Daughter of Australia (13 page)

Ghan watched the half man wobble across the street, followed his movements hollowly until he was obscured in the building. The words punched his gut, quick jabs that repeated with each replay. For a second, he thought he had heard wrong, chalked it up to a cocky kid, but he knew the rhythm of Mr. Fairfield's speech, felt its flow in his weakening limbs.

The office door slammed and laughter filtered out before the men. Mr. Bradley came out first, Mr. Fairfield next, white and clean, his arm around the man's shoulder. A fat cigar hung in the corner of his mouth, the soaked tip bloated as he spoke. Another two men followed and then Ronnie, galloping in their dust.

The men veered in Ghan's direction and he sighed with relief, pulled himself together, postured like a soldier waiting for a salute. But then the group turned, crossed the street toward the boardinghouse, the party giving him no more notice than the wagon or the horses or the dirt. Their laughter trailed off, then swelled again as they entered the boardinghouse.

The flush throbbed quicker this time. The air pushed dry and hot and his mouth filled with spit. Ghan looked at his foot, the leather boot as red and dust covered as the ground beneath it, the sole worn down on one side from years of crooked walking. The stick leg posed beside it, skinny, hard and ugly—useless as the dead tree it came from; useless as the man who perched on it.

The street quieted; the drone meshed with his pulse. Behind the walls of the boardinghouse, down in the basement, Ghan knew it was not quiet. Whiskey would slosh, fill the air sweet, mingle with sweat and ripe breath. Stories would be shared, grown and added to; jokes would dirty by the sip. Laughter would fill the cracks, drown out the sound of clinking glass.

Ghan's bones were tired. The pull to stay, to see it out, to hold out for something shining in the haze, made moving hard. But he cursed and rolled a fist, thought about smashing it into his own nose. Wouldn't feel it anyway; wouldn't change a damn thing.

The horses were quiet as they waited for him under the sun. A man could beat a horse and it would still wait for him.
Not right how people treat animals. Not right what people do.

Ghan gave a last, quick glance to the boardinghouse and then pulled himself onto the hard seat, shifted the pit from his chest to his gut. He heard Ronnie's words again, except the voice was Mr. Fairfield's:
I swear if I sit on that rickety wagon one more minute my nuts gonna crack like a walnut!
The heat flushed again.
That ear giving me the bloody creeps!
Ghan sat still for a moment, looked at the white scars along his arm, bold and round in the light. He picked up the reins and gently stirred the horses, turning them back to take him home.

 

Ghan stuck the key into the hole, turned and pushed, but his shoulder landed flat against the hard door. He jiggled the key again, tried to turn the knob.
Damn it.
He was so goddamn tired. His bottom was numb and hot from the wagon; his stump ached like it was pinched between two thumbs. Now he'd have to hunt down that lazy Pole to let him in.

On the gravel, he favored the good leg while the wood leg stuck out like a thorn. Ghan found the Pole at a table outside the butcher, playing cards with three other men. Not a single one raised a head as he limped over. “My key ain't workin',” Ghan announced.

Lupinsky chewed a fat cigar squeezed in the side of his mouth, the stub so short it was nearly flush with his lips. He threw down a queen of diamonds, chuckling. The man to his right rolled his eyes, threw down his cards.

“I says my key ain't workin'!” Ghan snapped.
So help me, if that Pole don't get up I'm going to turn this table over.

Lupinsky looked up at him now, his fat, round face poked with greasy black shoots. “No vrent, no vroom,” he answered with a shrug. The Pole spread out his flush and laughed as the third man shoved his cards away.

Damn manager late on the bills again. Jesus Christ, all I want to do is to lie down.
Ghan pushed on across the street to the brick office at the edge of town. With each step, he pressed his lips together against the pain and focused on resting his head against the cot.

The cool was instant in the small office. Ghan wiped the sweat off his neck with a stained handkerchief. Andrew Morrison, the assistant manager, came in through the back door buttoning up his fly, then noticed Ghan with a jump. “Crikey, yeh scared the crap outta me!”

