Jessica (55 page)

Confronted suddenly by the small boy, she couldn't think of anything to say. ‘Hello, Joey,' Jessica said shyly. ‘Do you like school?'

‘I know who you are,' Joey said suddenly, ‘you're the turkey lady! My mum says I'm not to talk to you ever!' Then he'd turned his pony about and, laughing, cantered off to join his friends.

Jessica waits outside the school religiously every week after she's sent off her turkeys and visited Joe's grave, but she is never again to talk to her son while he remains at the school. Whenever she appears, the schoolmistress, casting dark looks in Jessica's direction, escorts Joey to the gate and sees him on his way.

However, she can still observe him closely every week. If he has a cut or a bandage Jessica wonders how he's hurt himself and once, when he'd broken his arm, she'd gone nearly crazy worrying about him, despite telling herself repeatedly that it was pretty common boy's stuff and that the arm would come to no harm. Another time, when there had been a measles epidemic and half the school was away, Joey had not been seen for two weeks and a frantic Jessica determined that if he was not back in the following week, she'd ride out to Riverview to confront Hester and Meg. But the next time she arrived he'd turned up looking no worse for the experience.

On several occasions the same schoolmistress gathers her courage and, after seeing Joey to the gate, comes over to remonstrate with Jessica, telling her to please go away, implying that Mrs Thomas had sent word that she was not welcome at the school. Though on each such occasion Jessica sent her off with a flea in her ear, pointing out that she was standing in public property
outside
the schoolyard and that Meg, far as she knew, didn't own the school.

On the afternoon of the anniversary of Billy Simple's death and after she visits the school, Jessica takes the pony cart into Yanco to collect her mail, go to the bank and do her shopping. She usually arrives back at Redlands just before sunset. While she finds it a pleasant enough excursion into town and enjoys the brief conversations with the shopkeepers and the bank teller, she's always grateful when she reaches the creek.

Hester and Meg have assumed the role previously held by Ada Thomas and her two daughters and have become the local bullies. Their presence in the district means that the townsfolk treat Jessica with caution. Jessica is seen as a woman who lives on her own in what amounts to not much more than a blackfella's humpy. It is not at all the sort of thing an Anglican woman should do.

The local rumour has it that Jessica has plenty of money in the bank and could easily afford better. While this isn't true, Solly Goldberg does send her a little more money for her turkeys than she needs to spend. After four years of selling him turkeys she's got a bob or two to spare, but Jessica is by no means well-off or able to afford a better house. Besides, she is terrified of the respectability a properly built home would mean.

Jessica tells herself that with the trappings of conformity — and there is none better than a new house — she would have to become respectable. This idea, in a community where the pecking order is dominated by her sister and her mother, terrifies her.

Memories in the bush are long, too, and Jessica's attack on her mother at Joe's funeral has never been quite forgotten. There cannot be anyone in the district who doesn't know she's spent time in the loony-bin, Jessica reckons — she can see this all in people's eyes as she passes them on the footpath.

What's more, Jessica has a reputation for going around with the blacks, of being seen from time to time with Aboriginal women. It's not long before the tattletales in the district begin to suggest that where there are black women there are also black men. Eyes roll knowingly at afternoon tea parties, allowing the listeners to form their own grubby conclusions as they nibble on lamingtons and dainty sandwiches.

Not long after Jessica had returned and moved into the hut at Yanco Creek, the Reverend Mathews, M.A. Oxon., called by one morning to pay his respects. Jessica had promptly sent him packing. ‘Bugger off, yer old hypocrite, or yiz'll get a blast of birdshot up yer sanctimonious arse!' she'd yelled at him.

‘Sanctimonious' was a word she'd learned from Moishe Goldberg, who'd once used it to describe the Presbyterian chaplain who came to Callan Park. Jessica hadn't imagined that she would ever have the opportunity to use such a long and elegant-sounding word in its correct context.

‘Sanctimonious bastard!' she'd repeated, just to hear the sound of the word again, as the clergyman's horse and trap did an about face and charged off, sending the chooks helter-skelter in a flurry of feathers and setting the turkeys to gobbling overtime.

