Mud and Gold (67 page)

‘You get down to that cow shed and you wait
for me there. Understand?’ Charlie said.

He watched Malcolm run off, then turned to
David and gave him a hard look. ‘Now, what about you? Did you try
riding my horse?’

David pressed his face against Amy’s chest,
his voice a muffled squeak. ‘David!’ Amy said sharply, pushing him
away from her and gripping his shoulders to steady him. Charlie in
his current mood was quite capable of giving the child a beating
merely for being babyish. ‘Stand up straight and answer Papa
properly.’ She gave his arm an encouraging squeeze.

‘No, Papa,’ David said in a voice that,
although high-pitched with fright, was clear. ‘I didn’t ride the
horse. I just looked.’

‘Good. See that you don’t.’ Charlie gave Amy
a look that told her she would have been liable for a beating
herself for letting Malcolm commit his offense if she had not put a
stop to such treatment, then turned on his heel and made off
towards the cow shed.

That evening Amy watched Malcolm during the
dismal silence of the family’s dinner time. His tears had
disappeared, but in their place was the sullen expression he so
often wore. The sullenness had been replaced by the merry, open
face of a happy little boy during the pleasant few hours she had
spent alone with the children, but now it was back with a
vengeance. She could do nothing to comfort him; instead she had to
watch him eat in silence, then put both boys to bed while Charlie
stood in the doorway to see that there was no forbidden
babying.

She would have liked to have gone straight
to bed rather than sit in the parlour with Charlie, but there was
the never-ending pile of sewing to be tackled and no light brighter
than a candle in her room. The candle was enough to read by if she
stood it close to her bed, but it was too hard on her eyes to do
tiny hand stitches by its light. She tried to ignore Charlie’s
presence as she stitched away at a new chemise for herself, until
he demanded her attention by speaking.

‘Did you see the boy riding Smokey?’

‘Yes, I did,’ she said, wondering if he was
going to make more of a fuss. ‘I got down to the horse paddock just
as he was jumping on.’

‘You didn’t stop him.’

‘I called out to him, but I don’t know if he
even heard me, he was so excited about it all.’ She dropped her
sewing into her lap and looked across the lamp at him. ‘Charlie, I
don’t think Mal did anything so awful today. He’s mad on horses,
and he wanted to have a go at riding. It’s a shame he lamed Smokey,
but Smokey’ll come right soon enough.’

‘I’ve told him before not to go near the
horses when I’m not here. He’s got to learn to do as he’s
told.’

You would have been here if you hadn’t
been out whoring. It wouldn’t have happened then
. ‘He forgot.
Children forget what they’ve been told when they get excited. It
doesn’t mean Mal’s wicked. It means he’s just a little boy.’

‘It’s time he grew up, then.’

Charlie lapsed into silence, and Amy took up
her sewing, then he spoke again.

‘What sort of a job did he make of it?’

‘What? Oh, riding, you mean?’ She stopped
and thought. ‘He was quite good, actually. Especially for the first
time he’d ever been on a horse by himself. He’s got good balance, I
think. He hung on tight, and he’s got strong legs for kicking. That
was the trouble, Smokey’s not used to being belted like that.’

‘Was he scared?’

‘Mal? Not a bit. Mal’s not frightened of
anything.’
Except you when you’re wild with him
. ‘Even when
Smokey bucked him off, he was too excited to notice the knocks he
got.’

‘Hmm. He’s no coward, that boy.’

‘No, he’s very brave.’
Charlie’s proud of
Mal for doing that. He gave poor Mal an awful hiding, and now he’s
calmed down he’s thinking what a brave boy he is. I bet he won’t
tell Mal that, though. He only ever tells him he’s done
wrong
.

Charlie turned the page of his newspaper
noisily. ‘I might buy the boy a pony.’

‘A pony?’ Amy echoed. ‘That’ll cost a lot of
money, won’t it?’

‘That’s none of your concern. You keep your
nose out of my affairs and get on with your work. Aye, I’ll ask old
man Carr if he’s any ponies he’s not wanting.’

‘Mal will love that. He’ll be beside
himself,’ Amy said.
He’d be even happier if you told him you’re
proud of him. But you won’t
.

