The Denniston Rose (9 page)

Tiny Rose turns to face the boys. ‘No, I am not,’ she says in her clear accurate voice, and waits for the next onslaught.

‘This is Rose,’ says Mrs Rasmussen firmly. ‘Rose.’ And smiles at the tense child. ‘When we are at school we all need a second name
to come and go with. Shall we say Rose of Tralee?’ She walks to the back of the room where the miners’ sons are still standing with their fists balled at their sides. ‘Tralee. Which is not in County Cork but an altogether gentler part of Ireland.’

Mrs Rasmussen has no idea where Tralee is, though she loves the song. The shadow of a saucy smile, long subdued, pulls at her cheek and she remembers smoky saloons, appreciative customers, a younger, beribboned Bella, in lace petticoats, singing to the diggers in shanty-towns up and down the Coast. The smile broadens.

‘Rose of Tralee,’ she repeats. ‘Now, sit down everyone, and I will give you your tasks.’

Rose of Tralee, pink as her name, trots over to her desk. She sits on the little bench and runs her hands over the fresh wood.

‘Rose of Tralee,’ she says, trying it out.

Michael, not a miner’s son and shielded by Totty from their dramas, smiles at Rose.

‘This is my other friend, Brennan,’ he whispers.

Brennan, dark browed and black eyed, stares hard at Rose, but when the curls bounce and the blue eyes crinkle he forgets he is a Scobie and smiles back.

ROSE OF TRALEE never once missed a day’s school that anyone could remember. Sometimes she would arrive late; her mother spent most of the night wrestling Jimmy Cork to bed, so was not one to wake her daughter, lay out clean clothes and see there was a warm breakfast inside her. Besides, no one at Jimmy’s shack had a clock or pocket watch of any sort. So until Rose learned to time her life by her mother’s roosters and the Powerhouse whistle, she might arrive at Hanrattys’ back door, the usual smile in place, to find Brennan and Michael halfway through their alphabet.

On other days Totty would find her at the door a good hour early.

‘I haven’t had my breakfast, Mrs Hanratty,’ she would say in a straightforward way, ‘I couldn’t find any at our home.’ And would walk straight in to take her place at the kitchen table with a delighted Michael.

That was a remarkable thing about Rose: she never learned to cringe or whine; never in all those years became defensive. Goodness knows, she had reason. People on the Hill were free with their opinions, and made no bones about what they thought of Jimmy Cork and his wild, mad wife. But Rose was born, according to Mrs C, with a sunny nature, which was the greatest gift anyone could have given her, under the circumstances.

Rose and Brennan and Michael were the only children of their age on the whole plateau. Women were arriving now, of course. Babies would be born. But those three were like the spearhead of a new generation. The twins and the O’Shea boys were little men, marking time until they could go down the mine. Rose and Brennan and Michael were everyone’s hope for Denniston, for a proper town. For schools and a hospital and churches and sports teams. The dreams of many centred on those three children. Circumstances, accidental but in the end too potent to be ignored, threw those three children together, tied their lives into a knot which, in the end, bred disaster. In these early days, though, their antics brought only a smile.

Everyone knew them. Everyone at Denniston town, that is. After school the three would go shouting and chasing down to the Brake Head, where Con the Brake would greet them with a roar and a cracking grin and let them try their strength on the heavy iron of the brake-wheel.

Eddie Carmichael would call them up to his office to test their addition on his coal tallies, and if they got it right he might find a piece of chocolate or an apple.

The men at the Bins would shout and wave and warn them to keep a safe distance, and the hook-men would give them rides running the empties down to the Bins.

Michael is the leader. His coppery thatch of hair, a legacy from
his mother, flops into blue sparky eyes. Taller and faster than the other two, knobby knees pounding up and down, he marches along the street, leading his army of two.

‘Halt!’ he cries, and the two followers try to stand solemn and upright in the mud like proper soldiers. Michael’s eyes blaze. Games are real for him.

Rose looks sideways at Brennan. The dark little boy is almost as small as Rose but much solider. His hair is cut bristly and short; his clothes, always hand-me-downs, are always too big for him. He frowns, trying to look the proper soldier, and Rose bursts into giggles. Rose, though oldest of the trio, is smallest. A stranger would think her delicate as glass, her mop of fair curls almost too massive for the thin neck to bear. But there’s energy in her, like a coiled spring. Both boys adore her.

Rose giggles again. Brennan loses control too and they laugh and pull even more serious soldier-faces.

‘Attention!’ yells Michael, red in the face. Brennan attempts to obey but slips in the mud and only just stays upright. His arms windmill. Rose shrieks with laughter and gives him her hand.

Michael flourishes his toy gun, shaped by his carpenter father, marches up to Brennan and strikes him. The blow is more than play-acting. Brennan stops in the middle of his pantomime. When he frowns it’s like a blind coming down.

