The Bark Cutters (24 page)

Abdul, delayed through unexplained circumstances, would arrive at the commencement of shearing, just over a month away. His letter arrived with a gift of boxed dried figs, a badly damaged piano, enough wallpaper to decorate the entire house and two magnificent bolts of dress silk, one the palest blue, the other tea-rose. Upon tasting the fruit, Hamish spat it onto his plate, condemning it immediately.

Rose delightedly filled her days sewing. During her time on Wangallon her daily uniform had been one of white or cream blouses with a skirt scarcely a yard in diameter. There were four to choose from: cream, grey, brown and pale green. A necktie was occasionally added to her other accessories: a slim belt, flat brown lace-up shoes and stockings, yet now she would have new evening dresses with crinolines almost two yards in diameter. Matching blouses with tight, high-necked fitted bodices and leg-o-mutton sleeves finished with eight small white buttons she had removed from some of her children's clothes, completed her new ensemble.
At the thought of her new clothes she felt giddy with excitement. From beneath her bed a pair of bone, lace-up boots were retrieved from their calico holder. The neat heels were only slightly worn from her few walks down the main street of Ridge Gully and, if she did not pull the laces too tightly, they almost fitted her constantly swollen feet. With the remaining blue and pink scraps of silk, she fashioned two neck ribbons, which complemented her better linen blouse, if she chose to wear it with one of her new skirts in the evening. Truly she was quite faint with joy.

Wangallon Station was frantic. Hamish was pleased to leave the occupants of the main house to their preparations. There was much cooking and discussion and sewing and gluing of recently arrived wallpaper. A task that had maids giggling and Rose fuming as she pulled sticky sheets from both their hands and clothes. Hamish enjoyed long days in the saddle with Jasperson and Dave as they inspected the mobs of sheep brought in each week by Boxer and his men. A lot was riding on this clip. Seventy per cent of the advance, amounting to sixty per cent of the total forward price contract, was spent already, the rest being saved for the property's expenses. The remaining forty per cent would not be seen until the wool reached London, its final destination. That forty per cent amounted to the property's entire cash flow for a year, when Hamish would travel to Sydney again to renegotiate the price of his wool for the next season.

Hamish rode back to the homestead, his return greeted with squeals and laughter as Howard and Luke appeared from around the side of the homestead building. Close behind them walked Boxer with three women. Hamish greeted his head stockman amiably, his young sons by his side. Howard stared at the bare-chested older woman and the two younger ones in their formless dresses and bare feet, while Luke sat cross-legged in the dirt, his mouth chewing a pretend wad of tobacco as he copied Boxer's tobacco-chewing rhythm.

‘Bring new maid, boss. You choose?'

Hamish hesitated. The house already employed four maids and he wasn't sure they required another. However Boxer had extra mouths to feed at his camp now and although his tribe received monthly rations of flour, sugar and tobacco, the homestead staff received a little more on and above, plus a maid's uniform.

Boxer grinned. ‘You choose.'

The girls were the daughters of the melon-breasted woman next to Boxer. She and the newest members of Boxer's camp had walked twenty miles from down south, after having met starvation and whipping at the hands of whites. The girls were equal in height with the same flat noses and broad brows. The dresses showed nothing of their figures, but one's ankles were slimmer than the other and beneath the slack cloth of her dress, her breasts looked bigger. Hamish pointed, nodded at Boxer and walked away. His boys followed, Howard walking sedately like his father, Luke tearing off towards the house to inform the maids that another of 'em was coming. Hamish watched the dust of another mob of sheep hover on the horizon. Tonight the girl would be in his room. He would make sure of it.

The girl waited for him silently in the dark. Hearing the small inhalation as he turned the knob to his bedroom, Hamish glanced towards his wife's room. No light seeped from beneath it. The timber creaked underfoot. Closing the door, he hung his smoking jacket in his wardrobe. A small lamp glowing steadily on his dresser illuminated the white linen and darker quilts of the four-poster bed. The girl, a shadow within a shadow, sat curled tightly, wedged in the far corner of the room and
partially obscured by heavy curtains and the large packing-case desk with its cotton reels for handles. The whites of her eyes followed him.

Hamish beckoned, his hand curving in gesture. She moved towards him quietly, carefully, as if she knew instinctively which boards creaked and which offered quieter passage. He gestured to her to remove her dress. The shift fell to the floor softly. He shone the lamp over her naked body, examining her for any cuts or ulcerations. The girl appeared clean. Running his finger down from the hollow of her neck, he rubbed his palm roughly over her nipple. The point of skin rose under his attention. Vacantly he wondered what became of the children, if there were any.

Absently Hamish searched for a name. Sometimes a name came in handy for reprimand, quite often not. No, a name was irrelevant. Carefully he undressed, removing his socks. He slipped his braces from his shoulders, dropping his trousers. The eyes followed each movement, hands quiet by her sides. His habit of taking an Aboriginal girl had begun out of need and he was quick to repay them with extra rations. He prided himself on his rotation system: sleeping with all the maids so as not to incur any problems because of favouritism. Milly he liked though.

