Black Diamonds (14 page)

‘So this is your famous miner,' she chimes, looking Daniel up and down as if he's on exhibit. She is as imbecilic as they come, but I could still slap her, as I did once when we were about thirteen for some similar act of scalding stupidity. Not surprising she knows, though: Australia may be a vast land, but no woman would ever let that get in the way of the serious business of transmitting good gossip as rapidly as possible, not any bred from Our Lady at least. I remember now why I never made lasting connections there. She adds, so unnecessarily: ‘We've heard all about it.'

‘Well,' says Daniel, very slowly, and I hold my breath, ‘you'll know then that we're in a bit of a hurry.' Touch to the brim and he's off, fairly dragging me. I wave silently at her as my rescuer resumes his pace.

But the lark doesn't cheer beyond the moment. I've already forgotten that Jo boy's name, if I was even listening in the first place. That doesn't feel very righteous under the circumstances. I feel like running back to wish him luck. I won't, of course, and anyway Daniel's a juggernaut now, so sprung I can feel the muscle tight under his coat sleeve.

And it doesn't get any better when we finally meet the surprisingly elderly Messrs Stanley and Bragg, even though they are genuinely friendly and more avuncular than polite in the way they handle the matter — efficiently and with firm assurances — of course they would be, they were associates of Father's. But after I've signed here, here and here, the younger of the two, Mr Stanley, extends his hand to Daniel for farewell and says: ‘So have you come in to join up too?'

Oh dear, oh dear. It was said just as an enquiry, because I suppose that is what Mr Stanley has been seeing and hearing every day, and Daniel does look as if he's stepped off a recruitment poster:
FIT MEN WANTED!
Daniel drops the handshake and the silence is terrible: it goes on and on and on, until he finally says: ‘No.'

I'm waiting for him to add a curt ‘Are you?' But Mr Bragg, with his scratchy old voice provides a small mercy: ‘Good lad,' he says, with a wink.

‘Quite,' says Mr Stanley, nodding sagely.

But it does little to ease the awkwardness.

Daniel does not reply, and neither can I beyond: ‘Thank you, for everything.' The return train to Lithgow doesn't leave till three, and it's only half past one; we were going to have lunch in one of the tearooms down by the harbour, but not even Daniel is hungry now, so we'll go and sit on the platform and wait. I buy a bag of green grapes from the fruit stall. We won't be returning to Sydney in a hurry, I don't think.

Halfway home I can still feel the anger steaming from him as the train pulls up with the extra engine from Faulconbridge. He's hardly said a word for hours. It frightens me, until I say into his blankness my worst fear: ‘You aren't going to change your mind, are you?'

He looks at me with the worst blackness. ‘What sort of a question is that, France?' He snaps out the words and doesn't care who hears.

Quite. It's ridiculous: he's German, for heaven's sake, even if no one thinks he is, least of all him. Rub my wedding band with my thumb: not too big now I've had it cut to fit. Perhaps I should learn better when not to express myself.

But then he softens just as quickly and whispers into my blind shock: ‘
Never.
'

‘I'm sorry,' I say. ‘I just needed to hear it again.'

‘I know,' he says, closing his hand over mine. ‘I shouldn't have spoken to you like that. I'm wound up about it is all.' He tries for a joke: ‘You know, only
Direct Action
is coming out hard against it now, and we all know they're barking.' He looks as if to say: so what does that make me?

I want to tell him that it's nothing to do with him and his admirable principles, but that's not going to help. It's so clearly everything to do with all of us, and in so many ways. I put my head on his shoulder and squeeze his hand, as if that will make a blind bit of difference.

On November the first, troopships carrying twelve thousand of Our Boys left from Albany in Western Australia bound for jolly old England, to join with New Zealand's, possibly for service in Belgium's blood shop. And they knocked out a German cruiser in the Cocos Islands on the way. I can still hear the hoopla all across the continent as I read today that they haven't quite reached the Motherland. Turkey has entered this glorious war now too, so Our ANZAC Boys will be fighting Allah and his Ottoman Empire, not Fritz, and they'll be defending the Russian tsar's interests in that part of the world full of Biblical and Homeric names when the call from Britannia comes. Achilles really is off to Troy, and I've completely lost my grasp on this behemoth. How could a squabble between Austria and Serbia over some mad rebel shooting some duke and his duchess lead to all this? I haven't the foggiest idea where Serbia is, and it's a silly question anyway: it's all happened so quickly it seems the world was just waiting for an excuse to set this going. Why is it happening? No one's addressing that: except to say that it's all Fritz's fault.

As I watch the apple blossoms going about their business out the back, or stare into the escarpment's prow from the front steps, I see the faces of those boys on the train and in Hyde Park and contemplate that this is all beyond sinful. Seems I've taken up prayer again. Daniel's taken up painting the house, patching the ceiling and replacing weatherboards, the toot door and window frames every spare moment he's not at the mine, and walking off by himself through the bush: says he's getting fat without the hewing. I can't see it, but then there's a fair bit of him to cover. He's also sworn off newspapers and refuses to talk about anything to do with the war.

