Absolution Creek (5 page)

Jack knew what was afoot as soon as he saw the two vans outside the Peters’s terrace. Beds, wardrobes, lamps, tables and paintings were being wrapped and stacked inside the vehicles. Mrs Peters, dressed in black with a double strand of waist-length pearls and a large hat, motored past in her husband’s six cylinder. Jack ran across the busy street. The noise of a jackhammer blasting into rock echoed in the air, and as he side-stepped a youth carrying a crate he envisioned the sandstone heart of North Sydney crumbling.

‘Jack!’ Olive was at the front door, a handbag tucked under her arm. ‘I was just coming to see you.’

‘Were you now?’ Both of them moved across the tiled porch to make way for the drawing-room chiffonier.

‘Come in.’

Jack followed Olive into an empty entrance hall and left as she turned into the drawing room, where boxes and packing were strewn about. A fire glowed pitifully within an elaborately carved fireplace.

‘It’s good to see you, Jack.’

‘Is it?’ He backed away towards the window, tugging the velvet curtain open. ‘Resumed?’

‘Sold to the Works Department as a field office.’

‘I see.’ He turned his back towards her. ‘You were fortunate to make the sale.’ The material of his jacket strained across broad shoulders. ‘Where are you moving to?’

‘Rose Bay. I was coming to see you, Jack. It’s just that everything has happened at once. Mrs Jessop couldn’t afford to pay me so I lost my job. Then Mother announced we’re to leave.’ ‘I
was
coming to see you.’

‘I’m sorry to hear about your job.’ He nodded curtly. ‘Well, it was good of you to think of me.’

Olive touched his arm. ‘Jack,’ she said softly, ‘of course I think of you. I’ll never forget how you rushed across the street that day . . .’

‘Anyone would’ve done it.’ He looked about the room. It was as big as his house. Two crystal chandeliers showered light across polished boards and richly coloured scatter rugs. ‘My father went over to the city this morning to see someone from the Works Department. I thought I’d drop by on my way to meet him at the ferry.’

‘I’m glad you did.’ Olive twisted the strap of her handbag.

‘He wants an assurance either way as to our future. No one here will talk to him, and frankly I understand.’ He gave a half-laugh. ‘Things will never be the same again.’

Olive sat the handbag on a tin trunk. ‘What will you do?’

Jack thought of his carefully constructed speech, a heartfelt declaration of intent. Words such as starting anew now seemed pitiful. ‘Persevere,’ he replied flatly, scrutinising the plaster ceiling. In the face of such luxury he was at a loss for words. They walked outside to an overcast sky. The removalists were stacking boxes in the rear of the van. ‘When are you going?’

‘Everything will be out of the house tomorrow.’ Olive stepped beneath the overhead balcony as a light drizzle misted the air.

‘Not much time to say goodbye.’ He looked at her.

‘No, not much.’ All night she had wondered whether her sister, Henrietta, was right. Maybe her feelings for Jack were just puppy love. He was, after all, her first beau, and although he’d saved her from the stray horse, a strained ankle was hardly life-threatening. Yet the memory of his kiss lingered. It was her first.

He touched her cheek. ‘I’ve nothing to offer you, Olive. We’re like chalk and cheese.’

The head removalist interrupted them.

‘We’re done, Miss Olive. Be back in the morning for the rest.’ He doffed his cap, winked at Jack and walked to the lead van.

Jack took her hand. ‘Whatever I do, Olive, I’ll never be able to give you this life.’

Was this how love happened? Did you look into a person’s eyes and, faced with their leaving, determine you could not live without them? Olive squeezed his hand and willed Jack to utter some declaration of love. Surely things weren’t meant to end so hastily, with her left miserable and Jack striding alone towards some manly adventure. Olive thought briefly of her sister. Henrietta would complain that Olive was merely being melodramatic. Was she? She wasn’t sure. ‘Won’t you write me, Jack?’ Her lips trembled. Why did she have to follow her family? This was the twenties and people were doing what they wanted everywhere. ‘Won’t you?’

Jack’s lips were on hers. Olive kissed him back, tentatively at first, her heart racing. This kiss – their third – was not tinged with surprise but expectation, and Olive allowed herself to be held within Jack’s arms as rain began to fall. Finally they released their embrace to stand opposite each other in wonder. The vans pulled out from the kerb.

Jack lifted a finger to her lips. ‘Stick with your plans; follow your parents. I’ll come for you.’

From the harbour came the clanging of bells, the ominous siren call of an accident on the water. Jack latched the wrought-iron gate securely between them. The rain dripped from the hydrangea leaves that spilt over the fence, and gurgled along the gutters, washing the day’s grit from the road. Olive leant across the dividing fence.

‘I’ll think of something,’ he said. ‘Write me your new address.’

He pulled away from her and began to walk briskly down the road, breaking into a run as the clanging from the harbour continued. Olive gazed after him, her clothes sodden. For someone who had spent the last few weeks trying to assert her independence, Olive now felt marooned between the family she was born into and the man she cared for. She brushed droplets of rain from her face recalling Jack’s words:
I’ll come for you
. Where on earth did he think they were going to go?

