A Waltz for Matilda (43 page)

She held a candle in the embers of the stove for a moment, pressed a blob of wax onto the envelope to seal it, then wrote the address:
Lieutenant James Drinkwater, Her Majesty’s Service, Bushveldt Carbineers via Pretoria, South Africa.

She didn’t bother saddling Timber — the big horse was quiet enough to ride just with his bridle, especially down to the mail box on the road. Hey You ran at the horse’s heels, casting an expert eye over the sheep as they passed. His coat was strongly flecked with grey now, and he slept a lot of the time too, but still padded at her heels when she went out to check the stock, or worked in the corn or vegetables, unless she told him to stay. He was a shadow dog, accustomed to stay with his master, his loyalty to her now.

It was still impossible to realise she would never see the old woman again. Even now she would see a flicker of movement between the trees and expect the old woman to trudge out through the dust on those hard, splayed, ever-silent feet.

The road stretched white and dusty on either side of the mail box. Would she never see a speck in the distance that was Tommy, bicycling out from town? She had just shoved out the spider who lived in the letter box, and stuck up the stick that meant ‘mail to be collected’ when she noticed a rising cloud of dust on the road from Drinkwater.

A horse and rider galloped into view.

She pulled Timber around, and waited for the rider to pass. It was rare to see a galloping horse — cantering or trotting, but no one galloped for long distances, except in a race.

She recognised the man as he drew closer. One of Mr Drinkwater’s stockmen, Henries, that was his name, a white man who she suspected was mostly drunk. He looked drunk now as he reined his horse up next to her. ‘Miz O’Halloran!’

‘What is it?’

‘You got to come. Come now. Mr Drinkwater, he’s taken sick.’

‘You need the doctor!’

The man nodded, out of breath. ‘Goin’ ter get ‘im now. But he wants you. Mr Drinkwater sez, tell you.’

‘I’ll go there now. And slow down. You want to kill that horse before you reach town?’

She dug her knees in to bring Timber to a canter, Hey You running at their heels. Half her mind was filled with worry for the old man; the other, unbiddable, was thinking, if Mr Drinkwater died now what would happen to his land?

She glanced down at Hey You. The dog was panting, but refusing to lag behind. She pulled her horse up, then lugged the dog up before her, holding him on the horse with one hand while she held the reins with the other. It was awkward, but there was no help for it — Hey You would run till his heart burst rather than be left.

Two stockmen sat on the verandah as she rode up the Drinkwater drive: unthinkable, at any other time — workers went round the back. But they were looking out for her. One took Hey You from her and put him down, the other took the reins.

She ran up the stairs, Hey You at her heels. She stopped when they reached the verandah. ‘Sit. Good dog.’

‘Good dog. Good dog.’ The cockatoo danced on its perch. Hey You lay panting by the front door. I’ll have to ask Mrs Murphy to bring him water, she thought, or will the stockmen do it?

She had forgotten to ask where Mr Drinkwater was. But the door to the parlour was open. He lay on the sofa, still in his work clothes, his boots on the floor beside him, his eyes closed. But they opened as she came in.

She kneeled beside him. ‘What’s wrong?’

His breathing was laboured, his face white under its tan and sweating with pain. He made a vague gesture toward his heart.

‘I’m sorry. Don’t talk. The doctor’s coming.’

‘Nothing he can do.’ The whisper was almost too faint to hear.

‘Shh. We’ll see.’ She pulled up a chair, sat and took his hands. They felt cold. Working hands, one nail black, the tip of his little finger gone, despite his wealth.

He took a deeper breath, and then another as though it hurt to breathe. ‘On the table. Read it …’

For a moment she didn’t understand, then saw the mail on the table, a scatter of letters, a newspaper, one letter opened, good paper, written in a hand she didn’t recognise, with a newspaper cutting next to it.

‘My dear … my dear, I’m sorry.’

Suddenly she knew. ‘James?’

But there has been no battle lately, she thought, no casualty list. No telegram to say he had been killed or injured. No, she thought, I won’t believe it. He’s going to come home. I will marry him.

Tears slipped along the wrinkles under the old man’s eyes. He shut them tighter, as though he could stop the flow.

