Settling the Account (63 page)

December 1904 – February 1905

If she could have given up sleeping
altogether, Amy thought there might just have been enough hours in
the day to make a proper job of all her responsibilities.

Her world had become a small, enclosed
space, compassed within the boundaries of the farm. She could not
leave Charlie by himself for any other reason than the essential
weekly trip into town for their stores. The anxious, hurried
journey was an extra burden rather than bringing any sort of
respite.

She had to impose a strict schedule on
herself to have any chance at all of getting through the work each
day. Even with the long hours of daylight that summer had brought,
she was up before dawn every morning and did not sink exhausted
into bed until well after dark.

The twice-daily milking was the most onerous
task of all, punctuating her day with the hours it took to get the
cows in, milk them, put them back out into the paddock and carry
the cans up to the house. It was no wonder Charlie had looked so
weary since he had sent David away, with twenty cows to milk by
himself.

It had been hard enough for Charlie; with
the extra milk production brought on by December’s lush grass, Amy
decided that for her it was simply impossible. She could not milk
in the pitch dark, and she had to have the morning milking finished
in time for John to collect the cans on his way to the factory.
There were too many days when she had to carry them up to the house
leaving a few cows unmilked, then go back down to the cow shed
after John had taken the cans and finish the milking. The milk from
those last few cows had to be used up somehow, and milking for the
benefit of the pigs was not a useful way for her to spend the
scanty time she had.

She did not tell Charlie she had dried off
some of the cows. He would have taken the news badly, but it was
hard to know whether he would have reacted by shouting himself into
a rage or by sinking more deeply into the dull, silent misery that
sometimes enveloped him.

He had wild swings of mood now, sometimes
ranting against his weakness and any imagined failings in the way
Amy was doing the work, and other days sitting hunched in his
chair, or in bed if he refused to get up, saying nothing at all as
he stared dully at the wall with his red-rimmed eyes. On such days
it was difficult even to coax him into eating.

Amy knew the farm’s income must be lower
than it should since she had been forced to dry off some of the
cows, so when John brought her the factory cheque early in the new
year she was careful not to let Charlie see it. She took the cheque
into town without even mentioning it to him, and handed it over at
the store to settle their account.

The storekeeper opened his account book,
studied the cheque again, then looked over the counter at Amy with
an awkward expression.

‘Ah, Mrs Stewart, it doesn’t quite cover the
account. It’s not much short,’ he added quickly. ‘Two pounds, three
shillings and fourpence, that’s all. No need to worry about it,
leave it till you get your potato money in.’

So her milking was not even bringing in
enough money to pay for what they had to buy at the store. And as
for harvesting the potato crop… Amy suddenly felt so weary that she
leaned against the counter for support. But only for a moment.

‘I’ll sort it out, Mr Craig,’ she told the
storekeeper. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

Amy had the briefest of chats with Thomas at
the bank, and was soon back at the store with a few notes clutched
in her hand. She passed the money across the counter and watched Mr
Craig write up the transaction.

‘That’s all settled, then,’ he told her with
a smile. Amy gave him a brief nod and hurried out the door to the
gig. It was a good thing she had let the money from her father’s
legacy build up a little in her bank account. She wondered how long
it would last now that it was going to have to bolster up the
slender income of the farm.

*

The haymaking was a wearying time for Amy
that January. She knew it would bring the greatest risk yet of her
family’s guessing just how frail Charlie was; haymaking was always
a combined effort, but it was quite impossible for Charlie to be
part of it at all.

The story she gave out, that Charlie’s arm
was giving too much trouble for him to be able to toss hay, sounded
flimsy in her own ears. She waited anxiously for someone to make
the connection that Charlie could surely not be doing much of the
farm work if his arm was too painful for him to make hay. But the
men were too busy getting on with the work (and, Amy suspected, too
relieved at not having to put up with Charlie’s unwelcome presence)
for them to question her more deeply.