‘That’s not fair. I’m going home,’ he announces, and turns to stump up the hill.

‘About turn!’ orders Michael, to no effect. He stamps his foot and shouts again, ‘About
turn!
’

Rose dances back and forth between them. ‘You can be leader, Brennan … can’t he, Michael?’

Brennan says nothing. Plods up towards the skipway. Rose runs after him. She is always desperate to keep the games alive. ‘Going
home’ is not an attractive option for her.

‘I’ll give you a penny,’ pleads Rose.

‘I said
about turn!
’ Michael is standing his ground, further down the road, his thin legs planted in the mud, the bullying stance an imitation of a man’s.

‘I’ll give you two pennies.’

Brennan stops. He is crying. Though he looks tough as a boot, Brennan cries easily, earning him taunts at school and from his older brothers. Rose suddenly reaches out a small hand and rubs it over his wiry hair as if stroking a dog. Brennan pulls away but the corners of his mouth twitch at this surprising offering.

‘You haven’t got two pennies,’ he sniffs, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

‘I have, and a gold nugget.’

‘You’re daft. Like your mam. Show me your gold then.’

‘It’s down at the Camp. It’s hidden.’

Michael can’t bear to see them talking together up the road. He marches up, left, right, left, comes to a smart attention. But is undermined by the mention of money.

‘Well, where is it hidden?’ he asks.

‘Somewhere secret. Near our place.’

Brennan says nothing. One of his hands reaches up slyly to rub his own hair, relive the feel of Rose’s fingers. Since his brother’s death, embraces of any kind have been rare in his family.

‘That’s not fair!’ storms Michael. They all know that Jimmy Cork’s place is out of bounds. The far end of the Camp, the rough men’s quarters, and especially Jimmy’s place, are not for women and children, except for Rose’s mother, and Rose herself.

Rose raises her voice. It is high and clear with an edge to it, but not pleading.

‘We can go there now. He’ll be asleep. We can go a secret way.’

But even the hint of secret gold is not enough to tempt the boys. Two places the three of them never play together are near Jimmy Cork’s and up at Burnett’s Face. Michael can go to the miners’ settlement, and does sometimes, with Brennan. Rose tried only once, soon after school started.

She had plodded up the skipway, stepping over sleepers. Because it was Sunday the ropes, usually clattering, usually endlessly jerking towards the Bins or back to the mines, were lying lifeless. Michael was inside with a cold and everyone else on the Hill was busy doing Sunday things. Rose remembered the hymn-singing the day the English miners arrived. Mrs Rasmussen said their singing at Chapel service was a wonder, especially now the Welshmen had arrived. She said it brought a lump to her throat, and Rose wanted to feel a lump in her throat too. So she walked the two miles up to Burnett’s Face on her own.

But in that settlement Chapel was over, and so was the Catholic service. Rose’s timing was out, as usual. Families on their way home to the Sunday meal picked their way through the mud, the mist condensing in a silver sheen on the black of their Sunday best.

Rose, not in any kind of Sunday best, her smock and hands muddy, her curls in a tangle, stands alone on a sleeper, smiling her bright, paper-thin smile. She looks for a familiar face, sees Brennan and walks up to him, bob bob bob in that way of hers, stiff-legged, making all of her — clothes, arms, hair — bounce.

‘Is the singing over, Brennan? I came to hear the singing.’ Her high voice carries.

Brennan looks at her, desperate for this not to happen. Desperate to hide Rose. But he is with his family, in his Sunday suit. His dad would wallop him if he ran off. He lowers his bullety head, says nothing as he tramps past her. Rose hesitates, but only for a minute. Where someone so tiny has learned this spirit, this tenacity
is a mystery. She runs to catch up. Bob bob bob.

‘Shall I come and play with you, Brennan? Can we ask your mother for something to eat?’

Mathew and David Scobie, Brennan’s big brothers turn back at the unfamiliar sound of chatter. Walking back from Chapel is usually a sober procession. They nudge the twins.

‘Is that killer Jimmy’s girl?’

The twins nod. The big boys jerk their heads at the twins, motioning them to turn back. All four turn to confront the little girl in her flour-bag smock. Silently they surround her. The twins stand a little to the side, half wanting to join in, half respecting Rose from their school bond. Brennan looks at the ground but stands by her.

The boys don’t move. Their stillness is more terrifying than anything else they could do, for Rose is used to shouted taunts. She looks wide-eyed from boy to boy, waiting for something to happen. They are as daunting as a coalface in their shiny black suits. For minutes, it seems, they stand. Josiah and Mary Scobie have turned to see what their family are up to. At a distance they, too, stand now, waiting. Everyone stands still, as if for a photograph, but there is menace at the heart of this scene.

