Ironbark (79 page)

‘Forgive me, Jake. After I let Yosie go I lost myself. Stopped believing I'd ever be free. I couldn't touch the earth or feel the wind. I was buried alive in a grave of bricks and stone. The only peace was to die for a few hours each night in my sleep.'

He cooled his rage.
Shut up. Listen to her.

‘Jake, I'm sorry I seem cold to you. I
am
cold. I can't give you back the love you deserve because I can't feel anything.
Nothing feels real.
'

He nodded. ‘Go on.'

‘The whole world looks strange to me. Like every bit of colour has been bled out of it. Everything
feels grey
. I can't explain.'

Grey.
Jake recalled that morning when his own world turned grey as he walked out of his house on the Nepean, knowing Jenny's betrayal had taken his baby girl, destroyed his family, his whole life.

‘I'm dead inside,' she said, ‘but I remember you in my head. You're a passionate man. You need a woman. So I'll honour my promise. Whenever you want me, you can take me. I'll give you more children, if that's what you want, but I can't give you the woman I was or the body that once gave you pleasure.'

Jake heard the pain seeping through her words. Her female pride? He felt a surge of hope, only to have it dashed by her next words.

‘I'm ashamed of my body. Don't look at my body, Jake. Just take me
in the dark
.'

The growing darkness eddied about them, carried on the wind. Keziah removed her dress and bodice. It was a mechanical gesture as if she were washing her clothes at the end of a hard day. Her thin body
was covered from waist to ankles with a petticoat. The colour of her headscarf intensified the one thing that hadn't changed. Those wonderful violet-blue eyes.

Jake's words were beyond anger. ‘Don't look at you? Just have connection in the dark? Is that all you think of me? That I'm no better than blokes who line up at a brothel to pay to get their cock inside, then go and get pissed?'

‘How can you want me? I'm not the same woman.'

He was brutally frank. ‘No, you're not. I've seen you look better.'

She flinched but it was too late for him to turn back.

‘Do you think I didn't fall for your wild hair, your big breasts? Of course I did. I'm a man. But you don't know me if you think that's
all
I wanted. For the first time in my life I had a woman of my own. A
real
woman, as hungry as I was to share everything I needed to give you.'

He cut off her words. ‘You think you're better than any
gaujo
but you're no saint. When you make a mistake it's a bloody big one, but there's no woman like you. You go from hell to breakfast for the man you love. You pick up broken people – me, Nerida, Daniel, Bran – and you make us whole again. You even made Pearl believe in herself. I want her to be like you. A survivor – no matter what garbage your bloody
baxt
dishes out!'

The expression in her eyes chilled him – he felt he would drown in the well of her despair. He'd run out of words, run out of hope. Only one truth remained to be told.

‘I want my proud Romani woman back. I won't accept nothing less, but if you want to get rid of me for good, just say the word. I'm setting you free, Kez.'

He steeled himself against a violent gust of wind that blew her off balance. Jake chose to interpret this as a step towards him. Before she could stop him, he grabbed her face between his hands and kissed her so hungrily that her scarf slipped from his grasp, exposing the dark tufts of hair. The scarf began to blow away.

‘Let it go. You don't need to cover your head. Darling, you're safe now. Those bastards can't hurt you anymore. Your hair will grow back. It's only a small part of you. You're beautiful to me – just the way you are.'

She pulled away. The bitterness of her laughter shook him. ‘Are you going to lie? Tell me
this
doesn't matter?' She kicked off her petticoat and stood defiantly with her legs apart.

It was then Jake understood everything.

High on her thigh near the place of love was a half-healed scar from a prison tattoo. A rough heart shape pierced with an arrow. Inside it was written ‘AS loves KB'.

Jake's cry sounded like a trapped animal as it echoed between the valley walls.

He kicked at the rocks to try and clear his head. He had tried to blot from his mind the common knowledge that military officers used the Factory like a brothel. But no one claimed they raped the women. There was a ready supply of prisoners willing to be tumbled by a soldier in exchange for money, food, grog or the hope of attracting a male protector. Had Keziah traded her body to one of these soldiers? He felt a wild surge of jealousy at the sight of those initials.