‘Shh. Lie quiet.’ She forced herself to settle the cushions under his head before she took the letter and the newspaper cutting from the table. The headline stopped her before she could even glance at the letter.

Australian Shot by Firing Squad
and then the smaller headline
Prime Minister Protests.

Her legs turned to water. She sat, staring at the paper, trying to make the words say something different.

She put the cutting down. Later she would read it again and again, trying to tease out whatever details she could imagine. Now the skeleton of fact was enough.

James was dead. Her heart seemed to thud the word.
Dead. Dead. Dead.

She wanted to howl like a dingo, run to the river and scream and scream. She wanted to claw her face so that the physical pain would stop the pain inside.

She couldn’t. She owed him more than that. But she couldn’t stop the tears that ran down her face.

She glanced over at the sofa. Mr Drinkwater lay with his eyes shut, breathing shallowly, a pale blue ring about his mouth. She took the letter, then sat on the floor beside him, her hand on his cold one. I should have washed, she thought vaguely. I would have scrubbed my hands if I’d known that I was coming here.

But his hands were as ingrained with dirt as hers.

She lifted up the letter and began to read. It was written in good black ink, with the rounded neat letters of an expensive fountain pen.

Her hand shook too much to hold the letter; she laid it on the floor. She wanted to stamp on it, to dirty it with her boots. But it was Mr Drinkwater’s letter, not hers.

‘Tear it up.’ The voice was soft, but sure. It was as though he had read her thoughts.

‘Are you sure?’ She reached into her sleeve for her handkerchief, and wiped her eyes. The handkerchief came away dust-stained. The girl with the grubby face, she thought. Oh, James.

‘Burn it. There are matches on the table.’

She found them by his pipe, struck one, then held the paper over the fireplace as it vanished in ash and smoke.

‘There. Gone.’

His eyes opened. ‘Tell me what you think.’

‘I think that Bertram is a cockroach. I’d like to turn him into ashes too.’

A ghost of a chuckle. ‘I am glad he isn’t here then. We are in enough trouble —’ He gasped: the pain was suddenly too much.

‘Don’t talk.’

‘Must talk. Do you … James …’

‘Do I think James was guilty? No! It says in the paper that he said he acted under orders. That’s enough for me.’

She saw his face relax. She had said the right thing.

And yet … the image came to her of James’s eyes, so wide and blue, as he said, ‘We didn’t really shoot them, you know.’ James, his confidence so great that he would think himself justified in any lie.

She sat for twenty minutes perhaps, as the old man breathed shallowly but steadily beside her. Mrs Murphy put her head in twice, but Matilda put her fingers to her lips.

At last he said, ‘Will you stay?’

‘Of course.’

‘Not just tonight. I need … the property needs —’

She wouldn’t humiliate him by making him say he needed help. ‘I’ll be here.’

She waited till the doctor bustled in, his bag in his hand, then slipped outside to ask Mrs Murphy to get one of the men to drive her to Moura, to fetch her things — she didn’t want a stockman rummaging in her underwear — and to ask Mr Sampson to come in the morning.

Some time later there would be time to cry properly, to walk
this land that James would never see again, to shriek and scream her loss. Not now. Too many people needed her now. So did the farm that James had loved. The honesty of that love, at least, she had never doubted.

She poured herself a cup of dark brown tea from the pot Mrs Murphy kept always warm on the side of the kitchen fire, then went back to hear the doctor’s verdict.

MARCH 1902

Mr Drinkwater peered at Matilda from his pillows. ‘I’m going to live. For a while at any rate.’

Matilda sat on the chair beside his bed. ‘That’s what the doctor says. If you stay quiet there is no reason you shouldn’t manage for years yet.’

He gave the ghost of a snort. ‘Why not just say I’m mostly dead?’

‘Your son is dead. You are alive. Be grateful for it.’

He stared out the window. ‘James’s death is my fault.’

She buried her face in her hands, not because she was crying, but because she couldn’t cry. The unshed tears were almost impossible to bear. When at last she spoke her voice was muffled. ‘You didn’t kill him.’