Daughter of Australia (3 page)

“My wife would care for her.
Temporarily.
” He stressed the last word, looked at his wife's hopeful face, and his eyes grew weaker. “We would pay for the room. Would that be all right? Just for a while.”

“Of course.” Mirabelle's neck softened. “Long as yer payin' for it.”

Mrs. Carlton smiled, clapped her fingertips.

“I'll wire the constable in the morning.” The doctor fished for a piece of paper and handed it to Ghan. “We'll need your information in case the police want to speak with you.”

Ghan stared at the pen and paper, as useless to his illiterate mind as it would be to a goat. He handed it back. “It's the Bailen Mine in Menzies. John Matthews is the manager. He can track me down.” The room fell silent again.

Ghan didn't want to stay, the ticking clock of the transport already nagging. He'd be fired if the supplies were late. Wouldn't be able to find another job—no one hires a cripple. Yet he couldn't stir his body to rise, didn't know how to leave this place, how to leave the girl. He rubbed the stubble at his jaw. All eyes rested on him. The girl would live; shouldn't that be enough? After all, he did all a man could be expected to do. These people would care for her. His part was done.

Ghan swallowed the unfamiliar lump lodged in his throat. “Be goin' then.”

“Whot about yer cake?” Mirabelle asked.

“Not as hungry as I thought.”

The doctor rose. “We'll contact you if the police have questions.”

From the kitchen, Ghan stared at the dark hallway leading to the stairs, his stomach hollowing. “Orright if I say g'bye to her?”

“Of course,” allowed the doctor. “Just don't wake her.”

Ghan climbed the stairs to the bedroom and opened the door, the hinges creaking. The child was sleeping, her light brown hair strewn about the pillow, her tiny fist curled under her chin. Her skin glowed hot with the terrible burns, all the redder from the salve. Sadness lumped his throat while gratitude that she was alive swelled it. His prayer for her, if there was even a God to hear it, was razor sharp. He hoped that the rest of her days would not be as harsh—that she would not have a life steeped in the unthinkable—that the burns would not leave scars.

Ghan left the room as silently as he had entered and stepped heavily down the worn and bowed stairs. He gave a short nod to the doctor on the way out, feeling more a stranger now than when he had arrived.

Ghan entered the cool dark of Leonora's main street. He was halfway across the road when Mirabelle called out, “Hold up a minute!” She shuffled after him, her big hips swaying like the haunches of a packhorse. “Brought yeh some meat pies an' the rest of the cake.” Mirabelle handed him a basket covered with cheesecloth. “Thought yeh might get hungry.”

“Kind of yeh, Mirabelle. Real kind.”

She touched his arm then and looked hard into his eyes. “That girl would 'ave died if yeh hadn't found her.” She squeezed his fingers. “Yeh saved that little girl's life.”

Ghan nodded briefly, stared down at the food. The strange lump rose in his throat again. “Thanks for the tucker, Mirabelle.” She seemed to know that lump and patted his arm before turning around without a word.

Despite the thick black sky, the moon lit the sleepy street and energized the constellations until they popped. He wouldn't sleep tonight. He would ride through the night to Kookynie, hope the supplies still waited and then rest in the heat tomorrow.

At the wagon, Neely's snoring wheezed under a blanket heap. The shift from unyielding heat to brittle cold was clear as the transition from light to dark. Ghan had numbed to both.

Neely woke to the footsteps, rubbed his eyes. “How's the girl?”

“Good.” The lump itched his throat again. Ghan handed the basket of food over.

“Thank Gawd!” Neely snatched the food. “Bloody starvin'.” Then he paused and raised an eye. “Want me t'drive?”

“Naw, I'm awake. Get some rest an' yeh can drive some tomorrow.”

Neely and his bundle of blankets hobbled under the canopy. Ghan gave a whistle and a whack to the camels. As they moved, Mirabelle's words trickled.
Yeh saved that little girl's life.
He let the words rest in his thoughts, reverberate in his mind. Something inside awakened from the shadows.
Yeh saved that little girl's life.
A grin formed on his lips and his hunched shoulders straightened; a live wire pulsed through his body. The wagon rolled in front of the boardinghouse. A lamp burned in the child's window.
Yeh saved that little girl's life
. Something in his chest, something that had been crushed and buried deep, peeked through the blackness and blinked at a glimmer of light.

T
he heat woke her; the sun seared her face. But this burn was different. It flowed with her, hid under covers and bit at the tiniest movement. The place was different, too. Her body did not lie on rocks and roots but instead rested on cushioned softness, until she moved, and then it all sharpened to broken glass.

She slowly unpinched her eyes from the glare of sun, only to find no reason to squint. There was no sun, only a room not quite light and not quite dark. She touched her cheek, the stinging pain immediate. She did not touch it again.

