Salt Creek (5 page)

‘Well, boys, dig it a little longer and we can call it a grave,' he said.

They stood around considering the possibilities and poking at the pit's edge with their shovels. It had become an amusement. Stanton climbed in and lay there, tipping his hat so it covered his eyes as if to go to sleep and all that was visible from a distance was his hat's battered crown and the bobbing head of the grass stalk that he was chewing and his booted feet crossed casually at the lip of the other end where his legs were too long to fit. It made me shiver to see Stanton lying there beneath the ground's surface, and to see them mock it. Georgie's grave had been smaller than this and the mound over it a hump that a small child could have jumped with ease and all about it had been the dried grasses of summer that bent stiffly with the wind.

I picked up my skirts and ran at them, stamping my feet when I drew near. ‘Stop. Stop it. Get out, stupid boy. If Mama should see.'

Papa looked at me mildly. ‘Just a little fun, Hester. They meant no harm. But you are right about your mother. It would not do if she came out,' and he looked around to make sure she was not approaching – but of course she was not. ‘Quickly now, Stanton.'

Hugh gave me that look with half-closed eyes and a faint smile of his ridiculous rosebud mouth, which made my blood boil, as if he were doing me a favour by conferring his attention. His self-regard was a mystery to me. Nothing could dent it. He kicked some dirt over Stanton who bellowed something low and rough and leapt up alive again and lunged at Hugh, tackling him to the ground and they rolled about, growling and laughing and slapping. I stepped around the grave and up the slope away from Papa's outstretched hand.

‘Now, Hettie,' he said, but did no more to stop me.

I heard the boys laughing and did not turn and soon I was over the top of the rise and able to look around without my gaze falling on them.

They rigged up some larger sawhorses and tried to cut the length of the trunk, but the grain of the wood was fine and its torsion was against the direction of the branch so the saw blade stuck and then broke and they gave it up as a bad job.

Papa had brought one load of new timber down the stock route from the hills when building the house, but twice it had overturned in the ruts and he would not contemplate it again. Hard work would find us the materials. We fell to scavenging for wood on the peninsula. After a storm the boys walked miles up and down the sea beach. Small lengths, broken pieces and driftwood were for the fire; longer lengths from the wrecked ships that had gone down hereabouts were prized – a terrible labour though. They had to be rowed back and if there was too much the boat wallowed and seemed likely to drown. Albert was sturdy for a boy of ten. He and Fred worked together, searching and dragging back pieces they could manage to the point opposite our house, and Hugh and Stanton loaded the boat and rowed back and forth with their shabby treasure.

Curved pieces from the ship's sides were weighted to dry flat; straight bits, which Papa said were from decking or walls, were best; they had been planed smooth – fairly smooth at any rate. He showed me other places in the house where shipwrecked timber that he and Hugh and Stanton had found last winter and spring had been used. It was curious to walk through the house and know that so much of it had once been afloat, and when the house sighed and shifted in the cold of the night, it was easy to imagine that we were at sea ourselves, that whales and shark fish were passing beneath us with a lazy roll of their backs along the belly of the house, and on a windy night that sails above were catching the driven air and we were slicking through water, and on a still night that we were anchored in the limitless sea to stop us foundering on the rocks.

All through the winter storms we were on top of each other and all about us was disorder and the big boys swearing they'd get more sleep out with the bullocks. The baby screamed until Hugh said, ‘Cut her gums and save us all, Papa.'

‘Don't,' I said. ‘I'll mind her at night. Think of Louisa.'

Hugh was quiet at that, and I remembered that Louisa had been a favourite of his.

Papa said, ‘It was a fever, the same as Georgie's.'

I said, ‘I'll take her and keep her quiet. The tooth's nearly through.'

Papa agreed, so then it was Addie and Mary and me all in that one bed in our narrow room. Often during those colourless hours I rose to her cries and walked her from front door to back until she slept again.

