Salt Creek (18 page)

‘Fencing. They showed us which ones.'

‘Our water,' Hugh said. ‘They could go elsewhere, but no, it falls on us to provide.'

‘Just two. That's all we agreed to. It's not much,' Papa said. ‘An annoyance. It will rain again and won't matter so much.'

CHAPTER 11

The Coorong, May 1858

MAMA STARED OUT OF THE WINDOW
at the sky, unblinking. ‘I'd never noticed before how like clouds are to lily pads against the sky. See them, Hester, floating on its surface?'

‘Be still now, Mama, and save yourself. Please.' I wet the cloth and squeezed it and held it to her brow, and pressed it to each cheek and she shut her eyes and for a moment her face was peaceful.

Her eyes flew open again and darted to the window. ‘What lies beneath, do you suppose?' And her face began to gather up, different from the gathering of an infant's features on the point of crying. It was as if she saw something coming from a distance and it could not be stopped but only faced as best she was able, fearful as she was. Her concentration on it was fierce. She held my hand between hers and squeezed, then harder until I felt the bones of my hand, my knuckles, grind and shift against each other. A sound came from her – a soft groan. The sight of her face, the frown and the pallor and the set of her jaw and the tremor that ran all through her were too much and I shifted my gaze to the window and beyond, as she had. And the pain in my hand receded, Mama receded, until there were just the clouds: rafts drifting, ships sailing, waves scudding, birds hurtling. All of these things. The pressure on my hand fell away and I looked down. Mama turned her head and then her body until she was all curled up, her knees drawn up as far as she was able against her great belly and her face against her two cupped hands. Just so have I seen Skipper lie when she wishes for warmth and quiet and rest, her nose tucked into her paws. In this way the labour continued through the evening and on past midnight. I went out once to tell Fred and Addie to put Mary to bed and to go to bed themselves, and left them before they could ask any question.

Once or twice Mama panted. She took my hand and pulled me down until my face was close to hers. ‘I'm sorry for this,' she said.

‘Why, sorry for what, Mama? There's no need—'

She broke into my words, her head a trembling shake against the pillow, ‘No. No. Leave here, Hester. Do not stay.'

‘All will be well, Mama. Do not say it.' And I sobbed once because if she was frightened then I was right to be too.

She panted as the hens do in the heat: small hot breaths, as if someone were pressing them out of her. ‘I will be here,' she said. ‘It will be well. We will come to rights. Only if ever you get the chance, take it. Leave. Never come back.'

‘Mama. The boys. Addie.'

‘Promise.' This was a groan.

‘I promise,' I said. I did not meet her eyes then, but stared at the ceiling lamp which seemed to hang at an angle, as if the world had tilted, and when I looked again her eyes were clenched, her fists were clenched, her legs were clenched tight together and neither of us said what we were thinking and by night time there was no more to be said. It began to rain. The time for words was over.

When the waves of pain had abated for that time I left Mama's side and went to find Papa. He was at the front door, and spoke to me pleasant and calm as if his manner would make the occasion come right. It is in this way that we proceed in life, by convincing ourselves in each moment that events are running smoothly or are about to because the truth is not to be contemplated.

‘Papa,' I said. ‘It is going ill with Mama, at least I think it is.'

‘It is hard, always hard, but she has done it many times before and will come through again.'

‘Please.' I took his hand and his arm and tugged. ‘Papa.'

‘Yes. Of course,' he said, and gave one last look up the path away from the house and turned to accompany me.

We heard her from outside the bedroom, the sound more animal than human: growling almost. At the end of the hallway Hugh peered around the door. I shook my head and he disappeared. We pushed the door open. Mama was in a desperate condition, rocking her head from side to side, her mouth open. I would have known that even without Papa's stricken face.

‘Where's Stanton?' I asked.

‘He should be back,' Papa said. He hesitated and then went to Mama, holding her hands to his mouth. But she was beyond comprehension and plucked her hands from his, fretful, and he turned back to me. ‘Hester, we must do something.' He stood and moved away, as far from Mama as could be while still being in the room. His mouth worked and he put three fingers against it, and still his lips moved beneath them. He shut his eyes and swayed and took his hand away from his mouth and clutched the door and began to swing it.

‘Papa,' I said, rather sharp.