Her fingers rounded against the smooth white covers, the outline of her feet stuck out in front. There was a small window with pulled curtains. Furniture, large and dark, pressed against the walls. In currents too subtle to notice, the room shed its gray. She lay there awake and burning and tried not to move.

The door creaked, drew a triangle of light across the bedcovers. A blond woman stepped noiselessly across the rug and sat on the edge of the bed, sinking the mattress. “Your name?”

The woman waited, then thumped her chest. “Elsa. My name Elsa.” She cocked her head to one side. “Can you say? El-sa.”

No response. Elsa patted the white sheet. “It all right. Will come. Time. Time.” The words sounded like the ticks of the clock that sat next to the bed.

Elsa reached a hand toward her, cautiously, and she could tell her burns would not be touched. The woman stroked her hair with her fingertips, tucking it behind her ear, the sensation more breeze than touch.

“You stand?” Elsa asked. “All right for you?”

She pushed the covers off. The nightgown she wore was new and reached all the way to her bare feet. She turned onto her belly and slid to the edge of the bed through the fire and let her feet drop to the wooden floor. It hurt but could not compete with the flames of her face.

Elsa crouched until their eyes were level. The woman's were wet but not sad; she was smiling. “Goot. Very goot.” She stood and extended a hand. “Come. We eat.”

The little girl took the hand offered. No matter that another hand drew her to a place of suffering only a few days ago. No matter that the pale, outstretched hand calling to her now was unfamiliar. She took the hand because a child does not have a choice.

G
han was becoming a sentimental old fool. Six months had passed since he found the little girl in the desert. Six months of seeing her face every time he closed his eyes; six months of catching his breath every time he passed a lonely gum tree. Her image did not haunt him like the other memories; it fluttered like soft wings, brought the warmth of an afternoon breeze across his skin. But her fate weighed on him like his dead leg, pulling him back whenever he tried to move forward. He couldn't put off the trip any longer.

The sun was a core of orange with petals of pink stretching east and west when Ghan returned to Leonora. The wagon stopped. Ghan slid from his spot and handed the driver a few bills. His stomach was uneasy, the acid pricking in waves. He pushed his canvas bag into his gut, scrunching the new shirts he had bought from the supply store. Better to get it over with now; better to get his head back to rocks and camels, not bloody butterflies.

The air was dry and pleasant, infused with the scent of roses climbing along Mirabelle's fence post. Stiff broom bristles grated on the verandah and then stopped abruptly. “I don't believe it!” Mirabelle called out from the shade of the porch. “Look whot the willy-willy blew in!” She shook her head and put the broom against the post. “Yeh didn't pluck another child outta the bush, I hope?”

Ghan grinned at the woman, sturdy and hard as the banister. “G'day, Mirabelle.”

She nodded at the driver pulling away. “See yeh traded in yer camels. Yeh struck gold or somepin?”

He'd never been able to converse naturally with any woman, but Mirabelle was more bloke than lady. She made talking easy, like six minutes had passed instead of six months.

“I wish. Takin' a few days' leave from the mine is all. Guess yeh could say I'm on vacation.” Even the word sounded strange.

“An' yeh chose Leonora as yer slice of paradise? Yer dumber than yeh look!” Her words were joking, warm to his ears. Her heavy bosom reached from her chest to her waist and the mounds chuckled. “Come on up, Ghan. How long yeh stayin'?”

“Couple days. If yeh got the room.”

“Same as last time. Only the Carltons an' the girl.”

Ghan paused mid-step. “She's still 'ere?”

“Guess that'd come as a surprise. Never did find who she belonged to.”

“Who's been carin' for her?”

“The doc's wife, Elsa. I'll fill yeh in on the whole story.” She swatted at an invisible mosquito. “Let's get yeh settled first, 'fore the mozzies eat us alive.”

Lines of sweat filled the creases in his forehead. The girl wasn't supposed to be here. He thought of turning back, cursed himself. He was a damn fool for sure, a grown man with nerves of noodles over a kid.

Ghan followed Mirabelle through the hall past yellowed rosebud wallpaper and over faded foot carpets, worn in the middle but intact at the edges. Seemed like he was seeing everything for the first time. Six months ago he couldn't see anything past that poor child.

“Girl's in the kitchen,” Mirabelle said briskly. “I'll get a cold drink while yeh say hello.”

Once Mirabelle's bulk veered toward the cupboards, the girl came into view, her back turned. He remembered the burns on her face and his stomach soured. If she was deformed, he wasn't sure if he could hide the pity from his eyes.

Mirabelle tapped the girl on the shoulder. “We got a guest.”

The head of golden hair turned. He blinked for a moment before turning away. There were no burns, no scars, only the smooth face of an angel, too bright for his eyes.

