Wandering Girl (15 page)

BAALAY!

Next morning, when I came into the kitchen with a couple of oranges to squeeze for her, I had completely forgotten about the fair. She was already up and turned to me straight away. “Oh, there you are. Look, hurry up with my juice, as we've got a very busy day. Get my bottles of jam out of the pantry and give them a wipe over. Be careful that you don't rub the labels off!”

“Then pack them very neatly in my cane basket, on the bench over here. I am entering them in the Ridgeway Fair and you are coming with me, to help carry things. We will leave after breakfast. Hurry up, because I have to be there before Mr Bigelow opens the fair.”

Without showing any emotion, I went about my jobs in my usual casual way. When I got to my room, I shut the door behind me quietly. Then I jumped for joy. I chucked my work clothes up in the air and started humming and singing, as I set about getting dressed.

Taking care I looked nice for the fair, I put on a pleated white skirt, a blue blouse, faded white pair of shoes and a pink hair band around my head, instead of a scarf. Then I knelt down beside my bed to say thanks to God for letting me go to the fair.

I left my room like a whirlwind swept through it. She was already waiting in the car and told me to hurry up and run to the kitchen and get the basket of jams. She told me to sit with it beside me in the car and hang on to it.

At the fairground there were cars and people everywhere. I wondered if my mate was here. I followed my boss with the basket of jams like a lost lamb, still wondering if my mate was coming. Kids were running everywhere, music belting out all over the ground, swings were set up and coloured lights were flashing on the merry-go-round.

When we reached the judging stall, all I could hear was, “Hello Tracey, it's good to see you again. You could ask your dark servant to place the jars up on the shelf. Wish you luck.” While they were all jabbering I got busy setting the jars up and thought to myself, “All these women are a bunch of chooks.” Then a voice piped up amongst the jabbering, “Oh, here comes Prue Follington.”

I whirled around and saw Mrs Follington with Horsey beside her, carrying a basket. I suddenly felt happy putting the jars up. They could joke about Mrs Follington getting her dark servant to put her jams up next to Mrs Bigelow's. I stood and waited for Horsey to do it, while in the meantime our two bosses got talking.

They both turned to us - we could walk around but must report back to them at dinner time, because they were leaving then to go back to their farms. We never wasted any time.

We had rides on the merry-go-round, ate our fill of fairy-floss, tried our luck on the chocolate wheel, bought ourselves some pies and drinks and found a table and bench under a tree. While we were sitting there joking and eating, and laughing if anyone comical walked past us, we noticed another Aboriginal girl with four white kids, just walking around and looking at the game stands.

I said to Horsey, “Hey, who's that Nyoongah girl over there?” Anne didn't know her and we decided to wait till she came a bit closer. We both sat there straining our eyes, until she took hold of one of the kids arms and walked our way. “Look out, she's coming our way,” I said to Horsey, “Baalay, make out we never seen her.”

So we both turned our heads and made out we had never seen her. Next minute we heard this voice, “Hello, you two.” We looked surprised. Then she said, ‘You're not Sprattie and Horsey?” We smiled and said, “Yes,” trying to focus this face in front of us.

She said, “Don't you know me from the mission? I'm Rae Miller.” Of course we knew her. We all hugged one another, so very glad to meet up after years. How could we have missed that big forehead - we used to joke about the way it stuck out - and her plump body. We were old mission buddies. Excited, we talked and laughed. She told us she worked in Donnybrook and asked us what were we doing here?

We told her all about the people we worked for, how we hated being treated that way. She was sorry to hear it. We felt strange listening to her tell us how the white people she worked for made her one of the family. She ate with them, played with the kids, went to the pictures with them. I didn't know what to say. I changed the subject and asked her if she knew where different girls we grew up with had gone. Like us, she never heard.

Then she went on to say that on her holidays with the people she worked for, at a beautiful place called Dunsborough, near the beach, she did bump into one of the girls who used to be there with us in the mission. And her name was Kaylene. Kaylene - who had married the schoolteacher!

