The Home Girls (15 page)

But it was never there and when she looked into the face of Jess and Carrie there was no message there and no hope.

The following Saturday Lucy could wait no longer and sneaked past the cowyard where Jess and Carrie were milking and well clear of it ran like a small pale terrier through the abandoned orchard and bottom corn paddock to the edge of the creek. Across it, a few panels of fence beyond where Carrie had first encountered him, Arthur was at work.

Under her breath Lucy practised her words: “Have you brought my doll?”

She was saying them for the tenth time when Arthur turned.

She closed her mouth before they slipped out.

Arthur pushed his hat back and beckoned.

“Come over,” he said.

Lucy hesitated and looked at her feet buried in the long wild grass. I won't go, she said to herself. But the doll could be inside Arthur's bag hung on a fence post.

She plunged down the creek bank and came up the other side her spikey head breaking through the spikey tussocks dying with the birth of winter.

Arthur sat down on some fence timber stewn on the ground and reached for his bag. Lucy watched, her heart coming up into her neck for him to pull the doll from it. But he took out a paper bag smeared with grease which turned out to hold two slices of yellow cake oozing red jam. When he looked up and saw the hunger in Lucy's eyes he thought it was for the cake and held it towards her.

“We'll have a piece each,” he said.

But Lucy sank down into the grass and crossed her feet with her knees out. Then she thought if she didn't take the cake Arthur might not produce the doll so she reached out a hand.

“Good girl,” he said when she began nibbling it.

The cake was not all that good in spite of coming from the rich Mann's kitchen. It had been made with liberal quantities of slightly rancid butter.

Lucy thought of bringing him a cake made by Jess and imagined him snapping his big teeth on it then wiping his fingers and bringing out the doll.

“I should visit you, eh?” Arthur said.

Oh, yes! He would be sure to bring the doll.

“When is the best time?” Arthur said folding the paper bag into a square and putting it back in his bag.

“At night after tea? Or do you all go to bed early?”

Lucy thought of Carrie naked and Jess with her legs apart and shook her head.

“Why not at night?” Arthur said. “There's no milking at night, is there?”

Lucy had to agree there wasn't with another small head shake.

“What do you all do after tea?” said Arthur.

Lucy looked away from him across the paddocks to the thin drift of smoke coming from the fire under the copper boiling for the clean up after the milk was separated. She felt a sudden urge to protect Jess and Carrie from Arthur threatening to come upon them in their nakedness.

She got to her feet and ran down the bank, her speed carrying her up the other side and by this time Arthur had found his voice.

“Tell them I'll come!” he called to her running back.

Carrie was in bed that night with much less preparation than usual and even without the last minute ritual of lifting her hair from her nightgown neck and smoothing down the little collar, then easing herself carefully down between the sheets reluctant to disturb her appearance even preparing for sleep.

To Lucy's surprise her nightgown hung slightly over one shoulder and she was further surprised to see that Jess had fastened hers at the brown stain where her neck met the top of her breasts. Carrie had not cavorted in her nakedness and Jess had not plucked at her feet with her knees raised. Lucy looked at the chair where Jess usually sat and pictured Arthur there. She saw his hands on his knees while he talked to them and curved her arms imagining the doll in them. An elbow stuck into Jess's back and Jess shook it off.

“Arthur Mann never married,” said Carrie abruptly from her bed.

Jess lifted her head and pulled the pillow leaving only a corner for Lucy who didn't need it anyway for she had raised her head to hear.

“Old Sarah sees to that,” said Jess.

Before putting her head down again Lucy saw that Carrie was not settling down for sleep but had her eyes on the ceiling and her elbows up like the drawing of a ship's sail and her hands linked under her head.

Jess's one open eye saw too.

Lucy had to wait through Sunday but on Monday when she was home from school for the May holidays she slipped past the dairy again while Jess and Carrie were milking and from the bank of the creek saw not only Arthur but a woman on a horse very straight in the back with some grey hair showing neatly at the edge of a riding hat and the skin on her face stretched on the bones like Arthur's. The horse was a grey with a skin like washing water scattered over with little pebbles of suds and it moved about briskly under the rider who sat wonderfully still despite the fidgeting.