Jack ran towards the terminus, his lungs crying out with pain. His father was due in on the three o’clock ferry and the clanging of the siren filled him with dread. He arrived at the ferry landing breathless, and slid the last few feet on the wet wharf into the crowd gathering on the foreshore. Jack elbowed the onlookers aside, ignoring their complaints.

‘The Manly ferry’s clipped the smaller Milsons Point ferry,’ a captain said, pointing towards the water. ‘Thirty passengers were thrown in. Luckily a passing punt fished most of them what fell in, out.’

Jack tried to make sense of the sketchy details, however the buzz of the crowd and the pounding rain made questioning the captain near impossible. The punt materialised through the rain. It was a dirty grey afternoon on the harbour with limited visibility, and the open-sided vessel leant heavily to one side in the rough water. With the punt a good ten feet away from the wharf, Jack took a running jump across the gap to land with a thud on the wooden deck. The horses on board were skittish, and their owners tried to calm them as the drays and carts rolled disturbingly to and fro.

‘Young idiot!’ one of the crew yelled at Jack.

Pushing his way through those passengers eager to disembark, Jack reached the huddle of survivors who were doing their best to get away from the six bodies lying on the boards nearby.

‘Father? Have you seen my father, Nicholas Manning?’

‘Like we know every person that travels to and from Circular Quay,’ a man with a deep gash on his forehead replied. His companions stared blankly.

With a sinking heart Jack turned from the group.

‘Over there, lad.’ An older man pointed. ‘They fished a man from the water; he saved me, he did.’

His father was propped against the wheel of a dray, his face bloodless, his suit coat and shoes missing.

‘Father?’ Jack squatted by his side and clasped a wet shoulder.

‘Jack, lad, I knew you’d come.’ His father partially opened his eyes. The punt rocked precariously as passengers began to disembark and another ferry moored alongside them.

‘I’m here.’ Jack removed his coat, wrapping it about his father. ‘We’ve got to get you home.’

‘Never forget the consolation of the Blessed Virgin, my boy. No matter what may happen, stay on the path of righteousness.’

‘Don’t speak, Father.’

Nicholas Manning grasped his son’s shoulder weakly as Jack gathered him up in his arms.

‘Make way,’ Jack called, pushing through the crowds. ‘Make way.’ The punt shifted on the water’s surface as he carried his father to the safety of the wharf. People milled about them. A queue of walking wounded waited for an ambulance as police constables arrived. People were staring and pointing. Jack strode past waiting horses, noticing a dray plodding slowly uphill. Mustering his strength he yelled to the driver, ‘Help me, please, my father’s been injured. Please, I only need to go to Miller Street.’

The driver drew hard on the reins and turned in Jack’s direction. Jack stood in the rain, his father bundled in his arms. ‘Please, help me.’

The driver gave a curt nod. ‘Slide him in the back there, lad. We’ll see him home.’

Chapter 3

T
he morning after his father’s accident, Jack woke still dressed. His teeth chattered as his chilled feet landed on timber boards. Pulling on an overcoat, socks and shoes, he looked through droplets of rain speckling the gauze of the sleep-out. Between the gaps in the paling fence he could see a hen scratching in the laneway. A movement caught his eye. Mr Farley was relieving himself over his wife’s cabbages in their shared vegetable plot, turning from left to right in a precise effort at complete coverage.

‘Right you are, Jack.’ He waved, buttoning his fly and glancing to where he’d just urinated. ‘Hate cabbage,’ he admitted, brushing his hands together as if he’d completed a major task, ‘and beans.’ He gave Jack what suspiciously looked like a wink. ‘I’m a potato man myself. How’s your father?’

Jack wiped his face roughly. ‘Not good when I left him in the early hours.’

‘Hmm. Sorry to hear it,’ he said, retreating indoors.

Jack was left alone with the bitter morning wind and light rainfall. The door was squeaking on the outside toilet, somewhere a baby yelped for attention and the guttering gurgled noisily as rainwater washed from the roof. The morning was the same as any other, yet Jack’s life was changing and he was sick to the stomach at the thought of the altered circumstances he found himself in. An image of his father came to him. Jack dreaded returning upstairs. To enter his father’s bedroom was to be faced with both his own mortality and the potential loss of a man who represented hearth and home. It was difficult enough last night. For five hours he had sat by his father’s side before being relieved by Thomas, then at midnight, having sent Thomas to bed, Jack returned to his father’s side. The waxy light from a single candle showed a man hollowed out by his exertions in the freezing waters of the harbour. Yet there was still a slim chance Nicholas Manning would pull through. Hadn’t they fished him out of a watery grave alive? And hadn’t his father managed a few strained minutes of conversation in the twilight hours?

Jack had fetched another blanket and tucked his father in warmly. Above the bed a wooden crucifix hung silently, while outside the rain battered the window. He hadn’t liked the look of the night; it was as if the darkness clamoured for entry. He drew the curtains closed with a sharp tug before picking up his father’s Bible and laying the book between his hands.

‘Thanks, Jack.’ The voice was croaky. A bent thumb rubbed the worn gold cross on the cover. ‘This was my father’s and his father’s before him. It has given three generations solace. When I am gone it will be yours.’