Absolution Creek (51 page)

Olive chose instead to rely on Jack’s Christian charity. It was a decision long in the making, one compounded by the shock of the attack, which she now recognised had slightly unhinged her faculties. Looking back she saw a stretch of days filled with complaints, and she knew it was her attitude that caused Jack rarely to return home. When he did it was to campfire quietness and a child-woman who knew his every mood. Well, Jack Manning was
her
fiancé and, while their love had been eroded, Olive determined to salvage something from it. She had given up everything for him and it dawned on her that her pride refused to see her left with nothing. She thought of her father. He’d aspired to a better life and through hard work and perseverance achieved his goal. If he were here he’d be telling her to do the same thing.

‘You wanted him, Olive,’ he would tell her. ‘It is your duty to help him achieve his dream. As your own mother supported me.’

Only one lifetime stretched out before them both and it was with the future in mind that Olive determined her hateful secret must be revealed.

Her confidence grew daily. It was like a bird in a nest, testing its wings before that first life-affirming flight. Soon Olive would sit Jack down and explain the ordeal she had suffered. In her heart she knew he cared and she believed she could be a good wife. She simply needed to forget her shame and share the misfortune that plagued her body. Once Jack understood, once he accepted Olive was the wounded party, she knew everything would be all right. Honesty and loyalty were now the virtues Olive aspired to.

The wood pile was dwindling again and the eggs needed to be collected. Then there was the vegetable plot. She looked at the oblong square, some twenty feet in length and width, and it seemed to glare back at her. After pegging it out a week ago, Jack had handed her a hoe and declared the job women’s work. Ever since, Olive had fought the baked earth on a daily basis. So far she had an eighth of the area turned. The ground was so hard the hoe bounced when struck and it had taken a week to get the tilth to any depth. However, Olive persevered. Although broad beans, cabbage and carrots were of major importance, her desire to prove her worth was far stronger.

With a sigh she bound strips of cloth around her cracked hands and recommenced her prodding of the earth’s crust. As usual her mind turned to Sydney and her family. With great determination she brought it back to the hoe, and concentrated on tilling the earth. Within minutes her lower back was paining. Sweat ran down her thighs. A gust of wind whipped up a flurry of dust, depositing her straw hat in a nearby stand of needlewood trees. She couldn’t run after it, not this morning. An appropriate profanity was slow coming to her lips. The best of Thomas’s complaints were Holy Ghost, while Jack and Squib were particularly fond of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. The pair used the phrase so frequently Olive feared the trilogy might pay them a visitation in complaint. She tucked a stray lock of hair into the bun she’d taken to wearing on the nape of her neck, and marvelled at city women with the time to have their hair styled.

‘How are you going with it, Olive?’

She could have cried at the sound of his voice. Instead Olive pasted a smile on her face and turned to greet Thomas.

‘You work too hard.’ He dusted off her runaway hat and sat it carefully on her head. ‘I’ll do it.’ His fingers closed around the hoe’s wooden handles, brushing hers. ‘Look at your hands.’ The rough bandaging showed traces of blood. ‘You shouldn’t be doing this.’

Olive took a firmer hold of the hoe. ‘Everyone has enough to do without carrying me. I’ll manage.’

‘But –’

‘Leave off please, Thomas. You just have to let me muddle on in my own silly way.’

Thomas watched as she struggled with the unyielding ground. ‘But I could help, Olive. You don’t have to do this.’

‘I do if we want some vegetables by August.’ She was crying again. All she ever seemed to do these days was water the ground with her tears. Tightening her grip on the hoe, Olive struck forcefully at the dirt, each thudding contact with the ground jarring her arms and neck, burning her shoulder blades, tearing at her cracked palms. ‘I can’t eat salted mutton and damper forever. I’m dying for fresh fruit and trifle with cream, and crumbed cutlets with spaghetti.’

Thomas knew what he wanted to say, however the right words failed him. Some days he wished he were older. Some days he wished he could take Olive away from all of this. ‘Have you . . . Have you spoken to Jack?’ Thomas began awkwardly. ‘Maybe . . .’

Olive continued striking at the plot. ‘No. No, I haven’t. It’s not easy for me.’

His hand stayed her movements. ‘It’s not right keeping it from him. It’ll eat you up inside.’

‘He spent months up here alone waiting for me to arrive. He’s been carving a place for us in this . . .
this
patch of nothing so that we,
we
can have something.’

‘Olive, I know I gave you my word back at Mrs Bennett’s boarding house, but –’

‘Stop it, Thomas.’ She pointed a broken nail at his chest. ‘I
will
tell him. I’ve just been trying to find the right time. He’s never here and when he is, he’s either exhausted or with you, or –’ Olive glanced towards the house ‘–
her
.’ She steadied her breathing. Thomas thought her violated, not burdened with a criminal’s child. There was more than one man who would be shocked.

‘Jack’s my brother, Olive. But . . .’ Thomas swallowed. The words rushed from his mouth. ‘If you want to leave I’ll take you back to Sydney.’ He looked at the ground and scratched his neck.

Olive touched Thomas’s cheek, her heart softening. In another time she may well have been his woman, for Thomas was the kinder, gentler man Jack used to be. He leant towards her, awkward, tentative. She closed her eyes, totally willing to suffer for companionship, for human touch.
Oh God
, she whispered as Thomas’s lips brushed hers. How far could a woman fall?

‘Are you going to collect the eggs, Olive? They start breaking ’em up if you don’t get ’em early.’ Squib was standing at the corner of the house, her face flushed. Both Thomas and Olive dropped their hands and moved apart too quickly.