When he swung around to face her, Keziah stood six feet away clutching her petticoat like a shield. A lost, rough-haired scarecrow buffeted by the wind.

He cried out in desperation, ‘You did it for food, to be able to feed little Yosie. Tell me that's why!'

‘No. One of the prisoners was a woman as tough as any man you ever fought. Oola singled out girls she fancied. God help any who knocked her back. My
hair
excited her.' There was painful self-mockery in Keziah's laugh.

‘When she tried it on me, I punched her in the gut, kicked her where she lay. Violence was an everyday event. Oola threatened payback. That she'd break Yosef's arms unless I warmed her bed.'

Jake clenched his fists. ‘You were right to give in to her to protect our babe. How could I ever hold that against you?'

‘I didn't give in. I begged the deputy for help. She moved me and Yosef out of Oola's reach. She protected me. Brought me proper food so I could feed him. For a while I was safe. Until Oola threatened that one day I'd wake up to find little Yosef's face smothered by a pillow.'

‘I'll kill the bitch!'

‘I couldn't protect him day and night. I couldn't sleep. My milk began to dry up. So I made Daniel bring him back to you. To be safe.'

Jake was stopped by a thought. Keziah nodded and tapped her thigh.

‘Yes, Jake. Not Oola. These are the deputy's initials.'

‘She seduced you with food!'

‘No, Jake. After I sent Yosef away I had no reason to go on. No one needed me. I repaid her kindness, gave her what made her happy. It meant nothing to me.'

‘If she was so bloody kind, how come she tattooed you?'

Keziah shook her head. ‘It was Oola's payback because I protected the deputy during the mutiny. She ordered her creatures to hold me down while she tattooed me. She laughed. “See how your bloody husband likes
this
!”'

‘Jesus wept,' he said under his breath.

‘The deputy was just in time to stop Oola from raping me with a knife.'

Jake cried out the foulest oath he knew.

‘I know
you
, Jake. You learned to live with Gem's shadow but you'll never be able to forget this!'

Jake's mouth tasted like acid. Where were the right words when he needed them?

‘You see, Jake? I'm not worth loving. I'm what Gem said I was. A whore's daughter and a whore. I betrayed you just as surely as I betrayed him.'

They were suddenly alerted by the sound of Horatio snorting, his eyes wide with fear. He was inching backwards, pushing the
vardo
towards the precipice.

Keziah froze. A deadly brown snake reared up ready to strike her and there were only seconds to act.

Jake pulled out the Belgian pistol and fired a shot that smashed the snake's head. Horatio reared up, pushing the
vardo
towards the edge of the cliff. Jake leapt at him and began to unbuckle his harness.

‘Stand back!' he yelled. ‘I'll try to save the
vardo
.'

‘Save Horatio!' Keziah flung her full body weight at the horse to prevent the
vardo
pulling him over the cliff.

‘Let go, or he'll drag you over!' Jake ordered, but refused to release his own hold on Horatio.

‘Never!' Keziah pulled at the straps of the harness with all her strength. She read in Horatio's eyes that he knew the danger to her as he stopped right on the edge of the cliff. Jake freed him and slapped the horse's rump to send him galloping to safety.

The
vardo
teetered on the brink. Until
baxt
delivered a powerful gust of wind pushing it from sight.

Jake shielded Keziah with his body as they peered over the cliff. Her glorious little travelling house bounced like a broken toy from ledge to ledge. It sank with one last terrible sound of shattering timber and metal into the fern jungle below.

Jake rasped out the words. ‘It's all my fault! I should have been more bloody careful with the brake. I know you loved that
vardo
like your life!' He was so distressed he was close to crying. ‘I promise you I'll build you another one. I'll rob a bloody bank!'

‘We saved Horatio. The
vardo
doesn't matter.'

‘It does matter, God damn it! I put my heart into that wagon. I wanted to give you back what you'd lost – your Romani life or something. Struth, I don't know!'

