Authors: Jenny Pattrick
Skylark (4 page)
Here I was, only ten years old, trembling somewhat at the enormity of this new adventure. All was so strange, so utterly different!
[Archivist’s Note: Lili is consistently a little confused over dates. I believe she would have been at least twelve years old at this stage. E. de M.]
Where were the buildings? The apartments? The theatres and boulevards? Especially, where was the sea? Beyond our little tent were other little tents, and other people digging furiously. Here and there a lonely tree stood to give shade, but mostly the land had been cleared of every trunk and bush. The ground was pitted with holes as if giant dogs had been at work, burying giant bones. Oh how I missed not only the sea, but the craggy ramparts of the Alpes Maritimes, which gave shape and drama to our hometown. The land here sloped this way and that, undulating sickeningly like the wild ocean we had thankfully now quit. Mounds of rubble scarred the land. Even Mount Alexander seemed too silly to be called a mountain. There were people everywhere, burrowing in their little claims, their tents perched on the lip of the excavation, or even on the heaps of rubble. Those lucky enough to find timber built a log fence to protect their pit from night-time scavengers.
Soon Papa built a tripod above our little hole, from which we hung a rope and bucket. Maman and I would wind up the full buckets of wash dirt and store the rubble beside the
box-cradle
. Papa would emerge from time to time and we all watched breathlessly while he rocked and rocked the cradle that held —
we hoped — our future: not a baby, but grains of gold.
Alas we had no running water at the claim. Claims near to water were beyond our means. The nearest spout from the long, snaking water-race was ten claims distant. Maman or I were forced to pay a penny for each bucket of water then carry it back to Papa, who directed the precious liquid into the top of the box. It was slow work. Papa often said cheerfully that we were fitter than most and able to stand the hard labour. But in truth we were not. There is a certain dogged toughness necessary for such endless labour. We were performers. Strong-limbed, yes, but accustomed to a certain liveliness and sparkle to our daily routine. Looking back, I see now that we all three became low-spirited with the digger’s life. Everything was sand-coloured; the dry soil invaded everything: our bed, our food, our clothes. We were hungry.
But every day there was hope. Every day promised to be the one where the cradle or the pan would show the colour. Many times we discovered a few pennyweight. Papa would whoop and laugh and dance, which brought angry or jealous scowls from his neighbours. More often those who made a find were silent, furtively hiding away their golden grains in a little bag tied by a thong around the neck, hidden from view until the bank agent, with his scales and his letters of credit, rode past, weighed the precious grains and then carried them safely away in his saddle-bags.
Papa’s sparse findings went to buy food for Maman. Her baby — I never thought of it as a brother or sister, but hers alone — jutted hugely from her thin body and would soon be born. At that time we were two months behind on our thirty-shilling-
a-month
claim fee, but so were most of the diggers. The collectors hovered, waiting to pounce.
Papa’s claim was in a block where most of the diggers were Polish or Italian. And nearly all of them were men, whose only interest was in working hard and then walking or riding in to Bendigo to spend their earnings on drink and women. They sang and shouted as they worked, but fell silent when Maman and I approached, embarrassed, I suppose, to find a woman and young
girl in their midst. It made us feel like outcasts. Maman especially felt this, but she did her bit, fetching water, cooking and washing clothes. But she was never happy in this rough male world. No one, it seemed, had time for chatter — or for entertainment.
Papa tried his hand at juggling; up went the Indian clubs and golden globes — four in the air — while Papa shouted and sang to attract the diggers. But mostly people smiled and passed by, ignoring the cap which I passed around. Maman was too cumbersome — and too tired — to perform acrobatics, and without her our old routines were useless.
How I missed the applause and cheers which we earned back in France. I pleaded with Papa: ‘I can learn new routines. We can do new tricks, just you and me.’ But he was intent on digging his claim and had no time for practice. Anyway, the other diggers preferred to spend their pennies on the rowdy entertainment of the saloons and dancehalls. Charles Thatcher (whom I later performed alongside, I’m both proud and ashamed to say) was a great favourite among the diggers. Everywhere you’d hear the bawdy words of his songs repeated with much laughter around the campfires. My English was not good enough to understand. Papa said it was just as well.
Once, we paid a few precious pence for a ride on a cart into Bendigo. Here were buildings: saloons and public houses, theatres, bootmakers, barbers, general stores, drapers. I saw a poster for Foley’s Royal Victoria Circus! But where, in the town’s sprawling mess of buildings and people, could it be situated? And anyway, our money was too precious to be spent on entertainment.
Maman cried out in horror at the high prices in Bendigo. Food and clothes, even general necessities like soap, shovels and canvas, cost a fortune. We returned to our claim with a sack of flour, a little sugar and tea, and a piece of bacon. Clothes for the baby would have to wait.
Many months after our arrival Papa was still digging. I remember it was a Sunday — a priest had come to the diggings and conducted an open-air service. The three of us attended the
mass and then returned to work. Papa’s hole was deep now. The tips of the rough wooden ladder only just reached the top, and a pile of debris rose behind the tent. In the past days there had been enough grains of the colour to keep up Papa’s constant high spirits, but today his movements were slow, his eyes dull. Still he worked on. Maman lay in the tent. The baby was not due for another month but already Maman seemed listless and ill, her cheeks as flushed as Papa’s were grey. I waited by the little pulley, ready, when Papa shouted, to haul the bucket of dirt to the surface.
Big Marco, who worked the claim to the right of us, came climbing over piles of rubble and rubbish, shaking soil and stones from his clothes as he approached. Marco was an older man, his grey hair curling wildly to meet a profusion of wiry beard. Mostly his eyes peered out from this foliage in a friendly way, but I had learned to stay clear when he had liquor aboard. Once I saw him knock two men to the ground — bang, bang, left and right — without, it seemed, even trying. Marco had worked the goldfields of California before these, and had enough French to pass the time of day with Papa. Today he was smiling, so I waited.