Rose’s cheeks are bright red. Great tears stand in her eyes. She will not look down — or is unable to. Like a cornered rabbit she faces the Scobies until Brennan, shaking and tearful himself, takes her arm.

‘She is Rose of Tralee,’ he says.

Silence.

‘Of Tralee, not Cork!’

David clears his throat and spits like a man.

Brennan swallows. Hardly moving, he takes a pinch of Rose’s cardigan in his fingers and turns her. With a small push that is worse
than anything else to Rose, he starts her walking back along the skipway. He doesn’t come with her but watches for a while, and when she turns, once, he moves his hand — a tiny wave. Rose returns it wildly.

In this way Rose learned it was better not to go near the miners’ settlement of Burnett’s Face.

WELL, NOW, MY friends in the firelight, try to picture how it was for me. Shacked up with a man who is cursed. Who has gone to pieces even more, if you can believe this is possible, since the accident in the mine. Me, being innocent, they connect with the accident. True, I was up near the mine that day, but did a harmless picnic cause any accident? Could a little playing in the grass with your man hurt anyone? Of course not, but those bloody miners have so little humanity as a lump of their own dirty coal. Suddenly I am invisible. Even Billy Genesis for a while prefers not to see me. In case he lose his Company job, no?

Jimmy is superstitious, you see. As if he were truly an Irishman. That wrath of God called down burns in his mind. When he drinks it is worse; he can feel the hellfire licking at his feet, and he shouts at me to quench the flames, poor sod. He can hear the dead boy
screaming in the mine, he says, which spooks me too because the mine is just above us, in the cliffs above, and I too can feel the dead spirit trapped and thirsting for revenge. This makes me shout and scream at Jimmy, who has brought all this upon us. This was not a happy time, you understand.

One night Jimmy is worse than usual. He is crying and moaning, I am probably screaming, and suddenly he hits me hard with a balled fist to knock me down, which surprises us both. Poor Jimmy had his many faults but he was not a violent man. Weak, rather, built for a soft life in a city, if the gold fever had not trapped his soul. So the blow sobered him a minute, me large with child and breathless for once, lying on the floor.

‘Jesus, Angel,’ he says, ‘look at us both. This mess cannot be mended here. We’ll give up. Leave the damned Hill.’

This does not suit my plans at all. But the man is in the depths, and such men, I tell you, will often let out secrets. So I hold my peace.

‘What?’ say I, pretending scorn. ‘Leave your precious gold mine begging for a new owner?’

‘Ah, leave it, Angel, leave it. I am a broken man.’

‘The gold was a myth, so?’

Jimmy sighs. Head down, hands hanging, sighing, sighing.

I cannot stand a man who is down; they are so vexing and weak. Suddenly I am more mad than I can remember. This man who was one time so good fun and laughter, and so clever with his answers and his politics, is sitting silent in the cold hut, me with him. It is true I should feel sorry but I am not made that way. I need a strong man with a spark in his eye. A Big Snow or a Tom Hanratty. I am built for happy times, I admit it, and a glad man to share the happiness. Not this silly Jimmy Cork. Maybe I reach for the poker and clip him a little about the ear. And shout
more than a bit. Rose, I remember, jumped at me. She had a soft spot for this Jimmy Cork. That man would sometimes put on the charm for her, tell her stories, when he never would bother for me.

So. He lies there. On the bed, quiet. A bit of blood, maybe, around his head. Soon, then, he starts to talk. Quiet, so I must lean in to hear.

It is the story of his discovery. In a slow voice he tells me how he explored, years ago, when he had two good arms and two strong legs, up the Waimang to where it branches, and then took the true left branch, where it bends back and descends from the plateau. Here and there he found a little colour, but no great find.

About halfway up, he says, was a ledge with some growth, scarcely wide enough even for one footfall. Some of the broken rock was different —a lighter colour than the sandstone —so he followed the ledge, tapping rocks with his little hammer to break them open. A little way along he looked up and saw far above him a small waterfall, not more than a trickle, coming off the plateau. The slide of water came down the sheer cliff and ended in a rocky bowl, which had formed in Jimmy’s little ledge at a place where there was room for a man to sit and admire the view. Jimmy did just that. He was watching the stain of water as it spilled again from the bowl and ran far down into the gully, lost in the scrub and bush. His eyes caught a gleam he knew so well, just balanced near the edge of the lip. Sure enough, it was the colour, and a nice piece. He tells me —but I doubt it is the truth —that the piece he gave to Rose is that first nugget.

Well, my friends, so far what is new? A little colour on a high ledge makes no fortune, as you would all bear personal witness to. But listen, now!

Jimmy speaks on, in this tired voice, like he has no reason to draw the next breath. I am very hard pressed to stay still and listen.