We were so glad to hear that news, me especially. I was always close to this girl in the mission and always wondered what had happened to her. Rae had her address and suggested I write to her. Maybe instead of going to Wandering Brook for holidays again, I could go there.

Holidays were a long way off. We kept on talking, when we suddenly realised it was twelve. We told Rae we hated to leave her but we must get back to our bosses, as we were returning to our farms to work that afternoon.

Before we departed, I reached for Rae's hands and she grabbed mine. I said, “See you in Dunsborough, mate.” Then we walked back to our cars, me and Horsey. We had the same thoughts of how lucky Rae was, and wished our bosses were like that.

Before I went to sleep that night back at the Bigelow farm, I sat down and wrote my letter to Kaylene in Dunsborough.

SHEARER'S LUNCH

So I settled back into the routine of the year at the farm, waiting for a letter from Kaylene.

Shearing was on and it was the middle of the week. That used to be a busy time for everyone. I had to help make morning tea and lunches for the shearers. When it was time for either morning tea or lunch, Robert, her youngest son, used to come up to the house to collect the food in a basket.

From the top of the hill, where the house stood, you could view the goings-on, and hear the shouting of men and the machines and baaing of lambs and ewes. The shearing sheds were about half a mile from the house.

It was a quarter to twelve and I was busy in the kitchen, putting the last lot of sandwiches in the basket, which was laden high with food. I didn't know exactly how many blokes there were but I did overhear Robert tell his mother the other day that there were about ten men - it looked like she was going to feed an army.

The phone rang while I was cleaning up and I heard her walk into the dining room and take the receiver off the hook. She spoke for about twenty minutes, then came into the kitchen to tell me that I was to take the lunches to the men, as they were very busy and Robert couldn't come to pick the basket up. One of the shearers was sick and couldn't make it in to work.

She said, “Drop what you're doing, take the flask of tea and the basket of sandwiches.” So I grabbed it and away I went with my heavy load, humming as I went along, glad of the break - I was out of the house.

When I got outside I thought, “Instead of walking right around the road. I'll take a short cut.” I walked straight down the hill and over to the creek, which had this makeshift bridge going across it.

There were ropes on both sides and boards going straight down the middle. Water was still flowing strongly under it. When I reached the bridge I put the basket and flask down and sat on the grass to rest my body, as it was aching through the strain of carrying that load of food.

When I felt better, I picked up the flask and sandwiches. I was in good spirits as I tiptoed on to the bridge, which was very wobbly. With one hand up clinging to the rope, I stooped down low and sort of dragged the basket to the middle. Next minute, without warning, I found myself on my backside in the water, and the sandwiches floating beside me.

I got such a shock when I felt how cold the water was, I screamed, sprang up and ran towards to the house. When I finally reached it, I banged right into Mrs Bigelow. She was out in the garden looking at her flowers. My heart sank. I think she got more of a shock than I, when she saw the sad state of affairs I was in.

Before she could scold me, I began gibbering, as I couldn't control the knocking of my teeth, when suddenly her son Robert pulled up in the car and handed his mum the wet basket and cracked thermos. He'd found them floating down the creek when he took his dog to round up a stray sheep, and must have figured out what happened to their dinner.

She turned to me in front of her son. ‘You clumsy, stupid girl. Can't you do anything right? You've upset the whole shearing team now. All work has stopped because the men refuse to start again till they have something to eat. I just can't trust you to do anything - that bridge was made for ducks!”

“You had to come along and wreck it. I ought to make you go down and mend it. Now get inside and get yourself cleaned up and report back to me in the kitchen when you hear me come back from the shearing shed. By that time you should be looking respectable.”

I noticed the sheepish grin on her son's face as he glanced at me, before following his mother back into the kitchen. I felt shame as I slipped into my room and shut the door.

END OF THE ROAD