Lucy sank down into the tussocks on the bank and the woman saw.

“What is that?” she said to Arthur. Then she raised her chin like a handsome fox alerted to something in the distance and fixed her gaze on the smoke away behind Lucy rising thin and blue from the Lang women's fire.

Lucy had seen Arthur's face before the woman spoke but he now lowered his head and she saw only the top of his hat nearly touched the wire he was twisting and clipping with pliers.

The horse danced some more and Lucy was still with her spikey head nearly between her knees staring at the ground. The woman wanted her to go. But Lucy had seen people shooting rabbits not firing when the rabbits were humped still but pulling the trigger when they leapt forward stretching their bodies as they ran. Perhaps the woman had a gun somewhere in her riding coat and breeches or underneath her round little hat. Lucy sat on with the sun and wind prickling the back of her neck.

“Good heavens!” the woman cried suddenly and wheeling her horse around galloped off.

Lucy let a minute pass then got up and ran down and up the opposite bank to Arthur.

He went on working snip, snip with the pliers until Lucy spoke.

“You can come of a night and visit,” she said.

Arthur looked up and down the fence and only briefly at the Lang corn paddock and the rising smoke beyond it.

“I've finished the fence,” he said.

Lucy saw the neat heap of timber not needed and the spade and other tools ready for moving. She saw the canvas bag on top, flat as a dead and gutted rabbit.

“I know why you didn't bring the doll,” she said.

“Your mother won't let you.”

THE SNAKE AND BAD TOM

Mother and the five children were around the table for midday dinner one Saturday in the spring of 1930.

Mother had passed out the plates of potato and pumpkin and corned beef except Father's, and the children anxious to start kept looking at the kitchen door.

“Now everyone behave when Father comes,” Mother said, her dull blue eyes skimming over them all without resting on anyone, even Tom.

But the children's eyes, from twelve year old Fred to Rosie the baby swung towards Tom next in age to Fred. Tom lifted a shoulder and rubbed it around his ear.

“Tom's doing it, Mother,” said Letty.

Mother was about to tell Tom not to, because the habit irritated Father, and Lord knows what it might lead to when the door opened and Father was there.

“There you are, Lou,” said Mother bustling to the old black stove and taking his dinner from the top of a saucepan she set it in his place.

Father hooked his old tweed cap on the back of his chair and fixed his eyes on Rosie, who was in her highchair with her head tipped back and her blue eyes glittering with the brilliance of her smile for him that showed every one of her pearly teeth.

“That cheeky one will get a hiding before the day is out,” said Father sitting down.

Fred, Letty and Grace laughed because it was wise to laugh when Father joked and the idea of Father's favourite, beautiful innocent four year old Rosie being belted with the leather strap was quite laughable.

Mother sent a small smile Father's way thanking him for his good humour. Tom was opposite Father and Father fixed his brown eyes suddenly gone hard on him, because Tom, lifting a shoulder again and rubbing it around his ear, hadn't laughed.

Tom had stolen a look at the strap hanging behind the kitchen door. It surprised him the way things were always being lost in and around the house but the strap, long and broad and shining and curled a little at one end, never strayed from its nail except when it was flaying the air and marking the children's legs, nearly always Tom's, with pink and purple stripes.

Tom felt his legs prickle at the sight of it. The old clock on the dresser with a stain in its face where Mother had poured separator oil into the works to get it going showed one o'clock. Tom dropped his knife and fork and counted on his fingers under the table. Two, three, four and up to eight o'clock when everyone was sent to bed.

Could he stay out of trouble that long? There were once ten Saturdays in a row when Tom got a hiding. As soon as Saturday dawned the topic was whether Tom would get a hiding before the day was out. Tom ashamed and fearful would lift his shoulder to his ear and wish for time to race away as fast as old Henry the cattle dog fled for the safety of the corn paddock from Father's blucher boot.

