Jessica (4 page)

George Thomas turns to his foreman and scratches his head under his hat, the posh city hat bobbing under his fingers. ‘I must be out of my flaming mind, but sign her up, Malloy.' He pauses a moment and gazes at Joe. ‘First sign of trouble out she goes, and it doesn't matter who starts it, you hear me, Malloy?'

‘Right, Mr Thomas,' Mike Malloy replies.

‘Thank you, sir,' Jessica says shyly.

George Thomas spins around at this. ‘Look girl, you're just another tar boy. That's the lowest there is around here. From now on you won't talk until you're spoken to and you
never
speak to me. You hear me?' Jessica bites her bottom lip, saying nothing, not sure now whether she's got permission to answer this. ‘Do — you — hear — me?' he thunders.

Jessica jumps. ‘Yes, sir, thank you Mr Thomas.' George Thomas shakes his head. ‘Christ, I must be bloody mad.' He turns back and looks at Joe, placing his hands on his hips. ‘She won't get the same wages as a tar boy.'

‘What? Even if she's as good?' Joe asks.

‘She's a girl, Joe.'

‘So?' Joe's face darkens.

‘So she'll take sixpence less a day, one shilling a day, no arguments, six bob a week, take it or leave it.' Now Joe looks down at his boots and the silence grows. ‘Well, what's it to be?' George Thomas demands, jutting out his chin.

Jessica can see that Joe's temper is going to get the better of him, and she clutches his arm. They need the money too much to lose this job now. Getting up her courage, she draws George Thomas's attention to herself, giving Joe time to calm himself down.

‘Mr Thomas,' she stammers, ‘we're more than happy with the pay, it's real generous of you, I'm sure.' She tries to say it in the voice she's heard Hester use when she's talking to Ada Thomas.

‘You!' George Thomas shouts, pointing his finger at Jessica. ‘Keep your trap shut! Don't you ever listen, girl?'

Jessica cringes against Joe's arm. Joe has regained his composure now, though his lips are drawn tight. He looks straight at George Thomas, his eyes weary and beaten. ‘Righto, Mr Thomas,' he says, and the two of them turn to leave.

But George Thomas must have the last word. ‘Joe Bergman, I've had no trouble with you and I don't want any with your daughter, you hear me?' he calls to their departing backs. ‘Any muck-up with her in the shed, your girlie's out on her ear!'

‘You already said that,' Joe replies quietly, but only Jessica can hear him.

Jessica knows George Thomas has made her father eat humble pie and she can feel the shame burning in him. She's never seen it done to him before and she hates the boss of Riverview with all her heart. You're a right bastard, Mr Thomas, she thinks to herself, Joe's a hundred times better a man than you'll ever be. She feels her father's big hand rest on her shoulder, as they walk to where their horses are tethered under a lone kurrajong tree.

Jessica now remembers how unhappy she was at the prospect of eating at the big house. Riding home that day she'd questioned Joe, ‘What's Mr Thomas mean about the men being jumpy, Father?'

‘He don't want no females eating in the shearers' quarters, the men are liable to get .. .' Joe thinks for a moment, scratching his head, searching for a word, ‘you know, ah ... well ... jumpy!' he says, lost for a better word that seems fit to use in front of his little daughter. ‘The shearers' cook's a lady. Don't she make them jumpy?' Jessica asks again, still not sure what jumpy means, other than it isn't something that's good for shearers when they eat.

Joe looks surprised at the question. ‘Molly Gibbons? Holy smoke! For a start she's a missus, not a miss. She's twenty stone and fifty years old if she's a day.' He gives a short laugh. ‘She's well past giving men the jitters, more like the fritters now, eh!'

It's a poor joke but Jessica is pleased Joe hasn't gone into one of his dark moods because of George Thomas.

‘Anyway, it ain't no use arguing, girlie,' he now says.

‘If George Thomas says you're takin' yer tucker at the homestead, that's about it.'

‘You don't like Mr Thomas, do you, Father?'

