Settling the Account (6 page)

But Charlie soon found that he was wrong.
The weeks went by and Reverend Simons’ sermons became ever more
eloquent in their denunciation of drink and its consequences.
Charlie sat and listened in stony silence, but he made up for his
taciturnity on the drives home.

‘A man needs a drink when he’s working in
the fields,’ he pronounced on the third Sunday of Reverend Simons’
tenure. ‘Drink lemonade instead, he says!’ He spat into the dust of
the track. ‘Lemonade won’t quench a man’s thirst—not the thirst you
get from real work. Ministers! Book-learning! He’s not done a
decent day’s work in his life, that one—he doesn’t know what it is
to work up a thirst.’

Amy let him rant uninterrupted, though it
troubled her to see Malcolm nodding agreement. The single seat of
the gig had become too much of a crush now that the boys were
growing big, and Malcolm was allowed to ride his pony when they
went out as a family. He usually contrived to ride on ahead, or to
lag behind so that he could make a show of passing them at a
gallop, but he clearly found his father’s flow of invective too
entertaining to miss.

‘Ma?’ David tugged on her sleeve. He, too,
had become an avid listener to the sermons, though with only the
vaguest comprehension of much of their substance. ‘What did the
minister mean about knocking down houses?’

‘What do you mean, Dave?’ Amy asked. ‘I
don’t remember him saying anything like that.’

‘Yes he did! He said when men drink they
knock down their houses… something like that, anyway.’

Amy hid a smile. ‘Breaking up homes, he
said.’

‘And do they knock them right down? The roof
and the chimney and everything?’

‘He didn’t mean it like that, Davie.’ She
shot a quick glance at Charlie to see if David’s prattle was
annoying him, but he was concentrating on guiding the horse over a
rough part of the track. ‘He meant… well, sometimes when men drink
too much and go on and on drinking they lose all their money and
they go away from their wives and children. And then they’re not a
family any more, see? So it’s like they’ve broken up the family,
and that means it’s not a real home any more.’

‘Oh.’ David looked disappointed at the
mundanity of her explanation. ‘I thought it might mean like when
Uncle Harry broke the door.’

‘Uncle Harry doesn’t drink!’ Amy said,
shocked at the suggestion. ‘Well, he might have a bit of beer when
he’s working in the heat, but he doesn’t go getting drunk. Not so
that he gets grumpy or knocks things down.’ She was careful not to
look at Charlie as she spoke, but she could feel his eyes turned in
her direction. ‘Broke what door, anyway?’

‘Dolly told me about it one time. She said
Uncle Harry and Aunt Jane had a big fight, and Uncle Harry didn’t
come back for dinner till real late. So they all had their dinner
and Aunt Jane put Uncle Harry’s out in the porch and said he could
eat it there when he came. And she put the bolt across the door so
he wouldn’t be able to get in.’

‘Did she really, Dave?’ Amy asked, amused
despite herself.

‘Yes, and then she put Dolly and Esther to
bed. Robbie and Don were just little then, they were already in
bed. But Dolly could hear through the bedroom door when Uncle Harry
came home. He was wild! He bashed and bashed at the door, and said
Aunt Jane had to open it. She just wouldn’t, though. So Uncle Harry
kicked it real hard, and he knocked the bolt right off. There’s a
hole in the wall where it used to join on, Dolly showed it to
me.’

That was true, Amy reflected. She had
noticed the hole ripped in the door surround, and she remembered
now that when she had idly asked Jane about the damage Jane had
looked flustered and had given her the vaguest of answers.

‘Dolly didn’t say Uncle Harry was drunk,
though,’ David said thoughtfully. ‘Just wild.’

‘Hope he taught the uppish bitch a good,
hard lesson, making a fool of him like that,’ Charlie said in
disgust. ‘Serves him right for not getting her sorted out early
on.’

‘Dolly said they shouted and threw things
for a bit,’ David volunteered. ‘Then they sort of started laughing,
then they went quiet. But Uncle Harry must have been really tired
from knocking the bolt off the door, because he slept in next
morning and Uncle John had to come down and wake him up for the
milking. Why are you laughing, Ma?’

‘I’m not really, Dave. Just smiling a bit
because your Uncle Harry’s so funny. See, he yells and makes a
fuss, but he doesn’t get really grumpy. That’s because he doesn’t
get drunk,’ she added daringly.

‘Lets his wife make a fool of him,’ Charlie
said. ‘They’ve no idea in your family.’