Marco lowered a thick paw onto my shoulder, making my knees sag a little. His accent was thick and his words laced with Italian, but I grew up on the Italian border and so was used to deciphering that language. ‘Little girl, I am leaving today.’
I nodded.
‘This field, it is past its best time, you understand?’
Again I nodded.
Marco sighed. ‘Little one, forgive the remark, but your mother is not well. She should not be here.’
‘I know that,’ I said, ‘but Papa says we will stay one more week and then go to town.’
‘I do not wish to intrude, but one more week may not be so good an idea.’
I waited for more, but the old digger seemed unable to find the words. He shuffled his feet, searched in his pocket for some unseen thing. I waited. Finally he spoke again in a rush.
‘Your father is not well also. I have seen it before. The bowels run away …’
‘Well, we have all had that,’ I said rather sharply. What business had this man to talk of such private things?
Marco nodded. ‘Yes, yes, I know, but his is different, I think. He should go to the doctor. Please, little one, tell your mother. Tell your father. Go to Bendigo before it is too late. Please.’
Marco looked at me sternly, pressed a heavy hand on my shoulder again and left, his boots scattering stones as if he were angry.
Before I had time to think about these warnings, Papa’s head popped up from the digging. His face was drawn, but his eyes shone with excitement. ‘Lili, Lili, help me out!’
Marco’s words held some truth; Papa hadn’t the strength to climb over the lip. But once upright, he moved quickly over to the tent and ducked out of sight. I followed. Papa knelt beside Maman. In his outstretched, grubby palm was a nugget the size of a grape. He spat on it, then rubbed it with his sleeve until the little treasure gleamed.
‘See, my darling,’ he whispered. ‘This will pay for all we need. And more.’
Maman sat up on her cot, her eyes shining. She laughed, coughed, but recovered and smiled again. Oh, how strong was my poor Maman!
For that day and all night, we were king and queen and princess of the world. Papa forgot his tiredness. Maman ignored pains that should have warned us all. Papa returned to the digging. Up came the buckets of dirt; I hauled and tipped them out into the box, dashed in the water, rocked the cradle and sent the buckets back down to Papa. I wanted to be the one to find the next show of colour. But Papa was no longer interested in grains or flakes. He was sure there’d be another nugget, and another, and another. He called for a lamp and worked an hour into the night. When he finally crawled out and into the tent, he collapsed. There was a dreadful smell about him. But his eyes still shone, that sweet Papa of mine, because in his hands was indeed
another nugget, not as big as the first, but heavy and beautiful.
He was hardly aware that I undressed and washed him, threw the soiled trousers outside and tucked him under the blanket beside Maman.
The day had been hot, the flies maddening and the stench of rubbish or rotting food quite horrible. Night-time, when the flies settled, was always our favourite, when the three of us would rest in the little tent. Sometimes we would sing — old songs from home, or new ones we’d make up about our hopes and dreams. Papa had a lovely voice, high and sweet. Maman and I would take the lower parts. Occasionally others would gather and listen, but soon they would melt away again. Perhaps they didn’t understand our foreign tongue — or perhaps they were just tired.
That night there was no singing. Papa lay still as a stone, the skin around his eyes black, his breaths uneven and rasping. I remembered what Marco had said and began to be afraid. Then Maman woke suddenly with a scream.
‘The waters, the waters, they are broken!’ She screamed again. And rolled back and forth on the bed.
Papa’s eyes snapped open. He tried to sit up but fell back. Tried again, but it was no use. He grabbed at my hand. ‘Lili, Lili, run and find help. Quickly! Perhaps the old Chinese lady …’
Out of the tent I ran, stumbling among the heaps of rubble, falling to my knees and then continuing on. I think I was shouting and screaming for help — or was it my mother’s cries in my ears? I was trying to remember where the Chinese tent was. And I was afraid. The old couple were secretive, living a little apart from the rest of the diggers, their clothing unusual and the way they squatted on their heels and ate their food with little sticks alien to our Mediterranean eyes. But the Chinese woman was the only other of our sex in that section of the goldfields.
I found the tent. Gasping and shaking, I woke them and tried to make them understand with gestures and a few words of English that my mother’s baby was on the way. They turned away from me and began talking in that strange singsong way; I thought they were refusing to come and in my desperation I started shouting
and crying. The lady — she was not so old after all — took my arm gently and made me understand that she wanted me to carry a copper tea-kettle. Her husband took the blanket from their own bed and she wrapped something in a clean towel. They were good, kind people, not strange or fearsome at all. On the way back to our tent I was happy to hold the man’s hand, and be guided by his lamp.
We could hear Maman’s screams. Oh, I still hear them all these years later! She was not a delicate, high-bred woman, my mother; she had always endured pain and physical discomfort with a laugh or a shrug — ‘It’s only pain, soon to pass’ — so I knew that something bad was happening.
[Archivist’s Note: Indeed it was. Lily’s journal becomes fragmented at this point, the phrases stuttering and hiccuping as she remembers that terrible night. I have edited the following passage to make it coherent. E. de M.]
I could see, dimly lit by the Chinese man’s lamp, Papa lying on the ground outside the tent. Perhaps he had tried to remove himself from Maman before his bowels gave way. There was a terrible smell. I couldn’t move: rooted to the ground with fear, I was. I heard a whimpering and realised the sounds came from my own mouth. Who should I help — Papa or Maman? Alas, I was helpless to give comfort to either.