She did what she could to make up for the
fact that Charlie was not contributing to the work, cooking great
batches of cakes and pies and taking them over to the workers when
they were on her brothers’ farm as well as during the days they
spent on Charlie’s. It did a little to ease her own feelings of
guilt that other people were having to work harder to make up for
Charlie’s lack, but it did nothing to help Charlie.

He was sunk in misery for the whole period
of the haymaking. ‘Useless. Bloody useless,’ he muttered to
himself, and if Amy tried to remonstrate with him he did not
answer. She often heard him talking under his breath when he did
not think she was in the room; she suspected that when she was out
of the house he talked to himself even more.

She had to be sure he was comfortable and
had everything he needed before she left him alone to take food
down to the workers. Since his second attack, he had been too
frightened to move from wherever Amy left him while she was out of
the house. He would still hobble about on his stick if he knew she
was there to pick him up if he fell, but when he was alone he
stayed where he had been put.

Charlie would rouse himself to show a
wavering interest in the work when Amy came back from the hay
paddocks. He would ask her how the haymaking was going, then turn
and gaze towards the window, and she knew he was not listening to
her answer. He wanted to be outside with the other men; outside and
strong again. She felt trapped enough herself; how much worse must
it be for Charlie, who had been confined to three rooms of the
house for months?

It was mainly a desire to rouse him from his
melancholy that put the idea into her head, though she could not
deny that she was becoming desperate for a proper outing and the
chance to talk to someone other than Charlie. Being trapped on the
farm had become even harder since she had heard that Sarah Millish
was back from Auckland and had been asking after her.

Amy mulled over the idea for a few days,
then decided it was worth a try.

‘Lizzie’s having a soyree tomorrow,’ she
told Charlie as she watched him slurping at a cup of lukewarm tea.
Sometimes she held a saucer under his cup for him while he drank;
today he was in an irritable mood and had refused the attention,
instead dripping tea on his nightshirt.

His hand shook as he dropped the cup onto
its saucer. ‘You told me you wouldn’t go to those things any more,’
he said, his eyes full of fear. ‘You’re not going!’ He raised his
voice, but his attempt at anger was a shadow of its old self.
‘You’re stopping home!’

‘I don’t want to go by myself—I thought you
might like to come with me.’

‘Go to some fool tea party?’ Charlie said in
astonishment. ‘Sit around with a lot of cackling women? Why would I
want to do that?’

‘It’s not only women there, you know.
Frank’ll be there, and Bill. Richard, too—no, he won’t, because of
Maudie. Tommy might be, though. And Joey’s just about grown up now,
he’s sort of like another man.’

‘Don’t want to go to Kelly’s place,’ Charlie
muttered. ‘Him and his cows and his sons. Don’t want to listen to
him bragging.’

‘But wouldn’t you like a change?’ Amy
coaxed. ‘Wouldn’t you like to talk to some men for a bit? You must
be sick of being stuck here with me all the time.’

‘Aye, I’m that, all right. Listening to your
nonsense. It’s enough to send a man touched in the head.’

He gazed towards the window with the
familiar longing expression. ‘We’ll maybe go,’ he allowed. ‘We’ll
see tomorrow.’

*

Amy knew it had been a mistake to come
within minutes of their arrival. She had become so used to
Charlie’s changed appearance that she had not considered how struck
other people might be by it.

The strains of piano music from the
direction of the parlour window told her that Lily was taking the
opportunity of playing, even if the hot weather had driven most of
her audience outside. Amy brought the gig to a halt and helped
Charlie down, just as Mickey and Danny rushed over to take the
horse out of its harness. She passed Charlie’s stick to him and
took his arm to lead him over to the others.

They rounded a corner of the house and came
within easy sight of the verandah. Amy saw everyone staring at
Charlie as he walked slowly beside her, leaning heavily on her arm
for support.

Amy had done her best to make Charlie
presentable for the visit. She had washed him as well as she could
manage, using a damp towel and reaching around awkwardly under his
nightshirt, then helped him dress in a set of clean clothes. She
had washed his face, combed his hair and even his beard until he
had slapped her hand away and told her to stop fiddling with him.
He looked tidy enough, but she could do nothing about the dragging
leg or the arm that hung limp and useless by his side, nor about
the grey tinge to his skin and the extra lines deeply etched in his
face.