January – August 1892

Malcolm took to riding more naturally than
he had to walking. It was barely a matter of weeks before he was
trotting his little pony confidently around the paddock. Charlie’s
idea of teaching consisted of giving the boy a leg-up onto the
pony’s bare back then slapping the animal on the rump until he
broke into a trot, and Malcolm took many tumbles before he mastered
the art of keeping his seat. He never so much as whimpered, no
matter how painful the fall; he was too busy enjoying himself. It
was not long before he was managing to coax the pony, a steady
little bay called Brownie, into an occasional canter, and even
attempting to jump over logs, though this led to more falls than
successes.

By the time school started again there was
no question but that Malcolm would be riding there and back each
day, even though by the time he caught the pony before and after
school it would have been almost as fast for him to walk. Charlie
insisted he care for the pony himself, but there was no difficulty
in making Malcolm do all Brownie’s grooming and feeding. He adored
his pony.

Amy was glad to see his new-found happiness,
but she wished it did not have to be at David’s expense. Malcolm
was too busy now with his precious pony to have any time for his
little brother, and Amy could see that David missed his company. He
was still her affectionate little boy, eager for cuddles and kisses
when his father was not around to see, but Amy could not provide
the rough-and-tumble play David was used to from Malcolm.

For all his harshness, Charlie was a better
father than some Amy knew of. She remembered from her own
school-days a few children falling asleep over their desks, having
been dragged out of bed to help their fathers with the morning
milking then sent off to ride to school with no time for a proper
breakfast. Charlie was not so demanding of his sons while they were
very young. Malcolm had to help him with the afternoon milking, but
he was left to sleep until Amy got the boys up for their breakfast,
and David was considered too young to help at all.

Even so, it was a long day for Malcolm.
After breakfast he had to catch his pony, put on the bridle and
throw a blanket across Brownie’s back (Charlie had no intention of
paying for an extra saddle, and Malcolm would have been the only
child in the school with such a luxury if he had), then ride down
the track to school. In the afternoon he groomed the pony and put
him out to graze, and after some milk and biscuits it would be time
for him to help his father round up the cows for milking.

Amy’s own days were so full that it was some
time before she began to suspect that Malcolm did not always come
straight home from school. Sometimes he seemed more out of breath
than the short ride warranted, and when her suspicions grew strong
enough for her to begin taking note of the time on the kitchen
clock she soon realised that on the days Malcolm rushed into the
kitchen flushed and panting he was at least a quarter of an hour
later home than he should have been.

‘Where have you been?’ she asked him one day
when the fifteen minutes had stretched to twenty-five and Malcolm
had had no time to groom the pony before racing up to the house for
his afternoon tea.

‘At school,’ he said, giving her a look that
dared her to deny it.

‘You haven’t come straight home, though,
have you?’ said Amy. ‘It only takes a few minutes for you to get
home, especially the pace you bring Brownie up the road. Come on,
Mal, tell me. Where have you been?’

‘Nowhere,’ Malcolm said, his face set. ‘Just
riding around a bit.’

‘I thought as much. You should come straight
home from school, you know. Your father thinks you do.’

‘I didn’t do nothing wrong,’ said Malcolm.
‘Just went down the road a bit and over a couple of ditches. It’s
boring just riding to school and back. Don’t you tell on me.’

‘I won’t tell on you, but… oh, if you must
go off riding by yourself, at least try and get home a bit sooner
than this. Your pa will notice if you keep getting back this late,
you know. He expects you here well in time for milking.’

‘I’m sick of milking,’ Malcolm muttered.

Amy gave a little laugh of surprise. ‘Sick
of milking? It’s no use being sick of it, Mal, it’s got to be done.
I might as well say I’m sick of cooking dinner every night.’

‘But I’m sick of it,’ Malcolm persisted. ‘I
want to do more riding and things.’

‘You can do riding when there’s no school.
You’ve got to help your pa, he needs you. It’s going to get harder
for him to manage when he gets older, too. Anyway, you used to love
going out and working with him.’

‘That was
years
ago,’ Malcolm said,
overstating matters. ‘That was before I had Brownie. I hardly ever
get to go for a good ride.’

