelled it too in case the possum had left a damp spot. But it just smelled of raisins and treacle — good Christmas smells.
Hey You padded out of Auntie Love’s bedroom. He gave a small woof, then sat and gazed at her.
‘Fat lot of good you are,’ said Matilda. ‘Can’t even scare off a possum.’
‘Woof,’ said Hey You. He yawned, then trotted back into the bedroom.
Matilda untied the rope from around the pudding. Best to take it to bed with her, in case the possum tried again. The raisins and treacle had been expensive. It had taken her hours to pick out the seeds from the raisins, more hours to collect the firewood to keep the pot on a rolling boil, so the pudding wouldn’t get heavy. Auntie Love knew how to make a good damper, but she didn’t know about puddings. Besides, Tommy was coming to dinner, and the pudding was the only real Christmas food they had.
She cuddled it to her, then smiled at herself, hugging a Christmas pudding. She slept.
It was late when she woke again, long past dawn, six o’clock maybe or even seven. But she wasn’t even going to milk the cow today — its calf could have all the milk — or water the vegetables. Today was going to be a holiday.
She stepped out in the cool morning air to wash by the spring. Auntie Love was already on the verandah when she came back.
‘Merry Christmas!’
Auntie Love laughed. Matilda had learned to distinguish the laugh that said Auntie Love was happy from the one which meant she didn’t know what to say, or one that indicated she thought something was funny. This laugh seemed to mean: ‘Well, if it pleases you to think of a day as Christmas, I’ll go along with it.’
Matilda went into her room and began to dress. No trousers today. She put on the first dress Mrs Ellsmore had given her, which she thought of as her second-best dress, but left off petticoats and stockings — it was far too hot. Too hot for shoes too. She only wore boots now when she was working, and her
feet were growing tougher. She hesitated, then put her city shoes on. It would spoil the look of her dress to have bare feet.
She wished there was something other than shoulder of roo to roast. But the sheep were too precious, and too familiar too. At least she didn’t know the roos that Mr Sampson shot.
She stirred up the fire, made a pot of tea and toasted damper for herself and Auntie Love, then spread a tablecloth over the verandah table. It was made from one of her petticoats. She hoped no one would see where she had joined the fabric at one end. But it looked good with the china plates and cups and some twigs of gum leaves in an old ginger-beer bottle. She had just finished when she heard singing.
It was Mr Gotobed in the cart, with Bluey and Curry and Rice next to him. Mr Gotobed raised his jug to her. ‘Merry Christmas!’
She stared. ‘Merry Christmas.’
Did they expect to have Christmas dinner here too? She calculated quickly. She could put on more potatoes and pull up more carrots, but the meat wouldn’t stretch to six.
She watched as Mr Gotobed pulled a hessian sack from the wagon. The three of them staggered up the steps toward her.