“Just got back,” Ghan stated. “Had to drop that American off at the depot.”

Andrew suddenly looked down at the floor, scratched his chin nervously. “Crikey.”

“Matthews late on me rent again,” Ghan grumbled. “Pole done locked me out.”

The scratching increased. The man's fingers clawed the back of his neck like he had fleas. “Whot yeh go an' do, Ghan?” He stopped scratching and put his hands up. “Why yeh go an' blab all that stuff to Fairfield?”

Ghan's leg trembled, the peg clicking the floor like nervous finger taps. “Whot the 'ell yeh talkin' about?”

Morrison sat down at the edge of the desk, his shoulders hunched, his hands holding his knees. “Yer a good bloke, Ghan. Hardest-workin' bastard I've ever known. Told yeh that b'fore, an' I'll say it again. Nearly kills me I got to be the one t'tell yeh.”

“Tell me whot?” he asked. “If yeh need me outta the boardin'-house, just say it. I don't mind livin' in the camp.”

“Ghan.” The man leveled his eyes, the tone and look raising the hairs on the back of his neck. “Matthews came down yesterday hot as piss. Said you've been waggin' yer tongue to that American bloke. Never saw 'im so angry, like somebody shagged his wife or somepin.”

Morrison's eyes lingered on Ghan's face. “I'm sorry, mate, but yer fired.”

J
ames gone. His son. And in his place, a hole with sides that did not mold together in scar tissue but widened with each breath. And the hole dripped blood, soaked the footprints left by each of Father McIntyre's steps.

Life moved slowly now in the blackness. Nothing the priest did was without great effort and he dragged from one useless moment to the next as a sleepwalker, existing now at a great distance. Noises and chatter from the children were hollow, echoing as if from a cave. Food had no taste, and if he ate he didn't remember doing so.

The priest turned into the barn and closed the red door behind him, his eyes adjusting to the dim light. In looking for something familiar, he found only a cut wound. James was all around this place. The pitchfork leaned against the wall and waited for the boy's hands to lift and work it. The hay piles were disorderly now, stale, since none of the boys were as thoughtful as James in their duties. The horses were quiet. They missed him, too. The void of the boy was everywhere and it choked the priest.

Shadows hovered above doorways, in corners. Cobwebs hung and joined the eaves with silk, and beside them all Father McIntyre sat fully aware of his own blackness. Sun filtered in particles through the cracks between the boards, forming white lines across the floor. Emptiness. His face twisted for tears, but none came. Tears needed feeling to push to the surface, and his insides were numb and cold as an empty well.

Father McIntyre turned his palms up, stared at the blue veins that connected his hand to his wrist. He touched the scars that lay healed and horizontal. The lines sickened and warmed him all at once. For a moment there was longing. For a moment there was a future where the pain would stop. Then, in a fury, he pulled his wrists into the sleeves and crossed his arms, tucking his fists in his armpits. He closed his eyes and rocked against the shadows.

 

 

 

No record would be written or kept of her departure.

The coach, six horses deep, must have been the finest Northampton had to offer. The driver's suit and hat showed no signs of dust or grime. The Fairfields were not present. Only Mr. Newton, Esquire, awaited the party.

Mrs. Fanning, the new tutor, short and squat, not much taller than the girl at her side, lifted a hand for the lawyer's support as she entered the open door of the carriage. Leonora waited at the wheel, both hands holding a small suitcase. She was dressed in a pale blue dress, white cashmere stockings and black patent-leather shoes that did not have a single crease. Her hair was pulled back in one long tail, tied at the top with matching blue ribbon.

“Good-bye, Father McIntyre.” He did not recognize the voice. Leonora's Australian accent was washed away, the words American now, even and perfected. There was no whisper or shyness in her tone. She had learned well. She hadn't had a choice.

