A Waltz for Matilda (25 page)

‘We three kings of thingummie are,’
bellowed Bluey.
‘Dum de dum we travel afar …’

He gave her a clumsy hug and a kiss on the cheek. His breath stank. Mr Gotobed thrust the sack at her. ‘Merry Christmas!’ he yelled again.

They must have been drinking spirituous liquor all the way here — maybe all night too. She watched as they plumped themselves down in her verandah chairs. Aunt Ann would have shown them the door.

But they had shorn her sheep. They were her father’s friends. Her friends too, she realised. Besides, they looked too drunk to
find their way back to town, unless the horse knew where it was expected to go.

The horse … it couldn’t stay there in the sun. She dumped their sack on the table, then unharnessed the animal — it knew where the water trough was and wouldn’t wander far — and went back and looked in the sack.

It was a bird, the biggest she had ever seen, already plucked. ‘A turkey!’

Curry and Rice looked uncomfortable. ‘Not exactly a turkey,’ he said.

‘Near enough but,’ said Bluey. ‘Man’s got a right to a bird at Christmas.’

Matilda gazed at the bird again. ‘What is it then?’

‘A swan,’ admitted Mr Gotobed, helping himself to damper as Auntie Love came out with another pot of tea. ‘Shot it down the river last night.’

Matilda blinked. She had never heard of anyone eating swan, but she had after all eaten weirder things in the previous couple of months. It still hurt, though, to think of all the beauty of a swan turned into a big hunk of meat.

‘There’s good eating on a swan,’ Curry and Rice assured her. ‘Just put plenty of stuffing in it and it’ll be fine.’

Plenty of stuffing … She supposed you could use the same stuffing in a swan as in a chicken, damper instead of breadcrumbs, and the onions she kept hanging up inside. There was even sage growing in the garden now, to season it, and last week’s butter in the cold safe.

She inspected the swan carefully, in case the flies had got it, then washed it inside and out just in case. But no crawlies floated in the water. Impossible to think of it big and majestic on the water.

She made the stuffing, put the swan in the oven in the big oven dish Tommy had bought for her, then pulled up more carrots and new potatoes and a few turnips too. Her dress was grubby at the hem now, and there were red spots on it from the swan. She washed them off quickly, hoping they wouldn’t stain, then rinsed the hem of her dress. Luckily it’d be dry in a few minutes in the heat.

She looked out the door. The men were asleep, their mouths open, their snoring louder than the yelling of the cicadas. She hoped they’d wake up sober. There was no sign of Auntie Love.

She turned to peel the potatoes as Auntie Love came out of her room, wearing the big white apron over her dress, carrying a bark container. She gestured to the sleeping men outside and wrinkled her nose.

Matilda laughed, then looked down at the bark container. It was shaped like a pot, with a bark lid tied down with homemade string. She untied it and looked inside.

It was a necklace of red and black seeds, strung onto hair, she suspected. The seeds were shiny, like tiny jewels against the bark.

‘Oh, Auntie.’ So Auntie Love did know what Christmas was. She bent and kissed Auntie Love’s cheek, then slipped the necklace on. Auntie nodded, then went over and began to peel the carrots.

‘Auntie, this is for you.’

Auntie Love unwrapped the brown paper — the only paper in the house — then smiled. It was a hanky, made from a bit of another petticoat, carefully hemmed in secret and embroidered with daisies at the corners. She tucked it into the belt of her apron, then kept on peeling.

Six hours later Hey You was chewing the leftovers. Auntie Love, Mrs Sampson and Matilda sat on chairs on the verandah, while Tommy and the men leaned against the wall, their legs out, finishing the last of the pudding.

Matilda hadn’t expected Mr and Mrs Sampson. She had only met Elsie a few times. She was as tall as her husband and much fatter, a strong woman but shy with people she didn’t know. She’d hardly spoken throughout the meal, just smiled and laughed when everyone else did.

But somehow it seemed right that Mr and Mrs Sampson should be there. She’d made handkerchiefs for them anyway, and for Tommy, and had hastily wrapped up three of her own for the union men.

The pudding had been voted delicious, in spite of the lumps; the swan hadn’t been as tough as it might have been; and the taste of soap in the gravy was hardly noticeable at all. A giant Christmas cake, a present from Tommy’s landlady, sat under a fly net, next to the basket from the Doos, with its squat jar of preserved ginger, its red-blushed peaches and a box of dates.

‘Well, I’m full as a goog after that. Who’s for a song?’ Bluey pulled out a mouth organ. Curry and Rice took out a pair of gum leaves from his pocket. As Matilda stared he held them to his lips, and hummed a tune she almost recognised.

‘Silent night,’
roared Mr Gotobed.
‘Da de dum night …’

The last time she had sung this it had been at Aunt Ann’s, three Christmases ago, those easy days she thought would last forever.

‘All is calm, all is bright …’
Tommy’s singing voice was deeper than she’d expected.

‘Round yon virgin mother and child …’

‘Dum dee dum dum, dee dee dum, dee deee.’

‘Sleep in heavenly peace,’
Matilda stared as Auntie Love joined in, her voice pure and clear.
‘Sleep in heavenly peace.’

How had the old woman learned the song? Where? Had she worked for Mr Drinkwater or some other squatter, years ago? Had Mr Drinkwater fired her, like he had sacked Mr Sampson? Was that why he was so angry she was here?

But it still didn’t explain why the old lady had stood in front of him, almost naked. She was sure that anyone working in the Drinkwater house would have to wear proper clothes.