Christmas is a quiet affair with Sarah: only Evan Lewis pops in on the day to say hello with his three little granddaughters, and no talk about It then either — just loads of cake and biscuits that Sarah seems to be able to pull out of the air, and gentle joking about wages going up the same rate as the price of everything else, while we watch Evan's
sweet wonders
skipping about in the yard and taking rides on Daniel's back for an hour or so. Not quite yuletide as I remember it: slap-up dinner and sloppy carols getting sloppier the more enthusiastic Father became with the malt. The shift in tone is hardly surprising, given Daniel and Sarah are quietly atheist, but once Evan and the children leave, Daniel seems sombre, morose. I ask him if there's anything the matter; he says he's only eaten too much. Then he spends the rest of the day eating; can't really blame him there: his mother's cooking is too delicious. I spend the entire holiday practising my culinary skills on him and asking God for a baby of our own.

New Year brings Miriam and her brood up from Bathurst and Sarah's tiny cottage is filled with smiley noise, belated congratulations on nuptials and a dreamy-eyed proclamation from Big Sister, who's only a smidgen taller than her dainty mother: ‘Aw, but wouldn't Dad just have loved Francine. It's not fair, is it, Mum.' And Sarah says through the cacophony, ‘It's less fair that all your children were born deaf,' hands on her ears as she gazes over all the seven dark-haired imps, shooing them outside, obviously tickled by their antics, naughty and adorable every one — even the baby has a glint. And Daniel's so thrilled to see the children he has to be called in for lunch along with them, Miriam dragging him by the sleeve, saying to me: ‘I do hope you're fond of kids — you've married one, you realise.' Daniel pretends to cringe.

But Miriam has also brought a bomb to the table: Roy, her husband, cannot stay tonight, as he's going on to Sydney to present himself for AIF consideration first thing in the morning. He's a peach-faced, impossibly jovial carpenter of thirty-odd, who says: ‘Anything to escape this lot.' After so many children, he says, Mim could do without him for a time, and since his joinery business could run itself blindfolded, he wants an adventure before he settles down too far — and he'd better hurry so as not to miss the boat: the war won't last long. He's also built like Fort Denison: the AIF is unlikely to say no. Miriam, who's likewise impossibly jovial about it, jokes that there were a few arguments between Fritz and Brits, but that Brits won this round by a whisker. Sarah chides her for poor taste but laughs with them anyway. I make a weak uncertain sound, looking at Sarah for further cues, and she's looking at Daniel, who's not reacted at all: he's biting into a piece of thickly buttered bread and staring out the back door, communing with Beatrice the cow. He says goodbye to Roy, just; lost in the shrieks of ‘Byebye, Daddy!'

We walk home, and his hand is not really holding mine, and then at the gate he says he'll go for a walk. I say, ‘I'll come with you,' and he smiles: ‘I mean a proper walk.' I smile back: I can't match his stride. I lie awake thinking, I fall asleep waiting, and when I wake up, he's already gone to work.

A few weeks later I read that the German Club in Broken Hill has been burned down after a bizarre attack on a train by two mad Turks wanting to wage their own little war on a bunch of defenceless picnickers. I wonder if it's weirdly wrought propaganda, the mad Turk part at least, and want to talk to Daniel about it, maybe for a laugh, but he virtually ignores me. Grunt. He's just not here. Not carving, not hitting the piano, not here. Even eating, not here, but he's eating so much it's a wonder he's not fat as a house. Hmn.

The only time he's with me, really, is in our bed. Which is my favourite place to meet him, but I want to know where his mind and body have gone the rest of the time. Please God, I want a baby, to give us something safe to talk about as much as to fulfil my growing yearning. I'll even raise it Catholic. But no baby comes so far.

Just lots more shillings — the mine can barely meet the demands of the contract, which has been increased again. But of course we can't talk about the knotty issue of our profits either; never have done. Can't talk about his work at all: I think he hates being the manager, one of the bosses, but I don't know why.

Seems this war has taken him away from me after all:
does strange things to people …
Not sure what sort of insurance the orchard might provide against this event. Another worst fear: maybe he wasn't meant for me after all. Can't think of that; won't.

February is stinking, blindingly blue hot; our valley hums relentlessly with it, and Sarah's back in Bathurst, Drummond's still avoiding me like the plague, and I'll have to resort to talking to myself or perhaps Father Hurley — don't know who'd be more entertaining right now. I've even contemplated hiring help in the house, just for company, or maybe to start an argument between us, but he'd probably only shrug, grunt and ignore her too. I'd go fight Fritz myself if it'd mean I could have Daniel back. I can't fight his surly silence, though; two and two, at last: he's having one, or possibly several arguments with himself.

I want to ask Father precisely which horses he put his final each-way bet on.