Father McIntyre was the mute now. He did not reach to embrace her shoulders. He did not promise that all would be all right. He did not ask her to trust him. He wanted these reassurances from her, but she was already gone. The carriage left before he even knew it had pulled away.

With her departure, the darkness swelled thick and fat. The light left and followed the little girl like a sieve. It did not matter that no clouds dotted the blue sky; it did not matter that the sun's smile was wide and open—it was a round rip in the blue that scalded his vision.

The shadows crept from the ground, carried numbness to his toes, through skin, across his chest, stalled his brain. No thoughts told him to turn from the drive; no intention moved his shoes over pebbles. He didn't hear the crushed sticks underfoot.

Flashes, memories, replaced sight. Old sounds played in his ears. A shot of gunfire hatched, its dull rhythm reverberating. It came again, bounced his joints.

Blown to bits. Bit by bit. The carnage of his world unmasked in one full sweep. His mother's body shattered. His father's holed and gaping. His brothers ripped, their chasms manifesting into real wounds, then death. And here he hid, like a whole, selfish fool. Hiding behind walls too thick to crush, yet it all gets in. It comes digging underground or seeps through the rafters. It enters, and just when you feel secure it blows you to bits.

His legs moved in long strides up the winding path, the salted air pungent and thick in his nostrils that breathed in air with quick, tight spurts. Father McIntyre passed the invisible line that had always stopped him before—the line that said the sea, the never-ending cliffs, would be in view. He came closer and his stomach sickened.

His face was damp with salted water—from tears or from the sea, it did not matter. The memories were around him, poking with dead fingers. He closed his eyes against the wind, pushed forward, felt the warmth of a future without pain, and he moved faster.

Father McIntyre did not heed the wind, did not stop to mull regret or ponder excuses. He stood at the edge of the world where the earth hovered with the sea and the air. He stretched his arms above his head, the wings of his cassock flapping violently, begging his body to soar. And he stepped upon the sky. . . .

J
ames slid the hat rim toward his nose, his eyes retreating from the relentless sun. At fourteen, James had spent over three years now living with his aunt and uncle in the Wheatbelt of Western Australia. And in these years, the rain did not fall. Spits. Teasing splats. But not rain. Had the land only given drought, life would have been easier. A man does not try to work a desert; he moves away, says good-bye to a dead land and searches for one of life. But not this land, the land that hovers between green and brown, a place where rain can hit in sheets and then, a mere mile to the east, only the smell of rain falls. This was life in the Wheatbelt—a flirtatious dance between bounty and lack.

Rain. It was easy to blame life's hardships on the whim of the sky, but James knew better. He had known this for years. The fault lay with him.

James gripped two hands to the left plow handle while his uncle, Shamus O'Reilly, clutched the right. James matched the man head to head in height and so their shoulders came level to the crossbar. His weight did not match that of the burly O'Reilly, though, and so his side tilted forward and lagged. He ground his heels into the rock-laden earth until his legs shook with pushing.

“Come on, boy!” Shamus shouted. “Put ye shoulder into it. Go!”

The old workhorse pulled, jerking her head up with the drag of the dull plow. Slowly, foot by foot, the stubborn tool furrowed lines, grinding up last year's brittle wheat stalks and chopping up the spinifex that seemed to grow anew each morning.

“All right. 'Tis enuf fur now.” Shamus let go of the plow in exhaustion, bent forward. “Give 'er a rest, James.”

James unhooked the horse, her coat slick with sweat under the leather straps.

“We'll finish after we eat.” Shamus stretched out his back, the joints of his solid frame and thick arms cracking. “Be a late one. Plowin' got t'be done tonight even if we work by lantern. Got t'harrow an' seed an' roll by end o' week.” He squinted at the sun and growled, “Late as 'tis!” Then he pointed his chin at James in challenge. “Yeer up fur it, boy?”

“Yes, sir.”