Tom was wishing that now, counting carefully with both hands from one to eight. He was slow at school, in the same class with Letty two years younger, so it took him a long time. Father saw Tom's lips moving and not with pumpkin and potato behind them. Rancour rose inside Father churning at his innards and making him stand his knife and fork upright beside his plate with a noise like bullets from a double barrelled gun. The young whelp! The dingo! Neglecting food slaved for under the hot sun and orders barked out by old Jack Reilly on whose farm Father did labouring work because his own place couldn't keep the seven of them. Seven! My God, he should be free to go to Yulong races this afternoon with money in his pocket and an oyster coloured felt hat, a white shirt and a red tie. He clenched his jaws on the tough meat and snapped his head back, eyes with the whites showing fixed on Tom.

“You!” he yelled and everyone jumped. “You! Eat up! Eat up or I'll skin the hide off you! I'll beat you raw as a skinned wallaby! S-s-s-s-s-s—” When angry Father made a hissing noise under his tongue that was more ominous than a volume of words. Knives and forks now clattered vigorously on the plates.

“Eat up, everyone,” said Mother hoping to pull Father's eyes away from Tom.

“Everyone is eating up except Tom,” Grace said looking at Father for approval.

Father held Tom's mesmerized eyes. “Up straight in your chair!”

Tom took up his knife and fork and glanced down at the wooden bench he shared with Fred and Grace.

“It's not a chair,” he said. “It's a stool.”

Even to his own ears the words sounded not his own. They were his thoughts and they had rushed from him like air from a blown balloon pricked with a pin. Perhaps he only thought he said them. He looked around the table and saw by the shocked faces that he had. Then he saw Father, who was long and lean and sinewy, grow longer as he reared up above the table. Tom scarcely ever thought of more than one thing at once. Now he only thought how much Father reminded him of a brown snake.

Father dropped his knife and fork with a terrible clatter and seized Tom by his old cambric shirt. There was the noise of tearing.

“Oh, Lou!” Mother cried with a little moan. “Don't Lou!”

“Don't Lou!” said Father mocking her. “Won't Lou! I'll kill him!”

Father had risen from his chair and it fell backwards onto the floor.

“I'll pick up Father's chair,” said Letty looking at everyone and anticipating their envy because she thought of it first.

“I'll get the strap,” said Grace feeling she had gone one better.

Father let go Tom's shirt but held onto him with his eyes, his body hooped over the enamel milk jug and the tin plate of bread.

Tom saw Father's red neck running down inside his unbuttoned grey flannel.

He's like a red bellied snake, Tom thought and the corner of his mouth twitched.

“Oooh, aah,” cried Letty aghast. “Tom's grinning!”

She was on one side of Father having put the chair upright Grace was on the other side holding out the strap. The only sound was the busy ticking of the clock.

Rosie spoke first. “I love Tom!” she cried.

Eyes swung to Rosie and breaths were let out in shocked gasps.

The words had rushed from the small, sweet, red mouth the way Tom's words had. Rosie too seemed shocked at herself and looked around the table, pressing the spoon to her mouth as if to hold back more.

Eyes flew to Father. What would happen now? But Father still held Tom by the eyes, one hand groping in the air for the strap.

“Here it is, Father,” said Grace and Letty moved Father's chair to make it easier for him to make his way around the table.

“Finish up your dinner first Lou, while it's hot!” Mother urged.

Father began to lower himself slowly towards his chair.

He's going back into his hole, Tom thought and his mouth twitched again.

Eyes were on Tom so no one could shriek a warning when Father lowered himself past his chair and hit the floor with a thud.

“Oh, Lou!” Mother cried out. “Lou, are you hurt?”

“Poor Father!” cried Letty, anxious to shift any blame from herself. “It's all Tom's fault!”

Mother helped Father up, pressing him into his chair deliberately cutting off his vision of Tom. If Mother's back could have spoken it would have said Run Tom, run. Go for your life. If he hits you now he might kill you. Run, run. Please run.

“Finish up your dinner first Lou,” Mother said.

Father sat with the strap across his lap.

Suddenly Rosie cried out, “Don't hit Tom!”