‘I do!' Her hand tentatively reached out to touch him. ‘That's why I
loved you. Why I'll always love you, Jake. You accepted me
just the way I am
.'

They stared at each other – a discovery between strangers.

Keziah saw a handsome man naked except for a torn red shirt. The body of a pagan god.

Jake saw a girl with naked eyes of dark blue magic.

His outstretched hand was a life raft between them. The words were torn out of him. ‘God damn it.
I – love – you.
I can't stop!'

On the grassy verge near the precipice Jake drew her down on him. He kissed her mouth as if it was for the first time. He saw her eyes change as if light was beginning to shine through them again, in the way it always had when they made love.

A huge gust of wind scooped up their clothes and blew them at random over the cliff. They laughed like children. Her white petticoat and his red shirt floated free like toy kites, sailing across the valley on the fickle current of the wind.

Only his boots remained.

‘Let's get one thing straight.' Jake flicked his finger at her tattoo as if to prove he had the power to erase the scar physically just as surely as he could erase the shame from her mind.

‘I'll be buggered if I let a few letters of the alphabet ruin our lives. All that matters is you survived. Like you always do. You came back to me, Kez. To
me
!'

Jake enticed her to sit astride him and he moved her in a clever rhythm to encourage her. He wanted to bring back that ship's figurehead he'd seen on their first night together. Wanted to liberate the joy in her that she believed was dead.

Keziah bent down and covered his face with soft children's kisses mixed with the salt of her tears. ‘Oh yes, Jake, please. Take me home.
Now
,' she whispered.

He held her hips tightly between his hands, making a superhuman effort to keep control.

‘First I want to hear you say it –
I am Jake Andersen's woman
!' Keziah smiled, her eyes bright with magic. ‘But I
am
Jake Andersen's woman!'

‘That was nice, dear,' he said patiently. ‘But there's a little old Wiradjuri woman down in the valley, deaf as a post. She couldn't hear a word you said!'

Keziah rode the high seas, gloriously free, her body locked with Jake's. She was no longer sure where his body left off and hers began. She flung her arms wide and cried into the face of the wind.
‘I – am – Jake – Andersen's – woman!'

Jake smiled as her words echoed joyously across the valley.

• • • 

Two bushrangers were hidden in the bush beside the Sydney Road. One was armed, the other acted as ‘cockatoo' on the lookout for victims. At the sound of an approaching horse the younger one leapt out into the middle of the road.

‘Stand and deliver or I'll shoot your brains out!' Young Rory pointed his pistol to the sky, aping the style of his hero, Jabber Jabber.

The sight of his victims almost caused the lad to drop his outmoded firearm. Seated astride a shaggy black horse were a long-haired man and a shaven-headed youth, both stark naked. The youth sat face-to-face with the man, cradled in his arms, his slender back and buttocks white in the moonlight.

When the man saw Rory's weapon, his hands shielded the youth's head and heart.

Rory had just bolted from a farm where the practice of naked men embracing was commonplace, but this man's friendly response to his bail-up
did
surprise him.

‘Good evening, mate,' said his victim. ‘Sorry we're not much use to you. Bit of a gale blowing up on Blind Man's Bluff. Blew all my clothes and money over the cliff.'

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph.' Rory added under his breath, ‘Just my
bloody luck on my first job!' He looked Horatio over. ‘Not a bad nag. I'll be relieving you of that!'

The shorn-headed youth turned his head. Rory was stunned by a girl's voice.

‘You wouldn't force a lady to walk home in this condition, would you, lad?'

The girl flashed him a charming smile. As she turned in the saddle to face him, he saw her breasts shining in the moonlight.

Rory's ‘cockatoo' charged out of the darkness yelling, ‘You silly bugger! That bloke is Jake Andersen, what done time in Berrima for aiding The Gypsy and Jabber Jabber! And that's his woman – the little beauty what topped the Devil Himself! Let them pass, you fool. We don't bail up
our own
!'

Rory the novice was contrite. ‘Jabber Jabber was your mate? Sorry I didn't recognise you! Off you shoot. May good luck go with you.'