Settling the Account (83 page)

Charlie’s face was a picture of
disappointment when she looked over at him. ‘You got any legs under
there?’

Amy hesitated for a moment, then took off
her remaining petticoat, leaving her legs bare from where her
drawers ended just above her knees.

Charlie stared avidly at her. ‘You’d just
about raise a dead man, you would.’ She saw signs of his hand’s
surreptitious motions under the covers. ‘Just about,’ he
murmured.

He watched as she took down her hair, as if
fascinated by every movement. When all the pins were out, Amy began
plaiting her hair as well as she could without being able to brush
it first, but she stopped when the look of disappointment returned
to Charlie’s face.

‘Can’t you leave it long?’ he asked. ‘Long
like a girl’s?’

It would be thick with knots in the morning,
but it was hard for her to deny him anything he wanted. She shook
her hair loose so that it fell in a mass of waves to her waist,
turning around slowly as she did so that Charlie would get a clear
view of her.

She sensed his nervousness when she climbed
into bed beside him, and felt it matched by her own. She fought
down her shyness, telling herself this was no different from the
way she had comforted David when he was a small boy by taking him
into her bed.

Charlie startled her by yanking on her arm
as roughly as his weakness allowed.

‘What do you want, Charlie?’

‘Want you to move over a bit.’

She smiled into the dimness. ‘I’m not like a
cow that you have to shove, you know. You could try asking me.’

‘I didn’t think of that.’

She reached over to put out the lamp, then
pressed close to him. ‘That’s nice, isn’t it?’

‘Aye.’ For a little while he lay without
moving. Then she felt his hand creep up her thigh and over her
belly. It hovered uncertainly before daring to press one of her
breasts through her chemise.

She felt him tremble, though whether at his
own boldness or for fear she would push his hand away she was
unsure. ‘Not much of it, is there?’ she said, trying to make light
of the moment. ‘I’ve never had much of a bosom, except when I was
feeding the children.’

‘You’re just right,’ Charlie said. ‘A woman
shouldn’t look like a cow in milk.’

It was not the most graceful of compliments,
but none the less sincere for that. ‘Thank you,’ Amy murmured.

Emboldened by his success, Charlie explored
her breasts with his fingers, though when he tried to slide his
hand under her chemise Amy gently guided it back on top of the
fabric. ‘I’ve got things sorted out for when I’m gone,’ he told
her.

‘Don’t talk like that, Charlie. You’ll feel
better soon.’ She stroked his hand where it lay nestled between her
breasts. ‘Look how lively you are tonight.’

But Charlie was having none of it. ‘I’m no
bloody use around here any more. Can’t do a decent day’s work.’

‘You’ve done your share. You’re having a
rest these days, that’s all. You’ve earned a rest.’

‘What about you? You could do with a rest,
too.’

‘Well, I’ve got Dave to do the heavy things
for me. Dave and I are much younger than you, we don’t get so
tired.’

‘When will you get your rest?’ he
persisted.

Amy laughed softly. ‘Oh, by the time I’m
your age I expect I’ll have a nice little daughter-in-law to boss
around. I’ll just sit about all day and tell her what to do.’ She
smiled at the unlikely notion.

‘That’ll be fair enough. See that you do.
When I’m gone—’ he began again.

‘Charlie, please don’t talk like that.’

‘Shut up and listen, woman. I’ll be gone
before long, and I know full well there’ll be no weeping for me.
I’ve got things sorted out with the lawyer fellow. I had him out… I
don’t know. Back in the spring, it might have been.’

‘It was in October,’ Amy said. ‘I
remember.’

‘I forgot about having him out here. It all
got muddled in my head for a spell. Well, he’s drawn it all up in
lawyer talk. I’ll not have the government taking my farm when I’m
gone. I had to get the lawyer to change what he wrote out for me
years back. It was all going to the boy in those days.’

Amy heard the catch in his voice. ‘Don’t
talk if it upsets you, Charlie.’

Charlie cleared his throat noisily and went
on. ‘Dave’ll get the farm. That’s all written out in the proper
words so the government can’t take it. Hope he looks after it
properly,’ he said in a low voice.

‘He will. Dave loves the land nearly as much
as you do, you know. He takes after you in that.’

‘He’d better make a decent job of it.
Anyway, he’ll get the place when I’m gone. But you can carry on
living here.’