Mr Gotobed swung into ‘Jingle Bells’. Curry and Rice followed him on his gum leaves, sounding like a mob of almost tuneful bees.

The sun was below the tree tops when they left. Tommy loaded his bike onto the wagon; Matilda hoped the men’s horse knew its way back in the dark. Auntie Love vanished into the bedroom. Hey You grabbed the swan carcass in his jaws and took it down to the deeper shade under the steps. The Sampsons left, with his laconic: ‘I’ll check for fly strike in the mornin’, Boss.’

It was the first time he had called her ‘Boss’. She wanted to protest. But it was true that when he called her ‘Matilda’ it made it sound like he was talking to a little girl. She
was
thirteen …

She stopped gathering up the dishes, and looked down at her hands. Work-stained, tough hands.

She had missed her birthday, hadn’t even known what date it was till Tommy had asked too carelessly what she was doing for Christmas dinner. No one else in the world, she thought, knows when my birthday is now.

She washed the dishes in a bucket by the water trough, then threw the dishwater onto the corn. She was just putting the plates carefully in the dresser when Hey You barked again.

She looked up. Was Mr Gotobed so fuddled with spirituous liquor that he’d come back by mistake? But Tommy would have taken the reins …

Two horses cantered between the cliffs. She recognised the horses first — those giant shiny brown animals — before she knew the riders. The Drinkwater boys, James and Bertram.

It had been too good a day to be angry with anyone, even the Drinkwaters. ‘Merry Christmas!’ she called.

The boys pulled the horses to a stop by the house. They didn’t dismount. James reached down to his saddlebags and took out a parcel. He threw it down into the dust. ‘For you,’ he said abruptly.

She looked at the brown paper in the dust. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Our aunt has decided that you’re a worthy recipient of her charity.’ The words bit like cold water. ‘We’re delivering it.’

She made no move to grovel by the horses’ hooves to get the package. ‘Please thank your aunt,’ she said quietly. ‘Or I will write and thank her.’

‘You’re good with a pencil, aren’t you?’ James was white-faced with fury now. ‘Aunt passed on your message about hunting natives. We don’t appreciate grubby little bush girls giving their betters lessons in behaviour. Do we, Bertram?’

The younger boy shook his head. He was grinning, as though this was simply fun. His brother’s horse rolled its eyes, as if it could sense its rider’s anger.

‘Just so you know. If you mention us again, to anyone, you are going to regret it. You understand?’

She wanted to yell at them that she’d say what she liked. But despite Hey You growling at her heels she knew she was helpless. They had whips. They had firearms, longer and shinier than the
blunt weapon Mr Sampson used against the roos. She had no doubt that the older boy at least would use them both, if not against her, then certainly against the dog or Auntie Love.

Who was to stop them? Their father ruled this world. These boys believed that they did too.

This is what made my father angry, she thought.

She prayed that Auntie Love was sound asleep and couldn’t hear what was happening.

‘I understand.’ She spoke as calmly as she could. She stood immobile, hoping that if she showed no other reaction they would go.

The older boy, James, spat. She could see the spittle frothy in the dust by his horse’s hooves. His brother copied him. James yanked the reins; his horse turned. In seconds they had cantered back between the cliffs, toward the setting sun.

She was shaking, from fear as well as anger. She sat on the steps, and pulled Hey You into a hot and doggy-smelling embrace till her heart stopped pounding. At last she let him go, picked up the parcel and took it back to the verandah.

It had been untied and roughly wrapped again. The string was so badly knotted she finally had to get the knife to cut it. She pulled the paper away slowly.

The smell hit her first. Dog’s droppings, rubbed into the fabric of the dark blue dress. A new dress, she thought. Not Florence’s cast-off. A new dress for her. Silk stockings, slashed with a knife. A bar of soap, cut into pieces, its scent of violets almost as strong as the stench of muck.

It didn’t matter, she told herself. Nothing the boys had done had touched her really. She would wash the dress and iron it — the stain was fresh at least, so would come out. She could mend the stockings — no one would see the mends under her skirt.
Even the soap could be used in pieces. It would last longer that way.

She wasn’t going to let James Drinkwater destroy her Christmas present.

She fetched a bucket and carried everything to the trough in the last of the light. Best get it done now, so the stench would be gone, the smell of hatred banished from this Christmas Day.

It was dark when she’d hung it all on the line. She trudged slowly up the steps again, then caught sight of her skirt. Damp, stained with gravy and paw prints. There would be stains under her arms too, she thought, and probably smudges on her face. She felt her hair, escaped from its plaits.

So that was how the boys saw her, a bush girl in a dirty dress, with a grubby face and callused hands. A busybody, who interfered with their right to call everything on this land theirs.

Let them, she told herself fiercely. She was the one who had a farm of her own. And a house, and a half share in 116 sheep, a cow and calf, eight hens. She looked down, and smiled at herself. And a small share in a dog too.

They were still schoolboys, despite their wealth. No, not their wealth. Their father’s. She was older than them in more than years.

She got herself a cup of water and a peach then sat on a chair back on the verandah. The peach smelled like a honey tree, driving out the last scent of muck. The moon wouldn’t rise for an hour at least, but the stars were bright.

She looked for the three brightest — two on one side of the black sky lake, a reddish one on the horizon. She raised her cup to them. Mum, Dad and Aunt Ann.

‘Merry Christmas,’ she whispered. She hoped they would be proud.

JANUARY 1895