As busy as we were with collecting wood and caulking the gaps in the walls and battening the roof to withstand the wind's sting we did not notice when the natives had gone, only that by June we had none of us noticed any for some time.

‘They've seen that we mean to stay,' Hugh said.

Papa was hopeful. ‘We have given them no reason to leave. They may yet return. We shall see.'

Mama's spirits shifted about, lifting at the thought of the blacks having gone, falling at her situation. The space unnerved her. She kept to the parlour and its reminders of her old life, only smiling obediently at Papa when he came to sit with her each day.

‘We have extended the fence towards the stock route,' he might say.

And she would nod, ‘Oh yes.'

‘Which will prevent the cattle straying so far.'

‘Yes. I suppose so.' She plucked at the fringes of the velvet cushions and shrugged deeper into her shawl. She took a turn about the room as if she'd decided on a purpose and went to the kitchen door and stared at the lagoon or stood at the parlour window, gazing onto the track up the grassy slope as if hopeful that someone might come visiting despite the hour being advanced and there being no company of any kind, suitable or not.

We rowed her across to the peninsula one day thinking to divert her and even persuaded her up a tall sand hill. At the summit she turned around and looked as far off as she could see along the waves of sand and water and sky and the light splintering across it all, and shuddered.

‘Please, let us go back now,' she said.

‘Just a little longer. Come see. I want to show you something,' Fred said.

But she became agitated and she would not thereafter be removed from the mainland side of the lagoon and its closeness to the stock route. It was the slender cord that connected her. I held onto the thought myself and had to believe that I would travel it one day with Mama and we would return to our old life. Still, I liked the peninsula. No one knew what we did there: throwing ourselves down the sides of hills with our skirts held high and drawers showing, running after the gnawing waves and screaming away when they reached for us. I leapt across a snake once when running down a hill – there was no time to stop – across its unnatural diagonal movement, and at the bottom laughed that I had cheated death.

We persevered with school. Fred began to record the natural environment of the Coorong and he brought plants and flowers and insects to the table, which he would draw and describe in his note book after he had done with his lessons, a task he disappeared into so completely that he hardly heard his name.

Addie looked at the sentence I had set her to parse and stuttered her pencil on the table. ‘Why must I do this, Hester? I'll never use it.'

‘You might. Women are in as great a need of a well-furnished mind as men.'

‘That is only what Mama and Grandmama say. Minnie says no man likes an educated woman.' Minnie was Addie's friend in Adelaide. We were all familiar with her many opinions.

‘Papa does.'

‘Look what's befallen Mama despite all her learning. I have other things on my mind.'

‘Such as?'

‘Living in town and marrying a kind, rich gentleman and never weeding or washing again.'

‘You don't do those now. If we work together to help Papa we might return to town one day. How else will you meet such a man?'

‘But parsing a sentence, Hester. How does that help?'

I began a new topic in Davison's
System of Practical Mathematics
. Inside that neat and predictable world my circumstances became illusory. There was a great deal in it that could have a practical application for Papa if he would but listen. Truly, I believe that mathematics saved me that first winter: that and the pianoforte, which I do not know how we came to bring. It had value and might have been sold. Perhaps Mama insisted, though she had so little of insistence left in her. It was sleek and large pushed up against the shipwreck wall, and was hardly to be believed.

Finally in spring there was sufficient wood to build an addition to the house, a bigger room for Addie and me and another for the boys, so they had two rooms, each with two beds. But the wood was not quite dry and as by day the house drew in dust and grass seeds and insects and heat, by night it released the sea: salty, briny, the breath of the deep, thin at first, then thickening and souring as it dried. I thought of the people who might have died inside the wood clawing for escape, or reaching for it to save them, or who were washed from it or dragged from it by fish and eaten. Was it any wonder that sometimes I shrank from its walls?