Jessica senses the silent antipathy towards her and keeps to herself — more and more she is becoming a loner. Even at Christmas time, when she rides the twelve hours into Narrandera to visit Dolly, she finds herself, after only a few hours in Dolly's loquacious company, anxious to get back to the quiet of Redlands and to the company of Rusty and the comfort of a good book.

Jessica does not think of herself as reclusive and is certainly not lonely. Mary Simpson has remained her friend and spends a lot of time with Jessica when she's about. The little Aboriginal woman with her tribe of kids isn't always around, though, as Mary disappears sometimes for weeks at a time. She calls it ‘goin' walkabout', but on her return, when she's closely questioned by Jessica, it invariably turns out there was some bloke involved, and not always an Aboriginal neither. Jessica will sigh and ask, ‘Has he got you in the family way, Mary?'

Mary will shake her head and frown. ‘Men, they's pigs, Jessie. All they thinks of is grog and nookie.'

‘Mary, you've got four kids, not counting them that's grown and gorn away. Four kids to four different blokes, you've got to learn to bloody say no!'

Mary laughs ruefully. ‘That ain't our way, Jessie. Aboriginal woman can't say no to her man.'

Jessica grows angry. ‘Her husband, yes! But you ain't married to these blokes, these bloody no-hopers — some of them ain't even blackfellas! Your real husband buggered off after your second baby. You've got a kid every colour of the bloody rainbow, there's not a full-blood among ‘em. It's bullshit, Mary, you've gotta stop! You're thirty years old, you don't want to have any more flamin' babies. How's you gunna bring up decent what you've got already?'

‘I loves them, Jessie, they're good kids. It's the blokes what's bad bastards, not them kids.'

‘And it's you with your legs open that's just as bad,' Jessica snorts.

When Mary goes walkabout, leaving her kids with the aunties, while she goes to the Warangesda Aboriginal Settlement, or Grong Grong or the sandhills, Jessica sees they're supplied with ample rabbit meat and flour for damper. It's how the aunties have learned to come when they hear the shotgun blast. Often, when she's in town, she'll buy clothes for them and for the other little ragamuffins who seem to breed like flies in the black fellas' camp. Jessica loves Mary's children and they adore her. With some of the other little snot-noses they often come over to the creek to swim and she'll make a great big pot of rabbit stew and give them handfuls of sugar or boiled lollies she's bought in town as a special treat. And so Jessica has earned the reputation of ‘hangin' about with the bloody blacks'.

Jessica arrives back at Redlands in the late afternoon on the anniversary of Billy Simple's death to find her friend Mary waiting for her. Mary turns to greet her and Jessica sees that she's been sobbing.

‘What's wrong, Mary?' she asks, but the little Aboriginal woman doesn't say. Jessica isn't too concerned Mary often comes around for a bit of a blub, usually after having been beaten by some worthless bastard, the father of one of her kids arriving in the camp drunk as a skunk. ‘Wait on, I'll be there in a tick, just let me remove this saddle and bridle and let the pony have a drink.' Jessica carries the saddle and bridle and puts them under the lean-to, allowing the pony to take himself to the water. She then turns to the disconsolate Mary.

‘Some bloke, is it? Been to Warangesda again, has ya?' she asks.

Mary is sitting on a rock beside the creek and she turns to look at Jessica. ‘They took my kids,' she says, sniffing.

‘Who? Who took your kids?'

‘The whitefellas. They made me sign a paper, then they took them.'

‘Mary, you can read — what did the paper say?' Jessica runs over and takes Mary in her arms.

‘They wouldn't let me read it,' Mary sobs. ‘They said it were the law and the paper were from the gubberment!' Mary now begins to howl, and it is a keening Jessica has only heard once before, when one of the Aboriginal elders died and the aunties had started up with this strange, high-pitched lamentation.