Naturally Jimmy looked in the little rock bowl for more. Small stones covered the floor of the bowl and when he pushed them aside, that was when his heart began to beat in his throat. For there, trapped in the bowl for the taking, was a true carpet of the colour! Many tiny grains and also many larger pieces: good colour. Each handful he scooped was more gold than stone. In less than half an hour he had his leather pouch full and weighing heavy with hope on a thong around his neck. The rocky bowl was cleaned out but where, thought Jimmy —and me too by now of course —where was the source? Jimmy looked up to mark the spot where the waterfall spilled over. Surely there must be a seam up there to produce such a rich find?

‘Where, where?’ I cry to Jimmy. ‘Oh, you wretched man to keep it secret so long! I can surely climb where you cannot go!’

Jimmy groans. ‘It is all Company land. We may not stake a claim.’ He looks at me then with his dead eyes. ‘It’s too late, Angel. If the motherlode truly exists it cannot be reached now. A while ago I thought … There were signs … but now it is cursed and there is no hope.’

That weak sick man speaks not one word more. Concerning the source, the gold, the direction even —not one. Oh, I try! That night I wash his blood with warm water, feed him a good soup, try a little fancy play, you know? As a woman can? Nothing. Next day and all days after that he is like a walking dead. Everywhere I search for his stash, even though he said it was all spent, but I don’t trust him. Would you? A man who keeps such a secret from his own woman and the child he considers to be his?

I am almost mad with the worry. You can imagine. Jimmy is no
more interested in life on the Hill. Says he will take Eddie’s offer of help down the Incline, but I must come too, and Rose. I shout that I will kill myself if he makes me leave the Hill, and kill Rose too. Then in all this worry the baby is born, which is lucky. For a while at least I cannot go anywhere. It is another girl, small and ugly. Looking much like Tom Hanratty.

So. Do you listen still? Not sleeping over my tale?

Now comes a time of difficulty. Nothing can be done, no search attempted or plans laid, if there is no food. We all know this. Without a roof and a bite, dreams have no life. Time and again, my friends, I have dreamed grand futures, set out proudly on them, to see them wither while I spend my poor energy searching out food and shelter. Oh, what I would have been if riches came my way! Even now. My blood carries, I know it, the print of greatness. Always I have fought tooth and claw to give that greatness its life. One chance only, I needed. A bag of gold, as Jimmy had, I would not have trickled out in drink.

But food was needed. First, naturally, I tried Tom Hanratty. The father.

Behind their guest house I found him, sawing on a plank, mercifully on his own. No time for play and sweet talk. That fiery Totty might come around the corner.

‘See for yourself that this is your child, Tom,’ I say, ‘and all the world will know it if I am not paid a weekly amount to feed it, with a little left over for its mother.’

A reasonable request. But Tom growls. His eyes go red and his big hands clamp on my shoulders like the jaws of dogs. I notice, though, that he takes a glance at the baby, so tiny and clearly weak.

‘You have caused me enough trouble,’ says he, his bushy beard bristling at me, ‘and I will have nothing more to do with you. The child is Jimmy’s.’

‘It is yours,’ say I.

‘Who will take your word over mine? Eh? Leave this town, woman. You are not welcome. You and Jimmy both.’

He turned back to his sawing. If I had not been low from the birthing there might have been more said, but a weakness overtook me. I admit to you that tears flowed, a rare thing for me. Tears may achieve results for some, who are gentle-natured and sweet-faced, but I have noticed that in a woman of spirit such as myself, tears breed only embarrassment or even contempt. So I turned away.

Next morning the child was dead. Coughing in the night, blue in the morning, dead between one breath and the next. Jimmy wrapped her in a scrap of canvas and carried her, weeping, to Billy Genesis, who rode with her, down the Incline and out to the unmarked children’s grave at Waimangaroa.

Ah well, it was for the best, perhaps, with the father so stonyhearted. Big Snow, called Con the Brake up here, was in any case a more likely bet.

But it was hard, I tell you, to start again. The birth and the unfriendly atmosphere, not to mention hunger, had brought me lower than I can remember. Almost I gave in. Almost left the Hill as Jimmy now wished, for another life —more soft, more warm, down below, in which case this story would maybe end now and we would all get some sleep.

But I ran into Con that very day, as the little baby’s body travelled down the Incline, and the kindness that big man showed me, his warm hand on my sleeve, gave me the strength to go on. That man remembered the good times when our two souls fitted together like hand and glove; I could see it in his eyes. Maybe he missed the free life. My tired blood stirred again and I longed to slide a cold hand inside his shirt to feel the hot skin. Instead I
smiled a sad smile, but with some teasing in it, and thanked him nicely for his kind thoughts. Soon, very soon, would be the time to claim this man —back from that woman who was not really his wife, and who gave him no child.