Papa built me a little shelf by my bed in the new bedroom where I might put a lamp and read. When I took the lamp into my room on the first night the light fell on a word, SAL, a name I supposed, scratched into the wood, and I wondered who it might be. Was it a girl, Sally, leaving her mark, or a sailor's or passenger's sweetheart, a whole name, a nickname, did the ship go down before the word was finished? I showed it to Addie and she made a game of hunting for other signs around the house. The thought of a person having been close by in another time was peculiar, as if days or years or deaths long past were no more than another room that we might walk into. Sometimes Sal was more real to me than anything. I wondered about her, wanting as I was for friendship. She was short and dark and lively, as I imagined her, kinder than Addie, less selfish, but with a quick tongue and fond of dancing. She thought me too bookish and looked out to sea, not at anything here. Her skin took the sun, turning dusky, and her eyes were pale as a calm sea close to shore, like the sea glass I found one day among the shells. Mama said it was rare. Who knew where it had come from or where it had been? I also kept a piece of driftwood, which was differently transformed. It had turned to silk and weighed nothing at all. When I stroked it against my cheek it was like the touch of another.

It was my purpose to travel one day, as those objects had. Only I hoped I would have more will, more power, than a bottle thrown from a ship at sea or a twig washed from a distant shore.

CHAPTER 5

The Coorong, September 1855

AT FIRST THAT SPRING TULLY WAS MERELY
one more native in the distance, differentiated from the others who appeared on the run once more only by his comparative pallor. It was the sight of him with two women walking the lagoon track a little closer to our house than usual that brought back our first day and the boy who had thrown the stone. Even then I might not have known – they were walking away from me – but for the turn of the taller woman's head at a duck lifting from the reeds so that her cheek caught the sun. I saw the marks of smallpox on her.

Tull was quite tall already and narrow. He was no one in particular to us and over some months it was as if he were resolving under Fred's microscope, until he was part of our lives and moving among us. A remarkable person: he altered our course, not only on the Coorong, but for always.

The cows were calving and Papa and the boys rode the paddocks each day to check them and move them to fresh pasture. Tull began to linger wherever they were, and gradually drew closer until finally they were able to converse. To hear Papa on the subject he might have been tickling for trout, so delicate was the task of waiting for the boy to approach so that they could communicate with or even befriend him. He put choice morsels of food as close to him as he could get – treacle-filled damper, a few slivers of dried apple, and drew back so that the boy might advance without fear. Why he might be frightened I didn't know, for no harm had come to them at our hands.

In the evening despite his fatigue Papa became animated on the subject, going so far as to enact the stealth of the boy's movements and his watchfulness. Mary, in my arms, was wide-eyed at the sight of Papa in his stockinged feet, lifting his legs high in a particular way and placing them with such care. Stanton and Hugh watched with a blank cast to their features; evidently they did not share his aims or fascination. I enjoyed hearing about it; I looked forward to it (any news was welcome) and I think Mama did too. Her spirits were improving somewhat with the warmer weather.

‘He came close today and spoke, Bridget,' Papa said in excitement on his return home one afternoon. ‘Only think, he has some English already. Where would he have that from? A great mystery. I was thinking of a small gift perhaps. Something to show that we mean well and wish to help, to begin our work. Jam. Yes, perhaps that. Do we have a pot to spare? Something sweet.' He was quite distracted.

‘Some dried peas?' Mama said.

‘That will do very well' – he kissed Mama's cheek – ‘and a packet of flour. I'll get it from the storehouse,' and at Mama's sharp look added, ‘A little only. I will be back in a minute.' He banged through the back door and could be heard whistling his way across to the storehouse in search of enticements. Mama looked after him for a moment and went to the inside larder and presently I heard the drawers opening.

Addie having disappeared exactly when her help might be needed, I began to set the table and then Fred and Albert came in hungry after their afternoon of work.

‘Did you talk to the native?' I asked.