‘Dolly said they’re getting another baby in
November,’ David blurted out.

‘Shh, Dave!’ Amy said, shocked that he
should have heard such a thing. ‘Who told Dolly that?’

‘Maudie did. She heard Aunt Lizzie telling
Uncle Frank, and she told Dolly. Where are they getting the baby
from, Ma?’

‘Shut up, boy,’ Charlie growled, giving
David a scowl that silenced him instantly. Amy met Charlie’s eyes
and saw resentment there. ‘How old’s their last one?’ he asked.

‘Just gone one year old. This one’s coming a
bit soon after Donny, but… well, it’s just the way it’s worked
out.’ She saw thoughts passing transparently across his face: Harry
might not follow Charlie’s ideas on how to run his home, but he had
a wife still willing to share his bed and give him more
children.

‘Ma, what does “degaration” mean?’ David
asked, bringing a welcome distraction.

‘Do you mean “degradation”, Dave?’ Amy
hazarded.

‘Yes! That’s what the minister said,
de-grad-a-tion,’ he enunciated carefully. ‘He said when ladies
drink it leads them into degradation.’

While Amy struggled to find suitable words
to explain the concept, Charlie added his own contribution. ‘Now,
there’s some sense in that,’ he said with the air of one being
scrupulously just. ‘There’s no use letting women drink. They
haven’t strong enough minds for it.’

‘What does that word mean, Ma?’ David
persisted.

‘It means… well, getting in trouble. It’s
when you do things that are wrong so no one likes you any more, and
you have to go and live with other bad people. Do you know what it
means now, Dave?’

‘I think so,’ David said, frowning in
concentration.

‘Now, take you,’ Charlie said, enlarging on
his earlier speech. ‘That just goes to show what happens when you
let women have their heads. Aye, when women take to drink they’re
sure to turn bad.’

‘Look, is that a boat out on the horizon?’
Amy said to David, hoping to distract him.

‘I’ve no argument with the man there,’
Charlie went on. ‘If ministers would keep to telling women how to
behave, they might do some good instead of trying to interfere with
a man’s bit of honest pleasure. It might have done you good if
someone had taken notice of what you were up to.’

‘Charlie, I don’t think it’s right to talk
about such things in front of the children,’ Amy said in a low
voice.

He gave her a look that showed how much he
was enjoying the feeling of power. ‘Why shouldn’t they hear what
their mother is? They’ve got to know one of these days.’

‘You don’t drink, do you, Ma?’ David asked,
looking alarmed. ‘You shouldn’t! You’ll get into degaration.’

‘No, I don’t!’ Amy turned to face Charlie.
‘I had a little glass of wine the day we got married, and that was
the first time I ever tasted drink. I didn’t like it much, either.
You might be right about women drinking, for all I know, but it’s
nothing to do with me.’

‘You’re just bad by nature, eh?’ Charlie
said maliciously.

‘No, I don’t think I am. I’ve never tasted
gin, anyway,’ she added, remembering the smell he brought home from
the whorehouse.

‘Who’d waste good drink on you, you little
bitch? You were quick enough to open your legs without it.’

‘Charlie!’ She put a warning hand on David’s
arm and gripped it firmly, feeling the child tense with anger at
the abuse of which he understood nothing but the tone. ‘It’s the
Sabbath, remember.’

‘Don’t tell me what day it is,’ he said, but
the venom had gone out of his voice. ‘Bloody fool of a minister,’
he grumbled, returning to his original target. ‘Getting everyone
stirred up. The newspaper man’s sworn never to darken the door of
the church again while Simons’ there.’

‘He didn’t go all that often before,’ Amy
remarked, remembering the erratic church attendance of Mr Bateson,
Ruatane’s brewer-cum-editor.

‘Everyone hates old Simons already,’ Malcolm
put in. Charlie’s invective against Amy had left him unmoved, but
the minister was still something of a novelty.

‘I’ve heard a few things lately,’ Charlie
mused. ‘There’s some talk that people won’t put up with the
minister if he keeps on with this crap. I’ve heard a few of the
young fellows might be thinking of running the mad bugger out of
town.’

‘I’ve heard that, too,’ Malcolm said, and at
first Amy was inclined to take the remark as one of his persistent
attempts to seem part of the adult world.