‘Eh?' he said, startled. ‘Oh, the Lord bless us and keep us all.'

‘Please.'

There was the sound of the back door slamming and heavy boots coming up the hall and I leapt up and pulled the door from Papa and flung it open. It was Stanton, his coat still on, his hat in his hands, wet from the rain, and the cold and life pouring from him. It would be winter soon. Water dripped from the bottom of his coat onto the floor.

‘We can't get the dray through,' he said. ‘A tree's down across the track. Even if it weren't it's not safe. To take her in this is madness. She's better here.'

‘It's very bad, Stanton. Could someone come here?' I said.

‘Who? How long would it take for them to come?'

‘Stanton, we must,' I said. ‘Else she'll—'

‘Down the lagoon then, to the Travellers Rest. Nellie Robinson will know what to do.'

‘What, row her? It's too far.'

‘There is nothing else. Make haste now, Hett, do.'

When I think badly of Stanton and Hugh, as I often did then, I remember that night and all they did. They were calm when Papa was not, and held Mama firm when we had to move her despite the pain it caused. I had seen Stanton be as calm with cows struggling to calve, and how they appeared to trust him. Papa stood aside with his face buried in his hands while Hugh and Stanton carried her out – an awkward thing since she was crying out and struggling to break free of them – and I gathered up quilts to line the bottom of the boat to make her as comfortable as might be possible. Papa stumbled behind us to the boat and sat away from Mama. I crouched next to her in the bottom of the boat to do what I could to ease the pain, which was very little. I would have stayed behind to be with Fred and Addie and Albert, but Mama had hold of my hand as if it were the only thing keeping her from plunging into darkness, and she wouldn't let go, so Hugh stayed behind, watching on as we pulled away. The rain had cleared by then.

Rowing away from the jetty across the slap of black water I could make out the shadowed back of the peninsula vast against the sky and then we were lost in the dark with the chirrup and groan of the oars in their locks as they gouged the water and flung it back, the wind fingering the reeds, the soft croon and rustle of a million life forms and inside the boat Mama rigid at our feet, crying out at my attempts to bring comfort. She was an animal in a trap and we could not set her free.

Stanton rowed uncomplaining, but strong as he was he had to stop to rest. Papa spelled him twice and I did once. It was slow though and when Mama's moans died down I think we all lost heart, but kept going because to stop would be to admit that hope was quite gone.

Darkness began to thin on the horizon and pale gauze light drifted up the lagoon and flowed over and around its islands and in the distance we saw the place where the creek enters the lagoon and the short jetty a little way further in. We crept towards it and it began to loom. Finally, Stanton flung the boat rope over a stanchion and we drew alongside. He and Papa got out and went running along the jetty and up the slope towards the inn. Mama was quite still by then, her face clammy to the touch and cooler than I liked. Her hands when I held them and rubbed them were cool too, and unmoving.

I heard their voices before I saw them and then they were coming down the slope through the ghostly light, as if they were appearing from another world than the one I was sharing with Mama, their breath huffing out, hanging in the cold air before disappearing. Mrs Robinson was in her nightgown still, and with a coat on top of that, and her thin plait snaked from beneath her bed cap. Her boots were unlaced and she stumbled once or twice in her haste before righting herself.

They clattered up the jetty. ‘Oh, Mrs Robinson,' I said when they reached me. ‘I'm afraid.'

‘What? What now, my duck?' she said. ‘Let Nellie have a look and we'll see what we might do.' She stepped out of her boots and let herself down nimble and swift as a spider and held her weight with her arms at the jetty's edge to keep the boat steady while I shifted to give her room. She moved then, crouching by Mama's head, and stroked her hair from her face where it had stuck with the water flicking from the oars. She put the backs of her fingers and then her palm against Mama's cheek, and frowned. ‘Come now, Mrs Finch,' she said. ‘We'll have you out and see if we can ease your suffering.' And she put an arm behind Mama's head, at her neck, and tried to raise her. Mama's head fell back. ‘Wake up now, Mrs Finch, if you please,' she said, and when she still didn't move Mrs Robinson picked up her hand again and rubbed it hard and pinched and twisted the small fold of skin she'd raised on its back, concealing it from us as best she could in the curve of her lap, but Mama still did nothing and, looking over her shoulder past Papa who stared dumb and listless to my brother, Mrs Robinson said, ‘Stanton Finch, come help me now, my sweet, and we'll lift your mammie out and then we might see what's to be done.' Her voice, become a trifle hearty, set me shaking.