‘Talk?' Fred said. He fossicked for oat biscuits in the biscuit barrel and slid it across the table to Albert. ‘A bit. He made himself understood well enough. He speaks English, did you know? His name is Tully – an Irish name, is it not? He said he has another name, but he didn't tell us it, or speak a word of his own language. He wanted to know what we called things.'

‘Is he nice? Did you like him? What did you think of him?'

‘He's not very clean,' Albert said. He wrinkled his nose.

‘No, he's not,' Fred said, and then seeing my disappointment at the lack of detail, ‘I don't know. He's different.' He shook his head. ‘He just watched us. We were notching the fence posts. He wanted to hold the axe. Papa wouldn't let him in case he ran off with it. He didn't mind.'

‘Are you talking of the black boy?' Hugh asked, appearing at the door. ‘If you'd like to know what I think, he might show us more respect, instead of behaving as if he were our equal and we were visiting him. Lordly, he is.'

But Papa said, ‘There's time enough to teach respect. We must first make a good impression.'

All through spring the boy, Tully, approached them when they were out. He always knew where they were working. The transparency of that country was an illusion; its flatness beyond the stock route concealed dips and folds within which anything might be hidden.

‘Slowly goeth the Lord's work,' Papa would say.

Hugh and Stanton held other views. ‘Encouraging this familiarity,' I overheard Hugh muttering to Stanton one day as they removed their boots at the door. ‘He will come to regret it. Do you know what the boy told me today? That we shouldn't have chopped that tree down and then showed me which ones we should use, can you believe it? Didn't have all the words but did very well making his thoughts known. I told him we would use the wood that we saw fit since it was ours, not his, and did not trouble to conceal my feelings. That gave him pause.'

‘That's why he left?' Stanton said.

‘Will he visit us here, Papa?' I said at dinner.

‘Yes,' Addie said. ‘We should know him too. I want to meet the black boy.'

Mama shook her head at Papa.

‘He is not a toy or a pet, girls. And he has no clothes.'

‘He does have a cloak,' Albert said.

‘Which he removes when he is warm,' Hugh said.

‘Some breeches?' Papa asked Mama. ‘And a shirt? For the girls' sake. He would come closer, I think. We could persuade him. And the others might follow.'

‘And the smell? What of that?' Stanton said.

‘He is not coming inside, only visiting,' Papa said. ‘That is, I hope he is.'

With a little more encouragement Mama found the clothes and Papa took them and in some way persuaded Tull to don them – tying them about his narrow waist with a cord for a belt – and he came closer to the house, and began to wait at the stable in the morning for Papa and the boys to begin their work, which just then was building a cheese-making shed from tree branches and wattle and mud. The boy became a willing helper. Addie and I watched sometimes, not too openly, from the vegetable patch or the poultry run. He was careful and precise in his weaving of branches and in applying the thick mud that coated them, and expected nothing in return, only, they said, that he talked a great deal and liked conversation and that his English improved quickly. I did not converse with him when he first made himself known to Papa, so I could not judge as to his improvement.

The first that I spoke to him was one morning when I went into the stable in search of Papa. It was shadowy in there and sweet with the smell of hay and Tull was looking about curiously. The horses did not mind him and he did not mind them – they were acquainted already I suppose. He turned at my footstep and it was a shock to find myself so close to him; we might have collided had I been moving faster. He was almost as tall as I, but younger: slender and with a boy's frame and smooth cheeks. His hair was almost to his shoulders and curling and knotted and stuck with a few burrs. He smelled, as Stanton had said, his skin being rubbed with some animal fat. He was not someone whom Mama would welcome into her home, no matter the cause.

My own surprise was matched very well by his horror. I believe I was the first white female he had seen close to.

‘Excuse me,' I said. ‘Tull, isn't it? Is Papa about? Mr Finch, that is.'