‘Like doesn't come into it, girlie. He's got the shed and the work and we need it. Out here it's them what pays says, and the ones who get paid shut their gobs.'

Then he adds, ‘We were damn lucky today, he was in a good mood.'

‘You could've fooled me,' Jessica says, feeling bold. Now Joe pulls his horse a little closer to her pony and holds her arm. ‘Keep your gob shut, do as you're told, don't muck about and when you see Mr Thomas coming in your direction make yerself scarce, otherwise keep your head down and keep working, ya hear me now, Jessie?'

‘Yes, Father.' Jessica knows Joe's giving her sound advice. ‘I won't let you down.'

‘Never have, never will,' Joe says. Jessica looks up at him in surprise and catches just the hint of a smile. Joe's proud she's got the job and didn't lose her pluck in front of George Thomas, she thinks to herself.

The shearing season at Riverview Station begins the first week in July, with the early mornings freezing cold and the frost white on the ground. The shearing starts at six-thirty in the morning unless it's rained during the night, when it starts at ten, after the sheep have dried in the sun.

Half of what little rain comes in the south-west falls in the winter, the best eight inches of the year, God's half. The other half comes in the heat and is pulled out of the soil by the remorseless sun before it can do any good, that's the Devil's half. God's half falls when the fleeces are at their thickest, so what grows the grass for the lambing season interferes with the shearing season, which goes to show that not even God thinks to help folk around here. Jessica and Joe rise at three-thirty in the morning to do the work around the farm before leaving just after five to ride to Riverview on their horses. They return home an hour before sunset and Jessica milks the cow, then mixes mash for the pigs and gives them fresh water. Joe checks on the sheep and cattle. It's no more than maintenance work, and if anything should go wrong Joe . and Jessica try to fix it on the Sabbath or on the occasional day when it rains.

Meg and Hester look after the chooks and do a bit of gardening, the only farm work they do outside the homestead. Hester keeps a small rose garden as well as a vegetable patch, both wire-netted, the wire dug in three feet underground so the rabbits can't burrow under it. Hester has the gift of a green thumb and there are always plenty of fresh vegetables in the kitchen. Joe and Jessica do the heavy digging, but she and Meg will carry water from the windlass tank and they take some pride in what they produce for the table.

By eight o'clock at night Jessica and Joe are sleeping the sleep of the dead until Joe's old Wesclock goes and he calls her again an hour and a half before dawn.

It's a hard slog, but Jessica is used to hard work. Sweeping the boards and tarring the nicks on the newly shorn sheep keeps her busy enough, but she can still find time to boil a billy for Jack Thomas and William Simon. Billy Simon is a strict Roman Catholic and some call him ‘The Mary Boy'. He is often seen at night in the shearers' quarters holding a set of rosary beads, quietly reciting Hail Marys.

‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee;

blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.'

The Mary Boy is not a name too many are game to call him to his face, though — at only eighteen years old Billy Simon is six feet four inches tall, hard as an iron bark and still growing. He has a mass of black hair, wide blue eyes, a well-muscled body and the constitution of an ox. He's no fool either and is known to have a bit of a temper when provoked. He's a good man with his fists — all in all, not someone to be picked on rashly.

He and Jack, who's not as big as Billy, are friendly enough, but Jack, who's just out of the King's School in Sydney, doesn't want to be shown up by Billy Simon. George Thomas hasn't brought his son up soft. Both lads have been rouseabouts to two of the gun shearers in previous seasons and there's been competition between Billy and Jack since they were tar boys together.

Jessica soon sees that Jack Thomas has a lot of pride, but Billy is the better shearer. Jack is using his blade, making his blows carelessly while he tries to keep up with Billy. His sheep carry twice the number of nicks as those of his mate. Some of them are pretty bad, needing a whole pot of tar to stop the bleeding.

She senses that Jack knows Billy is the better shearer, but as the boss's son, he has to keep his pride intact. He can't be thought to be soft or lazy. But he's trying too hard and slowly losing out.