‘Yes, you do, you go for a ride every
Saturday. Stop moaning and eat your biscuits, your pa will be up in
a minute.’ It was hard, she knew, for a six-year-old to accept the
inevitable. ‘We all have to do things we don’t want to, Mal. You’re
always so keen to be grown-up—well, that’s what being grown-up
means. Come on, now, be a good boy and get rid of that grumpy face.
It’ll be winter soon enough and only the house cows to milk.’

Malcolm grumbled most afternoons about
having to milk and help with other farm work, though he had the
sense not to do so in front of his father. Amy would still
sometimes catch a hurt look on Malcolm’s face when Charlie went
into town without him, as he generally did once a fortnight or so,
but Malcolm did not look aggrieved for long. Instead he would spend
the few hours of his father’s absence practising more and more
ambitious jumps over logs and stumps, dragging brushwood into heaps
to make a more challenging course. Ditches were soon no problem,
and before autumn had begun to turn into winter Malcolm was able to
coax Brownie into leaping obstacles that Amy would have thought
quite beyond the pony’s capability. There was no role for David
beyond that of admiring audience in any of these riding exploits,
and it wrung Amy’s heart to see the little boy feeling left
out.

One afternoon as she was walking back from
the vegetable garden with a load of carrots to go in that evening’s
soup, Amy stopped to watch the two boys. Malcolm had just managed
to take Brownie over a slim tree trunk he had set up between two
stumps. He leapt from the pony’s back, grinning.

‘Did you see that?’

‘That was neat,’ said David. He took a few
steps towards Malcolm and the pony. ‘Can I pat your horse,
Mal?’

‘All right,’ Malcolm said magnanimously.

David stood on tiptoe to pat the pony’s
neck. ‘He’s nice. I wish I had a horse.’

‘Pa might get you one when you’re six,’
Malcolm said, but this was too far into the unimaginably distant
future to give much comfort to the four-year-old.

The memory of David’s wistful little face
would not leave Amy. With no money of her own and no influence over
Charlie she could not do anything about getting David his own pony,
but she wanted to cheer him up somehow.

The best she could do for the moment, she
decided, was to give him a little outing. A few mornings later she
got permission from Charlie to visit Lizzie, and set off down the
road with David at her side.

It had seemed a fine idea to give herself
and David a change of company, and they were both disappointed at
the end of their walk to find Frank’s house deserted, a note from
Lizzie on the kitchen table to tell anyone who popped in that the
Kellys had all gone to town for the morning.

‘I wanted to play with Joey, Mama,’ David
said as they walked back down Frank’s track after their fruitless
attempt at visiting.

‘I know, darling, I’m sorry. We’ll try and
come down another day.’

David was silent for some time, then he
said, ‘Maudie’s got a horse, too.’

‘Not her own horse, Davie. It’s just one of
Uncle Frank’s horses she uses to get to school.’

‘But she’s allowed to ride it. She can ride
good now.’

‘You’ll learn soon. You’ll be able to ride
on Brownie with Mal when you start school.’

‘I wish I had a horse.’

‘I know, Davie. I know.’

They walked on in silence to the end of the
track and then turned on to the road up the valley.

A cart was coming down the road towards
them, a man waving at them from the driver’s seat. When the cart
got closer, Amy recognised Matt Aitken.

Matt drew the cart to a halt, and Amy went
over to exchange polite greetings with him, annoyed with herself at
being so nervous speaking to a man not within her immediate family.
It took an effort of will before she could meet Matt’s eyes and
speak sensibly to him.

‘I’ve just been up to see to a couple of
your uncle’s horses,’ Matt said. Amy knew that he occasionally did
some farrier work in the district. ‘I’m on my way home now—would
you like to come with me and see Rachel? She doesn’t get a lot of
visitors, and her and Bessie get a bit fed up with each other’s
company all day. I could give you a ride home afterwards.’

‘I should be getting home, really,’ Amy
said. Charlie had given permission for a visit to Lizzie, not to
Rachel Aitken. And he would be furious at the thought of her riding
about unsupervised with Matt Aitken.

‘Maybe another day, then,’ Matt said. ‘Hey,
I bet this boy would like to see Peg’s pups, wouldn’t you,
Dave?’