But there was no chance of turning back now;
she would have to make the best of it. Amy smiled as brightly as
she could at everyone she saw, and found a chair for Charlie in the
corner of the verandah where the men were gathered.

She tried to cover her awkwardness with
bustle, fetching Charlie a cup of tea and a plate of cakes and
making sure they were well within his reach.

‘Now, I’ll get out of your way and leave you
men to talk,’ she said. She moved away to the other end of the
verandah, though not without an anxious glance back towards
Charlie.

Frank cleared his throat noisily. ‘It’s good
to see you out and about again, Charlie,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you’ve
come.’ Amy was grateful to Frank for the effort he was making. He
was not glad to see Charlie at all, she knew; no one ever was.

Lizzie had commandeered almost all the
chairs for the shadier end of the verandah, where the women were
gathered close enough to the parlour window to get the benefit of
Lily’s playing. Most of the men were leaning against the verandah
rail, or squatting facing the rail with the wall of the house for
support. Frank sat on the top step of the verandah with Kate on his
lap. Amy looked over at the men and saw the conversation flowing
back and forth between them, Charlie’s silence barely noticeable
amidst the tide of words.

She felt her sleeve being tugged, and Lizzie
drew her aside into a quiet corner.

‘What’s wrong with Charlie?’ Lizzie
demanded. ‘He looks awful.’

‘He’s not the best today,’ Amy hedged,
hoping that Lizzie would not probe too deeply. ‘He’s feeling a bit
down.’

‘But he can’t even walk by himself! And that
arm looks pretty useless. How’s he managing to get his work
done?’

‘He’s having a bad day.’ Charlie’s grim
expression told Amy that he, too, was aware of the speculation his
appearance had aroused. ‘Some days he’s much better than this.’

‘Are you managing, then?’ Lizzie asked. ‘You
look pretty tired—you haven’t been looking too good at all
lately.’

‘Yes, everything’s all right.’ Amy tried to
project confidence into her voice. ‘I get worried about Charlie
when he’s down like this, and I start feeling down, too. Don’t
worry, Lizzie, I can manage.’

‘Well, you’re to tell me if you need any
help.’

‘I don’t need any help.’ Amy slipped an arm
through Lizzie’s and kissed her. ‘Thank you, but you mustn’t
worry.’

She wished Lizzie looked more convinced. Amy
went on quickly, anxious to divert her cousin’s interest. ‘I
thought you looked pretty pleased with yourself when we arrived,
Lizzie. What have you been up to?’

Lizzie’s eyes sparkled. She looked around to
check that they were not being overheard, then brought her mouth
close to Amy’s ear.

‘I’m not sure yet, I haven’t told anyone
else—except Frank, of course—but I think I might have a baby on the
way.’

Amy’s first reaction was a rush of sympathy,
picturing for a moment just how horrified she would be to find
herself pregnant, impossible though it was. But one look at
Lizzie’s face told Amy how delighted her cousin was.

‘That’s lovely news, Lizzie. I thought you
might have had enough of having babies, but if it’s what you want,
then I’m really pleased for you.’

‘Don’t tell anyone, though. I don’t want
people hearing till I’m sure.’

‘I won’t,’ Amy assured her.
I never see
anyone I could tell, anyway
.

She looked around the lawn, shading her eyes
against the light. ‘Isn’t Sarah here?’ she asked, unable to keep
the disappointment out of her voice.

‘Humph,’ Lizzie snorted. ‘I might have known
it’s her you came to see. Oh, don’t go looking all guilty about it,
you know I like to see you enjoying yourself with her. She’s inside
with Lily, I bet she doesn’t even know you’re here. Beth, run and
tell Miss Millish Aunt Amy’s here.’

A moment later Sarah Millish appeared in the
doorway and rushed to Amy.

‘I’m so glad you’ve come,’ she said, taking
Amy’s hand in both her own. ‘I’ve been looking forward to seeing
you ever since I got back from Auckland.’