Jessica wishes she could tell him what Joe always says to her, ‘Do the job well first up, in the end that's the fastest way to get it done.' As their tar boy it's not her place to say anything. She's at the bottom of the ladder and, besides, there's no one but her who knows which sheep are Jack's or Billy's when she sends them down the race into the pen. She knows enough to keep her trap well shut if someone should ask.

But while the competition between these two is fierce, it is always good-natured and they remain firm friends. They make an impressive pair, the dark and the fair, and they're the heroes of all the young tar boys in the shed. Jack is no bad sport nor a poor loser, not like his old man, and Jessica likes working with both the lads. They laugh and chaff each other and tease her when they stop for a smoko.

They don't seem to mind in the least that she's a girl and take some pride in the fact that she's a better worker than any of the tar boys on the board. Besides, she can make a damn good mug of tea and a corned beef sandwich if needed. After a few days, at the morning smoko, Billy christens her ‘Tea Leaf'.

‘What's that for?' Jessica asks him. Once she had heard someone use that name for a thief, and she doesn't want to be called a thief. Jack laughs. ‘Don't you know?'

‘No. Is it because you don't like my tea?' Jessica looks worried. ‘What's wrong with it?'

‘No, the tea's good,' Billy laughs, ‘it's just that you're the dregs!'

Jessica is puzzled and looks to Jack.

‘The tar boy is the dregs of society, see,' Jack explains, ‘except that you're not even a boy.'

Both of them chuckle, pleased with themselves until Jessica, on a sudden impulse, picks up the billy and pours what's left of the cold tea over their hats. It's all done in a flash before she realises she may have gone too far.

They both look surprised and Billy shakes his head then takes his hat off and turns it upside down, watching the dark mess dripping from it. For a moment Jessica is really scared, then Jack grins and slaps Billy on the shoulder. ‘She gotcha!' he yells in delight, and Billy smiles up at Jessica.

From that moment a deep friendship grows between the three of them. Billy and Jack only call her Tea Leaf among themselves, they're a team now and it's her special name. Soon Jessica feels confident enough to talk to Jack about his shearing.

‘Billy's your mate, Jack,' she says. ‘It don't matter if he throws a few more than you. Joe always reckons that if you do things right in the first place you get faster, it's just natural. He says the real gun shearers don't waste blows and seem to have plenty of time to make them clean. You can tell the quality of a shearer by the number of nicks he leaves behind him.'

Jack is silent a while, then looks up at Jessica, his eyes narrowed. ‘If you were a bloke I'd probably have to fight you, Tea Leaf. Or leastways tell you to mind your own business. Cheeky little bugger, aren't you?' He grins and then says, ‘But you're right, a man's stupid, I should know better.'

Jessica grins. ‘Jack Thomas, there's a lot of sheep out there are gunna be grateful!'

Jack laughs. ‘I dunno about that, being thanked by a mob of sheep ain't the biggest compliment in the world.' Right from the start the other tar boys have resented having a girl in their group, especially one who works faster and better than they do. Being a tar boy is a shit job, the shearers give them a hard time, and most are lucky to come out of the day without a thick ear for doing something one of their shearers doesn't like.

Mr Malloy buggers things up even more by singling Jessica out and calling her the gun tar and best broom on the board. Jessica can see from the looks she gets that the other tar boys don't like it much.

The young lads can see how Jack and Billy have taken to Jessica, the three of them getting on like a house on fire. It doesn't seem fair to them and Jessica can well understand their gripes — all they get all day is kicks and curses and meanwhile she's Jake with her two shearers. At every opportunity they get, the tar boys are at her. Teasing, jostling and pushing her, calling out insults, and very little real good humour behind it all. At first Jessica cops it sweet. Then she decides to give as good as she gets and soon they're no match for her sharp tongue. Joe says a fourteen-year-old girl is near grown, ready to have brats, while a boy the same age hasn't got his wits about him yet and can only think about tossing off. Jessica doesn't know yet, though, that you can't make fools of folk without them wanting to teach you a lesson.