Undoing his shirt and folding it neatly along with the rest of his clothes, he moved unhurriedly towards the girl. Her breathing quickened, her breath warm on his face. Lifting a hand, he turned her face from his, turned the wide eyes from his and the warm breath. He allowed his hands to travel freely down the girl's body. He missed Milly. This girl was quiet, afraid while Milly spoke softly, enticing him, stroking, cupping, melding her way on top of him, until quite often he was unable to pinpoint the moment of entry until pleasure came. The girl remained motionless. Roughly Hamish pushed her up against the carved wood of the bedpost, pulling her left thigh clear of her body so that it lay awkwardly on the end of his bed.

Afterwards, out of breath, he pulled free of her, slowly. It had taken some effort to enter her tightness and now tiredness surged through his limbs. The floorboards creaked. Milly entered the room as the girl slid to the floor. Milly's features remained expressionless as she moved to the girl, yanked her hair and whispered fiercely to her. The girl moved slowly at first, and then, as if regaining life, reached for her dress.

Lying down on the cool of his bed, Hamish drifted tiredly. Surely Rose would be able to play something suitable for Abdul and his party once the piano arrived. Yes, a week of practice would be enough for her. Water splashed. Hamish heard the droplets plop into the porcelain bowl from the squeezed washcloth. The mattress sunk as Milly crawled her way towards him and began washing him. Eyes, cheeks, moustache, lips, neck. She smiled, hummed. Hamish crossed his arms behind his neck. The room was cooling now, settling into the long length of night. Slowly Milly lowered herself upon him, lifting her dress clear of her breasts, humming, positioning, pushing her upturned nipples into his face. All the while she hummed, the low voice reminding him distantly of his mother.

Luke was having a bad morning. The maids were curt with him, Mrs Cudlow repeatedly told him to stay out of her way and Howard was reading to William. Even his mother had told him to stay away. Bored with throwing frogs at the shrieking maids in the kitchen, Luke ventured out to Lee's vegetable patch. A shower overnight had made the dirt soft enough to squirm about his toes as he squatted down to poke at a carrot top. The day was not a good one. He had been caught stealing Lee's tobacco, and his Chinese friend would not speak to him. Luke stuck a grimy small fist into his trousers. There, mixed with his pet frog and dirt, were
small pieces of tobacco and a shiny coin. Of course he had told his brother it smoked good but, when wrapped in a leaf and lit, it stung his nose and eyes and caught in the back of his throat, like a dose of cod liver oil. At the thought Luke spat into the dirt at his feet, intrigued as the small amount of water surrounded by whiteness dribbled down his chin. He studied the coin in his grubby hand before clambering to his feet and walking across to Lee's bark humpy. An old dog taken up by Lee lay sunning itself, but the Chinaman was not about. Entering the one-room building, he tore a piece of material from his shirt and, having placed it in the middle of a low table, set the coin on top of it. A man needed good loyal people, so his father had told him, and Luke knew he wanted Lee as a friend. Now he owed his brother a week of chores for the coin.

Outside the black maids were talking, leaning against the timber wall of the kitchen. Milly, the thin one, was smoking, refusing to give the other two girls a puff. She walked about in a small circle, her hand on her hip, pointing the cigarette into the air as if she were talking to a whole mob of folks. Luke, crouching down on all fours, scrambled from the humpy across to a wilga tree, quickly hiding behind the trunk. He watched the girls as they giggled and talked, Milly lifting her long grey skirt up to her thighs as she sat barefoot and cross-legged in the dirt. Luke lifted his foot to scratch at the small black ants crawling up his leg. Carefully he picked them off one by one, before moving to the far side of the tree trunk, away from their nest.

On cue Milly reached for the water bag hanging from a hook outside the kitchen. Luke held his breath. She always drank first. Taking a last puff of the cigarette, she stubbed it out in the dirt with her bare foot, before taking a long swig of water. Luke watched as she tilted her head back, greedily drinking as much as she could so that there was never quite enough for the others. Immediately she choked, dropping the bag with a puff of dirt onto
the ground as she coughed and carked up water. Luke smiled widely. Baby tadpoles! With a wild screech Milly searched the yard, calling out his name. Luke, his small legs pumping hard beneath him, carried around the side of the house and directly into the path of the new girl, Grace. The girl looked at him blankly and continued past him. Seconds later he heard women's voices, they were arguing.

‘What do you mean it cannot be played?' Hamish puffed angrily on his pipe, scuffing the woven Indian rug with its centrepiece of a tiger with boot encased feet. Furious, Rose rushed to the piano and lifting the battered lid, struck a number of keys. The discordant noise quickly disappeared with the slamming of the piano's lid. ‘It needs to be tuned.' Rose tucked stray hair from the loose bun at the nape of her neck. ‘Until that occurs, it is simply a decorative piece,' she stated archly, removing herself to take up residence on the settee and return to her disturbed sewing. Lifting her darning needle, Rose sighed dramatically, her shoulders slumping with an air of disdain.