Mirabelle handed him a glass of cool tea, didn't notice the way his hand quaked and made the brown liquid spider down the sides. “Elsa's just restin',” she said, and then pulled out a loaf of bread and began slicing thick ovals. “Doc's at the mine.” Mirabelle placed the bread on a plate and slid it on the table, smacked a jam jar on the counter and nodded at the child. “Don't take it personal if she don't talk t'yeh. Don't talk to no one.”

“At all?”

“Not a word. Not a single one in all the time she's been 'ere.” Mirabelle spoke about the girl like she was deaf as well as mute. “Doesn't bother me none. I like it quiet.”

 

Ghan slept sporadically in the small room with blue-papered walls and waxed wooden floors. He tried to remember the last time he had slept in a bed, not a cot or on the ground. His body didn't know how to relax into the softness and he lay stiff. The room sat still and quiet, but it was lost on him. Even after all these years aboveground, his mind still replayed the sound of pick against rock, an endless
ding
between the ears.

The smell of eggs and bacon hit halfway down the stairs. In the kitchen, Mirabelle worked a spatula over two sizzling iron pans. “Breakfast be out in a minute.”

Ghan poured tea from the waiting kettle. It was nice here, warm and homey. A yellowed calendar from the local co-op hung in the kitchen, an advertisement for Borax starch glaze dedicated to June. It was September, but it was easy to see why no one changed the page. In the Outback, one month was hardly worth noting from the next.

“Hope yeh didn't get up at this hour just for me.”

Mirabelle grunted. “Had the laundry finished 'fore yeh put a foot outta bed.” She set down a plate of steaming eggs. “Most mornin's, I'm the one wakin' up the chooks.”

The grease from the bacon pooled around the eggs as he shoveled them in. “Noticed yer front door's hangin' off the hinge. Can fix that for yeh, if yeh like.”

She gave a short laugh. “Thought yeh was on vacation.”

“Yeah.” He grinned and scratched his head. “Frankly, not sure whot t'do wiv myself. Never had time off before.”

“That's the problem wiv buggers like us. We've been workin' so long we don't know how to stop.”

A step whispered from the hall. And there was the girl in a neat blue dress standing in the edge of the doorway.

“Come 'ave yer biscuit, child.” Mirabelle grabbed a plate from the cupboard. “Don't eat more than a bird, this one.”

The girl wafted through the kitchen like a ghost. A great sadness poked Ghan as he watched her peripherally, as if all she wanted was to slink into the shadows of the room. Then shame barged through the sadness. Maybe she was scared of him. Wouldn't be the first.
Better leave the poor child in peace.
“I'll get t'work on that hinge now.”

“Appreciate it,” Mirabelle said from the sink without turning. “Tools are in the closet.”

Ghan pulled out the screwdriver and sat on his hams in front of the warped door. He hardly had a chance to shimmy out the first hinge when the wisp of the girl settled into the room, perched herself at the dusty window and rested her chin on her arm. Ghan glanced at her as he picked at the nail.
Has that puppy dog look,
he thought.
Like she's waiting for someone who's never going to show.
In the quiet of the room, a bloated blowfly beat against the pane, the buzz of wings futilely trying to get past the dirt-speckled glass into the open air. The girl tapped dully against the window at a spot next to the fly, the sound of affinity.

Warmth flowed into Ghan's muscles, had nothing to do with exertion.
Be nice to have a child waiting for you,
he thought.
Be nice having eggs and bacon every morning, having your own door to fix.
With his wrist, he wiped the sweat from his crooked nose, saw the speckled scars across his arms. He gritted his teeth, pounded the nail with the screwdriver.
Bloody fool.

Footsteps echoed between the stair spindles. “Goot morning,” Elsa greeted Ghan.

Then the door banged loudly and Ghan stepped back. Elsa hurried to her husband's side and hugged him, taking off his dusty hat and coat in a nervous flurry. Dr. Carlton looked over at the girl, a scowl clear on his face.

Elsa fawned over the doctor, holding his face in her hands, subtly trying to turn his gaze from the child. Her native speech spilled out animatedly to the only ears that could understand. Even in her bubbled chatter, the edge was there, a highness to her voice that made every statement sound like an apology. She grabbed his arm and pointed to Ghan in the corner.

Dr. Carlton lowered his eyes as his manners haunted him. “I apologize. I didn't see you there.” He recovered quickly and straightened. “It's Ghan, correct?”

Ghan studied him. “That's right.” Something was off in the man.

“Are you in town long?”

“Few days. Passin' through.”

“I didn't see a wagon out front. Did the other man come with you?” The doctor searched the ceiling. “What was his name?”

“Neely,” Ghan answered. “Passed on.”