I clambered upright and the boat rocked again and Stanton took hold of my hand and heaved me onto the jetty and took my place in the boat. With the greatest delicacy they raised Mama until she was sitting, and looking down – suddenly as if from a great distance – I was able to see what they had not yet: Mama's white nightgown all dark with blood behind. I could not help crying out.

Mrs Robinson put her hand to Mama's neck and I knew what she had discovered from the way she took her hand away and touched her fingers to Mama's eyes, and told Stanton to let her lie back.

She was quiet before she spoke again: ‘She's gone now and I am sorry for it, my dears. That's the way of it sometimes. The Lord taketh away, that he does, and there's no knowing when that time may be, as I know too well with my poor dear Willie.' She wiped a quick hand over her cheeks and pulled the quilts over Mama again, tucking her in – for all our sakes, if not Mama's any longer – and almost as an afterthought, with the utmost gracefulness (for which I will always remember her fondly, no matter what people said of her later) drew a loose fold across her face, hiding us from its uncanny stillness. ‘Come now, my dears, and have a bite and a nice cup of good sweet tea. I'm so sorry for it. There's nothing to be done here, and a long journey back.'

It was the strangest thing that we did stop at the inn. At first I thought I could not leave Mama alone like that and sat on the jetty with my legs curled up inside my skirts and my skirts doubled and wrapped around me like a shroud and the rest of me hunched deep within my coat. But watching Stanton and Mrs Robinson walking away rather close (Mrs Robinson tripping on her bootlaces again, still untied, and Stanton's hand at her elbow) and Papa drifting after them childlike, and looking at Mama below – a thing now – I didn't like to stay and leapt up and ran after them. I never loved my body as well as I did that morning: all the life of me coursing through me, which I felt almost as an animal pleasure, and for the first time sensed an affinity with Stanton, what it might be like to live in his skin, but all these things were only flickers on the edge of my thinking. A small despicable corner of me was glad that it was Mama who had died and not I, even though she was the greater loss and I missed her already. I was alive, alive, alive, and did not want to stay with someone who was dead.

I was fast and with my skirts held high I caught Papa and Stanton and Mrs Robinson easily and didn't stop but went running along the rutted track leaving them and their shouts of surprise behind until finally, finally I could run no more and stopped, panting and sobbing, and I swore to myself right there that I would not allow myself to become like Mama, that I would never die in such circumstances because someone had decided my life for me. No one would make me live where I did not wish to. Becoming anything was so far into the future though, and there was this time to be lived through, and no seeing where it might end. Just, now, that there was the long walk back to the inn. I was hot even after taking my coat off.

Perhaps I went into the inn in a rush. Everyone looked up startled when I opened the door onto the crowded kitchen, where the maid, Jane, moved about tending the fire and pouring tea and bringing toasted bread and eggs to the table, which smelled more delicious than anything else I had ever smelled in my life. Stanton was eating with the greatest efficiency. Papa's eggs had been punctured and the yolks had spread. He poked at them and took a bite of toast.

‘Come now,' Mrs Robinson said. ‘Sit down here' – she patted the rough bench at her side – ‘Jane will bring you what you would like.' She sipped her tea and regarded me. Her eyes were sharp without being hard. She was used to making judgements about people I think. I hadn't noticed that about her when we last visited. Perhaps she had concealed it. ‘Hard for girls like you.' Her voice was quite soft, too low for Papa and Stanton to hear – and they were sunk deep in their own thoughts.

‘Why?' I said.

‘You're not the eldest are you?' And then, ‘No, there's your brothers, isn't that so?'

‘The eldest girl.'

‘The same thing. I know, my dear, I know. It's the expectations that hold you back. They'll kill you in the end, if you're not careful, suck the life right out of you. Run, I say. Run whenever you should have the chance, don't spare a glance back or you'll turn to salt or stone. When the agent came to the workhouse looking for girls to travel to Australia I put myself forward, made the most of that chance. I had no idea what might become of me; it was only that it might be something better but I took it and so should you when the time comes. There's more than one way to die, with all respect to your dear mama.'