‘Shush! Mary, they ain't dead,' Jessica scolds her friend, though she does this more to contain her own panic than to stop Mary wailing. ‘If they were took, they can be took back.'

Mary stops her wailing suddenly and pulls away from Jessica's arms, shaking her dark head vigorously. ‘Nah! They said I couldn't never get them back, Jessie! They said they's from the Aborigines' Protection Board, and it's the law o' the land. They brought a big truck and put me kids in the back and drove away! There were other kids in there also, took from Warangesda and Grong Grong!'

Jessica tries to comfort Mary. ‘I know a man, you know the one I told you about, who helped me? He's a clever lawyer — it's him what got me outa the loony-bin. You never mind a thing, Mary, we'll go see him in Wagga, you hear me?'

Three days later Jessica and Mary arrive by train in Wagga to see Richard Runche KC. Before she left Jessica arranged for the aunties to feed and water the turkeys and the chickens and to give Rusty his tucker. She's wearing the shoes and one of the pretty dresses Dolly bought for her and she's given the other to Mary to wear, though her friend's once skinny shape has expanded a bit from her constant childbearing and a diet consisting of too much white flour, sugar and bread. Over the years Jessica has continued to correspond with the barrister, but in the last two years he has replied spasmodically and the few letters she's received are increasingly illegible and scratchy. ‘The grape is taking its toll, my dear, the circuit court has little use for me these days,' he'd confided in the last one she'd received several months back.

Jessica and Mary go directly to the Albion, the hotel where she'd first met Richard Runche at breakfast. She'd been sending her letters here and so is confident of finding him. To her surprise Jimmy Jenkins, the young lad who helped on that first day, is lording it behind the desk and it's clear from his manner that he's become the boss cocky of the desk.
In
the last nine years he's grown quite plump and is beginning to lose his hair. He wears a black suit with a white shirt, celluloid collar and black tie and sports a watch chain across his little pot-belly. Seeing the two women walking in, one of them being a black, Jimmy's expression becomes alarmed.

‘Yes?' he inquires, his voice not in the least accommodating. Nothing about the two women standing in front of him suggests the need for respect.

‘Hello, Jimmy Jenkins, remember me?' Jessica says brightly.

Jimmy looks at Jessica and then pulls his head back in surprise. ‘My God, it's you! From that trial!' He appears to be thinking, snapping his fingers. ‘Jessie!' he says at last.

Jessica smiles shyly. ‘Same rotten egg,' she jokes, then turns and touches Mary Simpson on the shoulder. ‘This is Mary, my best friend.'

“Owyagoin',' Mary says softly, not presuming to raise her eyes to look at the man before her.

Jimmy Jenkins gives her the briefest nod. Jessica in his hotel is one thing, but the Aboriginal woman is quite another.

Jessica touches Mary on the arm. ‘Mr Jenkins here is an old friend who done me a great favour once.' She smiles at him. He's a real good bloke.'

Jimmy Jenkins proves to be as vulnerable to flattery as ever and his demeanour immediately softens. ‘Nice to see you, Jessica, I've never forgot you.'

‘That's nice, me neither — see how I remembered your name right off?'

‘What brings you here?' Jimmy Jenkins now asks.

‘You're from down Narrandera way, ain't you?'

Jessica nods. She can see that despite his friendly tone he's growing increasingly anxious and keeps looking about him. Same old Jimmy Jenkins, she thinks, still shit-scared of the management. Mary's continued presence in the hotel lobby is obviously upsetting him. ‘We've come to see Mr Runche again,' she announces.

A look of relief crosses Jimmy's face. ‘Oh, he don't live here any more, Jessie.'

Jessica looks up, surprised. ‘But I send him letters here.'

‘Yeah, that's right, but we pass them on. He lives down at Ma Shannon's now.'

‘Mrs Shannon? At the boarding house?'

‘Yeah, that's right,' Jimmy says.

Jessica turns to Mary. ‘That's where we stayed last time, me old man and me. It's very nice,' she explains. ‘Well, it ain't really a boarding house now, more a doss-house for down-an'-outers. They even take .. .'