They walked across the deep furrows, a history of lines that had taken up full days and weeks and the skin off their palms to form. The smell of bacon carried from the kitchen stovepipe before the little brown house came into view. Home was no bigger than a shearing shed, its wood so dark from kitchen smoke that it looked charred. The corrugated steel roof was ridged in silver, then valleyed red with rust. The porch stuck out lopsided, supported with planks of wood to keep the roof from collapsing. A water tank flanked the side of the house near the detached kitchen, and behind that the fowl house squawked behind a wire fence.

Tess O'Reilly met them at the door with a hidden smile. “ 'Bout time! Yeer lucky I didn't feed yeer meal t'the pigs!” Her threat was nothing more than jest as she shepherded them to the table and filled their plates with eggs and bacon. The tea was hot and thick with sugar. It was the beginning of the month. By the end, there would be only one egg per plate, only a small slab of pork, and the tea would be bitter and black. Meals indicated the days of the month and the rent payments clearer than any calendar.

Between mouthfuls of food, Shamus rehashed the details of the morning's work, sighing and shaking his head with emphasis in case his wife did not grasp the magnitude of his efforts. And Tess would scurry around the kitchen, listening and adding little sounds of expression to show that she did indeed grasp the magnitude of his efforts. And when he inevitably began to curse the blasted Australian land, she would click her tongue soothingly and reach over his shoulder to replenish the eggs, and as she did she would smile and wink at James.

Tess was a small woman and, at first glance, seemed startlingly frail, all the more because her skin was almost translucent against long onyx hair. But her eyes, bright green saucers, eclipsed her body until that was all one saw. And these were the eyes that watched James always, welcomed him into her life with joy stretched in her pupils. Sometimes, when she didn't think James could see, Tess would touch her lips, then touch her heart.

Shamus frowned and pushed his empty plate across the table. “Back to it.”

“Not now,” Tess protested. “ 'Tis the hottest time of the day. Ye'll faint within the hour.”

“No choice.” Shamus motioned for James to follow. “Don't rush with supper, Tess.”

Tess wagged a finger at her husband. “Ye make sure the boy rests, Shamus.”

Shamus's mood soured with the inching degrees of mercury so that by the time they reached the plow and re-hooked the horse, he was dark with mute cursing. They toiled silently over the last, infinite stretch of field. The heat brought weariness to their work, sapping their strength doubly while productivity halved. Shamus's lips twitched with growing anger and internal diatribe. James shut his mind to everything but work, pushed with all his body, the sweat spilling over his eyes and stinging them with salt.

“Push it!” Shamus shouted to the plow, to James, to the horse, to the endless ground.

A sharp metal clang stopped the plow cold, sending James to his knees.

“Fur the love a Jasus!” Shamus bent his head to the plow turn, reached in with both hands. “Bloody hell!” He wrenched himself up and tore off his hat, beat it against the red plow, the color of his face.

“Axle cracked! Clean through!” he shouted, and stormed away, his back bent, hands tight at his waist, before stomping back and giving the plow a hard kick with his foot, the thud so dull it almost mocked him. The horse shuffled nervously.

“Would it kill ye to do one bloody thing right!” Shamus suddenly turned on James.

“I told ye to stop grindin' the feckin' wheel into rocks!” Shamus brushed past him, mumbling, “Wouldn't be in this feckin' country if it weren't fur ye.”

James did not follow Shamus to the house, stood quietly for a minute with the weight of lead on his chest. He moved to the horse, scratched the backs of her ears before peeking down through the plow spokes. The axle leaned on the ground, broken and rusted through. He turned back to the horse and stroked the velvet of her nose. She breathed heavily, too old for this kind of work. James unclasped the harness, letting the plow fall forward into the dirt, and walked her back to the house. He pumped fresh water into the trough, sat and watched her drink, the sun a rippling orange reflection in the water.

And it was here in the silence near the flimsy house, beyond the work of the field, his muscles numb with pain, that the void of a missing friend filled the corners of the endless sky and reminded him that this was the life he had chosen.