‘Of course I will,’ Amy said, puzzled.
‘Where else would I go?’

‘You can carry on here,’ Charlie repeated.
‘I got the lawyer to write it out proper. Dave can’t kick you off
the place.’

He meant it as a gift, and Amy tried to
sound suitably grateful. ‘Thank you, Charlie,’ she said carefully.
‘Thank you for thinking about me like that. But Dave wouldn’t do
that, you know. I’m sure he wouldn’t send me away.’

‘Well, some blokes can be bloody stupid
about appreciating their women,’ Charlie said gruffly. ‘I’ll not
give him the chance to muck things up for himself. You can stay
here as long as you like, unless…’ He trailed away, cleared his
throat again and said, ‘Unless you get wed. I expect you’ll get wed
again.’

‘No, I won’t,’ Amy said.

‘You could get another husband. You’re still
a fine looking woman.’ His voice told her how much he hated the
very thought of it.

‘I don’t want another husband. I’ve never
wanted another man since we got married. I’ve told you that lots of
times, haven’t I?’ She could not repress a shudder as she thought
of the last time she had tried to tell him. With her body screaming
from the pain of his blows, she had tried to make him believe she
had not been flaunting herself in front of other men.

‘You never wanted me.’

Amy could find no kind answer to so
undeniable an accusation, so she said nothing. She pressed more
closely against him and squeezed his hand in hers, hoping to calm
him.

But Charlie went on, his voice cracking
slightly. ‘I remember you lying there. Lying in my bed and crying
for the other fellow.’

‘No!’ Amy said, shocked at the idea. ‘No, I
didn’t!’

‘Aye, you did. I’d hear you bawling. It was
like he was in the bed between you and me. I couldn’t shove him out
of the way to get at you. I could get hold of you and mount you,
but it was him you were crying for.’

‘Charlie, I wasn’t—I swear I wasn’t. Not for
him.’
I haven’t even thought about him in years
. ‘I’d
stopped crying for him months and months before we got
married.’

She heard the disbelief in his voice. ‘What
were you bawling all the time for, then?’

They were memories she would sooner have
buried, but he had to be answered. ‘Because I was scared, mostly.
Especially just at first.’

‘What did you have to be scared about? You
knew what was to happen to you.’

‘But I hardly knew you. Just because… just
because a girl’s been with a man doesn’t mean she’s anybody’s. I
had to get used to you.’

Hanging between them in the darkness was her
urge to be fully honest, despite her reluctance to speak of things
that had brought such pain.

‘And I was crying for… Charlie, do you
remember you made me promise not to talk about something? It was
the first night we were married. You said I was never to talk about
it, and I promised I wouldn’t. Do you release me from that?’

‘Don’t know what you’re on about.’

‘But do you release me from it?’ Amy
persisted. ‘Can I talk about it?’

He shrugged, a small movement of his
shoulders. ‘Say whatever you want.’

‘I was crying for…’ She had to stop and take
a deep breath before she could be sure her voice was under some
sort of control. ‘I was crying for my baby. The one I gave away. I
missed her.’
I still do
.

‘You had a girl child?’ he said slowly, as
if working through a puzzle. ‘I never thought of you having a
girl.’

‘Women do sometimes, you know.’ Her attempt
to make her voice light sounded feeble in her own ears.

‘But you always had boys.’

‘I always had boys with you. You seem to
father boys all the time.’

That pleased him, as she had known it would.
She felt a small wave of energy pass through his body. ‘That’s true
enough,’ he said, sounding quite puffed up at the notion.

He was silent for a while, pondering the
idea further. ‘A girl. You could… you could’ve maybe kept a
girl.’

‘Don’t,’ Amy said quickly. ‘Don’t say
that.’

‘I didn’t want another man’s son under my
roof. I didn’t want another man’s son inheriting my farm. A girl
wouldn’t have mattered the same.’

‘Don’t say that. It’s like losing her all
over again.’ A dry sob racked her. She held herself rigid, clinging
desperately to shreds of self-control. ‘It wouldn’t have worked
out,’ Amy said when she could trust herself to speak. ‘You wouldn’t
have loved her like one of your own.’

‘Don’t know what you’re on about. I’d’ve
done right by the girl.’