“I'm sorry.” There was no emotion behind the sentiment, just a blend of sounds from the man's mouth. His eyes lifted heavily to the ceiling. “I need to clean up. It was a long night.” He stepped past Ghan and climbed the moaning steps.

Ghan busied his hands with as much work as he could find. By afternoon, doors and windows slid easily on dust-free hinges, the woodpile was restacked in a grid of even, crossed lines and the tear in the verandah screen was knit secure with wire. Sweat darkened his tan shirt to brown, but he didn't want to stop. Every idle moment led to shaking fingers.

Mirabelle tapped on the glass window. “Get outta the heat an' come 'ave a bite.”

Ghan fingered the fixed screen and entered through the door Mirabelle held open. “No more work outta yeh! Swear yer makin' me feel lazy!” she scolded. “Vacation my arse.”

Dr. Carlton sat at the formal table, his frame tight and postured against the back of the chair as he read the paper. He was clean now, his blond hair slightly damp and slick at the crown but his eyes still wrinkled at the edges with fatigue.

Elsa entered, her hands on the shoulders of the little girl. Dr. Carlton's eyes narrowly followed the child, his top lip curling as Elsa kissed her silky gold hair. “Sit next to our guest,” he ordered.

The child's eyes met Ghan's face briefly before he turned away. He swallowed hard and wiped his forehead with a soiled handkerchief. A warm, silent breeze passed behind him as the girl took the neighboring seat.

The room thickened with silence until Mirabelle grunted over an iron pot held tight in oven mitts. She loaded the plates with stew, the steam glistening faces already warm.

Ghan tugged at his hat, painfully aware that the open eardrum was right in the girl's sight line. He picked up his fork and nervously rubbed the silver, all appetite gone. The little girl watched him, her gaze boring into his skin. He never blushed in his life, but the heat rose quickly from his neck. He wished she would turn away. No child should see a man so grotesque.

Eyes were everywhere, burning into him, and his ear grew hotter and hotter and his heart pounded in his chest. He shuffled one foot under the table, rubbed it back and forth over the carpet.
Goddammit, stop staring at me!
Ghan focused on the cells and webbing of the lace tablecloth, yet he felt the eyes. Watching. Judging. Elsa watched with inward thoughts, her eyes deep and sad. Mirabelle watched forks and plates and food that sat untouched. And the doctor watched, too. The doctor watched him, observed Ghan's discomfort with analytical eyes, watched with a new half smile that made Ghan chew his bottom lip.

He shouldn't have come. The adrenaline pumped for him to run. He was just a reminder to this poor girl of the day she almost died—her ugliest of days.
Ugly. Ugly.
All he brought was ugliness to this world.

Ghan's hand trembled. He put the fork down. And then the girl placed her hand upon his. It was a touch that stopped air to his lungs and numbed his chest—five tiny fingers, as light as feathers, curled on top of his thick knuckles.

He looked at her now—fully—and she did not turn away. Her cherub face was not twisted in disgust or horror. Instead, she smiled and the sunbeam eclipsed every shadow since the beginning of time. The child looked at him as if she thought him beautiful.

Mirabelle's voice whispered above a suspended ladle, “She likes yeh.”

Words and sounds blurred. The stitches that held his hard parts together, sutured over a lifetime, disintegrated with the touch. He fumbled for each strand, trying to quickly sew them back into place, but the look was too soft. The simple purity hurt. Just as when the workhorses were brought up from the mines, months after living in the underground shafts, they emerged blind, their skin and fur revolting against the fresh air, peeling off in shreds. The light, the freshness, was too much to bear.

Ghan snapped his hand away and stumbled off the seat before his bones crumbled. “I n-n-need some air,” he stammered. He held on to the back of the chair to keep it from falling over and blindly limped through the dining room, limped through the sitting room, through the front door into the blinding sunlight that could not compare to the child's. He did not stop for a moment, dragged the dead leg over the furrows of the road, cringed at the wrinkling of his chin and the crumbling of his very cells.

Ghan found the pub and barreled into its shadows, hid from the filtered dusty light. Tobacco and sweat and stale grog embedded the woodwork and flooded his nostrils, made the pub more man than timber and steel. No flowers here; no rinsed floors or talc. He could breathe. And with the darkness, his heartbeat slowed and he felt his feet in his shoes again and his chin stopped quivering. He found a seat at the bar and ordered a whiskey. He didn't drink, but he needed to drink, needed it more than he needed air in his lungs. Ghan brought the short glass to his lips before the alcohol had a chance to level in the glass, the liquid trailing fire across his tongue, down his throat into the empty pit of his belly where it warmed instantly. The bartender did not move and refilled the glass. Ghan held this one tight between his stubby fingers, did not plunge it into his mouth. The bartender took the cue and moved down the line.