‘We’ve nearly three dozen ready for sale. We’re hoping to get some seedlings for this monstrosity,’ Olive said too brightly as she nodded at the plot. ‘Run and get the basket, will you, Squib?’

Squib remained rooted to the spot. ‘I’m churning the butter.’

‘You get the eggs,’ Thomas directed Olive. ‘Well, go on with you then, Squib. Jack will be expecting butter on his bread today.’

When Olive returned the vegetable plot was partially completed. The soil was dark and cloddy and Thomas was using the back of a shovel to bash the clumps up. Olive could have hugged him were it not for the eggs balanced precariously in her straw hat. ‘Thank you.’ The way he looked at her, the depth within his eyes; Jack’s younger brother was growing up quickly. Slowly Olive backed away.

Chapter 40

S
am cut a piece of meat from his mutton chop, and mashed cauliflower and cheese sauce onto his fork. They were sitting in the dining room, their conversation polite but limited. It had been tense since yesterday’s fiasco. Firstly, the owner of the dozer wanted payment for a day’s lost work and transport costs when Cora cancelled Harold’s job. The timber was unable to be returned, having been cut to specification, which meant there was little point sending the corrugated iron back to the rural merchandise shop. It appeared Harold was the only winner out of the whole debacle. Sam knew when to keep his head down, and tonight was one of those times. Cora was brief in her lecture regarding the unexpected costs, pointedly explaining that the yearly wool proceeds were the property’s main income.

‘It’s a tight ship here,’ Cora concluded, ‘it has to be. There are certain challenges to running a property.’

‘Yes, well, talking about challenges,’ Meg began, ‘I had a bit of a problem myself today.’

Cora and Sam stopped talking and eating respectively.

‘I was teaching myself to drive the station wagon and the brakes went and I hit the boundary gate.’

The room was silent. Cora interlaced her fingers beneath her chin.

‘Anyway, it’s broken. Sorry.’

Cora stared at her.

‘Broken quite badly,’ Meg emphasised, attempting to fill the silence.

Sam’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. He looked from his wife to Cora.

‘Sorry about that.’ Meg knew she sounded quite lame. ‘I figured that if I could drive I could get out and do a few things.’

‘Like what?’ Sam asked.

Cora began to chuckle.

Confused, Meg looked from Cora to her husband. ‘Like have a life.’

Her aunt laughed. ‘Good for you, girl. I was starting to believe you didn’t have any get up and go.’

Meg was stunned. ‘So you don’t mind? You’re not annoyed?’

‘Why should I be? Gates are fixable.’

Sam didn’t look too pleased. ‘You already have a life.’

‘Have a more fulfilling life, then,’ Cora said in a placating tone, turning to Sam. ‘A happy wife means a happy life.’

Meg grinned and cut a portion of meat. It was delicious.

‘So, when’s this rain coming?’ Sam looked unimpressed.

‘The full moon’s tomorrow,’ Cora began. ‘There will be a northerly change tonight, I imagine, and if you go outside later you’ll notice that there’s a ring around the moon.’

Sam rolled his eyes. ‘Another sign, I gather.’

‘Actually yes, the old timers said it was moisture in the atmosphere.’

‘Which old timers?’ With the gate disaster a non-issue and a day’s silent treatment her allotted punishment after Cora found Horse entangled in the tree limb, Meg figured she’d served her penance. ‘Jack Manning?’

‘Who’s Jack Manning?’ Sam splattered flecks of half-chewed peas onto the table.

Cora winced. ‘The previous owner of Absoluton Creek,’ she answered.

‘How’d you get it, then?’

‘Luck, fate. Either way I was very fortunate.’

‘I’ll say,’ Sam agreed. ‘Got out on the right side of the bed that day.’

‘I saw Ellen this afternoon. She wants Harold to see a doctor.’ Meg took a sip of water. For someone thought to have only suffered a bit of light concussion Harold’s convalescence was taking a while.

Sam swallowed his last mouthful. ‘How did you end up with the property? Was this Manning bloke a relation?’

‘Harold’s feeling better.’ Cora tapped out a cigarette from the silver case. ‘Although his headache hasn’t eased so Ellen’s taking him in to town to see the doctor. They’ll stay in there for a few days. There’s little point getting lumbered out here. Our black soil road turns to glue after a decent fall of rain.’ She blew an impressive smoke ring into the air and watched it spiral upwards to the pressed metal ceiling. She gave Sam a rare smile. ‘So, how’s your leg?’

‘Good.’

‘Hmm . . . said with conviction. No swelling, no redness, no infection?’

‘Nope.’

After a dessert of apple pie and ice cream Sam did the unimaginable and cleared the plates.

‘The lad’s almost ready to join the wait staff at the Australia Hotel,’ Cora observed tartly. ‘I’d say he has an agenda, however I actually think he’s beginning to enjoy his new life.’

Sam’s evening habit was to listen to the radio after dinner and enjoy more than a splash of rum in his black tea prior to bed, but not tonight. The rum was pooling out in the rubble pit after he’d poured it down the sink; the radio he’d knocked over was irreparable and then there was that out-of-character kiss in the kitchen. Meg thought of James. She wasn’t in a rush to join Sam, and when Cora relaxed into a plush brocade chair near the open fire, beckoning Meg to join her, she quickly accepted.

The fire was warming and Meg closed her eyes briefly. She could hear her aunt pick up her reading glasses from the side table, and the pages of her latest novel,
For Whom the Bell Tolls,
rustling under her fingers.

She opened her eyes again. ‘Good book?’ Meg hadn’t read any Hemingway. She was still ploughing through Donald Horne’s
The Lucky Country
, her end-of-day exhaustion invariably leading to the re-reading of pages from the night before.