But a glance at his face brought her up
short. It held a knowing expression; a glimmer of secret knowledge.
She could be sure of one thing: if there was any mischief being
plotted, Malcolm was determined to be part of it. It was no use
clinging to the hope that he was far too young to get into such a
scrape; his age had never kept him out of trouble before.

June – July 1895

Amy no longer had to ask Lizzie out loud
whether she had heard from Mrs Crossley yet; whenever they saw one
another she would shoot a questioning glance at Lizzie that was
invariably answered with a brief shake of the head.

‘She’ll answer soon. She’s probably been
busy,’ Lizzie kept saying. Amy tried to absorb some of Lizzie’s
determined optimism, but it became more difficult as the weeks
passed.

She was fighting an increasingly unequal
struggle against despair when at last came the Sunday that Lizzie
caught her eye as she and Frank guided their flock into church and
gave her a quick nod. The light in Lizzie’s face told Amy there was
news at last.

‘Come around when you can,’ Lizzie said to
her in a low voice after the service. ‘I’ve got something to show
you. Something good.’

Monday was the one day of the week when the
women of the valley never considered visiting each other, but the
lure of Lizzie’s news was too much for Amy to resist. She was up
before dawn to boil up her copper and fill her tubs, but that
afternoon as soon as she had the last of the clothes off the line
and safely inside she set off down the road, ignoring the
bone-aching weariness a day spent hauling water and carrying sodden
clothes had left her with.

‘I didn’t expect to see you today!’ Lizzie
said when Amy found her at the clothesline. ‘It’s washing day!’

‘I know, but I couldn’t wait.’ Amy began
unpegging clothes and placing them in the basket as she spoke.
‘What’s happened, Lizzie? You’ve got a letter, haven’t you? What
does it say? What’s happened to Ann?’

‘Shut up a minute and let me get a word in,’
said Lizzie. ‘Yes, I’ve heard from that woman, and everything’s all
right. Help me in with this lot and I’ll show it to you.’ Amy
willingly took up one side of the large wicker clothes basket and
helped carry it back to the house, holding her pace to Lizzie’s
stolid trudge with difficulty.

‘Such a pile of washing my lot make,’ Lizzie
grumbled, more out of habit than from any real sense of grievance.
‘Why do boys get their clothes twice as dirty as girls,
anyway?’

‘I think they must roll in the mud
sometimes. What does the letter say?’

‘I’ll show you when we’re inside. Four loads
I’ve carried in just now! This basket’s heavy enough with
everything dry, I had to make a dozen trips with it this morning
when the things were wet or I couldn’t lift it at all.’

‘I know. What did she say about Ann?’

‘I’ll be glad when Maudie finishes school,
then she’ll be able to give me a hand with all this. Frank usually
carries the wet stuff for me when he’s home, but he’s been off on
this co-operative thing all day.’

‘Lizzie! Tell me what the letter says!’

‘You’ll just have to wait.’ Lizzie trudged
on at the same maddeningly slow pace. ‘There,’ she said as they
walked up the porch steps and into the kitchen. ‘That didn’t take
long, did it?’

‘Yes, it did.’ Amy dropped her side of the
basket, forcing Lizzie to let go of the other handle. ‘Show me the
letter.’

‘Come on, then.’ Lizzie led the way up the
passage and into the front bedroom. ‘I put it away safely, I know
you won’t want anyone nosing into it.’

She opened a drawer and delved into a pile
of clothes. Her hand emerged holding a folded piece of paper. ‘Here
it is. Sit down on the bed and we can look at it together.’

Amy practically snatched the letter from
Lizzie’s outstretched hand. She hastily unfolded it, sat down
beside Lizzie and began reading aloud.

‘ “
Dear Mrs
Kelley,”
 
’

‘She’s spelled my name wrong,’ Lizzie
remarked idly.

‘ “
I now take the
opportunity to write these few lines, hoping it finds you in good
health as it leaves me”—oh, never mind all that, where’s the part
about Ann?’ Amy quickly scanned several lines spent in apologising
for the lateness of the reply, until she found something of more
interest.

‘Look, here’s a bit about the Infant Life
Protection Act.’

‘What’s that, anyway? I’ve never heard of
it.’

‘You should read the newspapers. It’s what
the government brought in to deal with these baby farmers. The
women have to register, and they’ve got inspectors who go around
seeing that they look after the babies. Look! She says she
registered when the act came in and she’s got a proper licence. She
must be all right then, mustn’t she? She must look after the babies
properly. Don’t you think so?’