‘It’s for the best. It was the best for
her.’ Even after so many years of telling herself, the words
sounded hollow.

He soon lost interest in the idea of her
little girl. ‘Three of them in a row you had. The little one died.
He was too small. All boys, they were. Only three of them,
though.’

‘How many did you want, Charlie?’

She felt him shrug. ‘About six of them.
Seven, maybe. Aye, seven sons would’ve been a fine thing.’

‘Seven!’ Amy could not hold back a laugh.
‘Where would we have put them all?’

‘I was going to build on to the place when
you’d had a few more. I drew it out once on a bit of paper, how I
was going to build on. Wonder where I put that bit of paper,’ he
mused. ‘Haven’t seen it for a while.’

‘I could never have had all those babies.
I’m not made for childbearing like that. You should’ve married a
big, strong girl like Lizzie.’

‘I took what I could get,’ Charlie said
brusquely.

Amy smiled. ‘Well, I suppose we all do that
in the end, don’t we?’

She sensed that he had made himself
uncomfortable by his own words. ‘I didn’t mean… I never saw a woman
I wanted more than you.’ He clutched convulsively at her, making
Amy gasp at the sudden grip on her breast. ‘I used to see you going
past my gate. Or out in the paddocks playing. Some days I’d hang
around by the boundary and hope you’d come by. There were nights I
couldn’t sleep for wanting you.’

Amy was too stunned for sensible speech by
the notion of Charlie in such a state over her. ‘I… I never knew
you were… I…’ She trailed off helplessly.

‘I remember one time—it was the haymaking, I
think. You were out in the fields with that cousin of yours, the
one Kelly wed. You and her were dancing round in the field holding
hands. You had a yellow dress on, and a bonnet with green ribbons.
You were dancing around so fast your bonnet came off so as it was
just hanging by the ribbons.’

He took a lock of her hair and twined his
fingers through it. ‘Your hair was flying out around your head, and
you were laughing and laughing. Like you’d die of being happy. I
thought I’d never seen a lovelier thing. And I wanted you. I wanted
you!’

His hand jerked, and Amy gave a small cry at
the pain in her scalp. She disengaged her hair from his fingers,
her hand trembling so much that she could barely control it.
‘Charlie, I was… I remember that bonnet,’ she said in a quavering
voice. ‘That was before Granny died. I must have been… I don’t
know, eleven maybe. No older than that.’

‘I don’t know how old you were. I just know
I wanted you.’

No wonder I was frightened of you when I
was little
. Even as a child, she had sensed that there was
something to fear in those brooding stares of his.

‘I knew I couldn’t have you. It didn’t
matter the same when no one else had you either. I could… I could
think about having you.’

Dream about me, he means. Charlie used to
daydream about me
. Never for a moment had Amy suspected she had
been the subject of anyone’s dreams; least of all Charlie’s.

‘I knew he was going to get you as soon as I
saw you hanging around with him.’ He made a noise of disgust. ‘Him
with his pretty face and fancy ways. He was going to take you off
to Auckland. I couldn’t have you.’ His voice cracked, and his hand
clutched at Amy’s.

‘But you did,’ she whispered, her mind still
reeling from what he had told her. ‘You got me after all.’

‘You weren’t virgin.’ The old, familiar note
of accusation was in his voice.

‘No. You knew I wasn’t when you asked for
me. But I wasn’t a whore, either. A girl doesn’t have to be one or
the other.’

‘I stopped going to the whores, you know.’
It was almost an apology.

‘I know.’
I’d’ve had to take him in and
do his buttons for him if he was still going there
. She had to
repress a laugh that had a hint of hysteria about it at the
grotesque image.

‘I stopped when I still had the use of my
legs,’ he said, as if he knew what she was thinking. ‘It was years
back.’

Around the time Malcolm had died, Amy
suspected. That had been when Charlie had begun turning into an old
man.

‘They were none of them like you, those
whores. I never wanted them like I did you.’

‘Please don’t talk about whores any more. I
don’t want to hear about them.’

‘I wanted you for years,’ he said
broodingly. ‘Years and years. I didn’t have you for long.’

‘Twenty years, Charlie. We’ve been married
twenty years.’

‘I didn’t have you as a wife for long. You
stopped being a wife to me. Suppose you think I was too hard on
you.’