He backed away and backed away and his eyes darted about and, feeling sorry for him, I withdrew until I was outside once more. When there was enough room to get past me he came out and moved towards the yard fence before he spoke to me, nothing more than a simple greeting and the information that he was waiting for Mr Finch and the boys. He spoke well, lacking only a few words, but the rhythms of his sentences were unusual to my ear and the ends of his sentences rolled away into nothing, like water disappearing into dry ground. It was not at all like the blacks that I had heard in Adelaide before they became so scarce.

‘Would you like a drink while you wait?'

His eyes flickered across my hair and face and dress and at my shoes and ankles – which anyone could see but polite people would not stare at so because they should have been covered – and back to my hair and face very quick, which he had to look away from again.

‘Of water?' I said.

He moved away again a half-step at a time until he ran into the yard fence, which he then climbed over, and to spare him I went back inside.

The cheese-making began, using the small moulds from the old dairy farm. I washed them and dried them to make them ready. The night before it was to begin, Papa chose a little bobby calf and led it and its mother down to the yard. At first the cow rolled her eyes and thrust her horns at anyone approaching the calf too close. She kept it safe between her and the wooden fence until the enticement of a few handfuls of oats was put in the trough, and the calf touching against her side became calm. It was curious and put its soft whiskered mouth against my hand and its mother stared at me as if making a judgement, and I lied in all my actions and the tone of my voice and she let me scratch the little calf on its head where the nubby horns were pressing against the skin. It butted its head into my touch.

Addie came up to the shed with me – to help, she said, but I think it was that she was curious. I was glad of her company. There was the condemned calf suckling and pausing to take us all in before returning to his pressing task, and his mother bewildered at being tethered to the fence. When the time came Papa led the bleating calf away from its mother out of the yard and around the corner of the stable where it was concealed from sight if not sound and Stanton or Hugh held it while Papa dispatched it. This part I surmised from the bloody knife in Papa's hand when he reappeared. The cow's lowing distress echoed about. Birds stopped singing.

Addie clapped her hands to her ears, ‘Make it stop, Hettie.' And she ran away down the path.

It
was
a piteous sound. I wanted to row across to the peninsula and sit looking out to sea where there might be a ship that I could imagine was taking me away. Of course I did not do that. I had to be sensible. I went to help.

Fred and Stanton hauled the calf up and suspended it. Blood dripped from its neck into a large bowl beneath. The rope creaked with its weight and the calf swayed and its round brown eyes with their delicate lashes stared. There was a smell of metal. Hugh removed the bowl of blood and replaced it with a clean tub and Papa took his knife and made a long even cut into the calf's belly, his face twisting, and pulled out all the entrails. They landed heavy and wet in the tub and blood splashed onto my skirts. More washing. Hugh reached out his toe and pushed back a loop of intestine that had fallen over the edge of the tub. It slid very slow down the inside edge. Another smell rose which, combined with the sight of the grey pink loops of intestine, made me retch. I did not run, though I did look aside when Papa began to rummage. Only one of the stomachs contained rennet.

Papa and I went to the kitchen and he showed me how to prepare the stomach, first opening, then washing and drying it. It was hard to cut, being the texture of India rubber, but I managed to slice it into small pieces, which we set to soak in salt water with a little vinegar added. The rennet would be ready in one or two days.

‘I don't know how you did it,' Addie said later, while we washed and dried the dishes.

‘I don't either. It's not for the love of farm life, I can tell you that. There is nothing we can do. Nothing will change if you upset yourself. The calf will still die, the mother will moan, we will still need the money. We will be here. You cannot change anything by your tears, but you can change some things by your actions.'

Two days later Papa showed me how to make the cheese. It took only a little of the rennet mixture stirred through the heated milk to form it into curds. We scooped the curds out and pressed them into the muslin lined moulds until the cheeses had set sufficiently to be released. Lined up white and pure on the storehouse shelves they were a pleasing sight at the end of the day and gave me a feeling of hope. I looked at my hands grown strong from work, and my forearms speckled from working out of doors, and felt a curious mixture of pride and dismay. I had changed from the girl I had been in town, and I did not know if I could change back.