 

DANIEL

I've never felt so useless, well, I have, but not with no end in sight and not with so much on my mind. I go in and fire shot and hew when there's not enough men on, which is fairly often, just for something to do, and for something to lay into, and I don't care if the union has a problem with that. Don't tell France though; I wash before I ride home, since I can now. We don't need to have that conversation.

Or the one about Drummond's little digs he has to have every time he pops his head in: every time someone leaves, he says, ‘Good thing we have you to rely on, Ackerman,' or ‘Thank heavens for you die-hard socialists — someone's got to keep the wheels turning while our boys are away'; or his constant amazement at how quick I finish the books, like it's hard to count to twenty, like you wouldn't want to get it over and done with, it's that boring. I don't bite, but if he was younger … I wish I knew what Dad had held over him, that
no one else's business
that got us the lamps all those years ago; I wish I had it in me to make him think I know what it is, to make him fuck off. He's not had a shot at the other obvious target of my background, because I'm certain even he knows that could lead to violence. Someone at the club last Saturday evening, a filthy arsewipe blow-in who's only been in town five minutes, said to me he'd heard my mother was a Kraut. He was having a smart-mouth go at The Manager of the Wattle who by his great opinion has no place at the Workers'; he didn't say it nicely, and I stood up, watched him shit himself, before taking him outside. Those who joined us weren't standing behind him; I didn't hurt him, much, just enough to make it plain. Evan says I shouldn't have bothered at all, and he's right: I'm not in any position to start making trouble, with anyone. I won't go back to the club. Evan hasn't mentioned the hewing, though, so no one's made a complaint against my non-union labour; I think he knows that's all that's keeping my temper.

Evan's the real boss here, not me, and we're making so much money that I don't even have to check the weights; our weighman, Tanner, joined up and so I put old McNally on the bridge, to give him something to do, but he's only there for appearances and I pay him out of the cash tin in the office, half to spare the cost to the miners, and half to shit-off Drummond for the weekly two and nine I call
Maintenance.
I write up everyone else's pay before McNally's totals are even in. And Holman, the deputy, he's joined up too, taken a clerical position in the Department of Army; and Drummond's not going to bother replacing him with a real deputy, because we don't really need one; we have a Night Deputy, Campbell, and there's me on days, overseeing a hundred and thirty, give or take, who all know what they're doing. Even the coal is easy everywhere at the moment, there's never much for me to fix, except for that bastard pinch in three, and Evan won't let me near it; I don't want to go down there anyway, not yet.

Which all leaves me with too much time for thinking about what's going on with the others who've left. I don't want to know about it and the effort it takes not thinking about it is almost as buggering as the coal.

I walk down through the bottom of our valley, under Calypso, and around into the next gully up to the ridge below the paddock. It's where I usually go, on Sundays, when I can't just hang about with France watching her paint wallabies or apples or lizards. Sometimes I run, just to have a run. I feel guilty about the way I'm leaving her out of things so much, about the questions she's not asking and wanting to all the time, but I feel guiltier about other things. About not having the power to change anything. And everything's changed around me.

There's no rugby round here any more, not enough for two teams, and the new blokes have no idea of the game — if they play at all they play club league in town. Stop-start ring-a-rosy, Evan calls that code. Anyway, if I put myself in the cavil for it now, I'm sure it'd only give some of them another reason to think I'm properly on myself, just for playing union rules. Because it's a ‘gentleman's' game, except in Wales apparently, where it's a working man's obligation to strive for a red Cymru jersey just for the chance to belt an Englishman legally; or in New Zealand, where we all know they're so egalitarian anyone who doesn't play gets called Nancy. And at the Wattle, where it was … just what it was. Evan set it going when he first came here more than ten years ago, because it's good for your heart, and as a way of keeping things steady among the younger blokes, getting it out of your system without things leading to a brawl. And because the women and the kids always came, there had to be a certain amount of decency. He's a clever bloke, Evan. A few of us did kick the ball around for a while, but lost interest after New Year's. Just picnics now, to Mount Vic or somewhere, and I'm never in the mood; don't really feel invited, even though I am: the new blokes don't say anything outright, but some of the looks I get in-pit say who the fuck are you, and I wouldn't blame them for thinking that the kid-manager who thinks he's a collier should keep clear of Sundays at least.

Staying at home seems to suit France all right, she'd rather be shy of get-togethers too; at least we still have that in common. As well as bed, when I let my body tell her that I love her. I want to give her more than that; but for now it'll have to do.

Dad's still noncommittal about the question I keep asking when I come here. He says it'll come.

Evan knows I'm stewing, badly, but he doesn't want to ask. I think he knows.

Today it comes. Cass Cullen, Robby's wife, turns up with her kids at the Wattle, comes into the office, and I'm in there today, doing the flaming books, and she's distraught. She's a Brit and barely literate, and she wants me to read this telegram for her, which the reverend from St Paul's brought her, and he's already told her, but she needs to be sure. Of its shortness, its bullshit and its brutality.

It's pink, marked urgent, and it says that on the twenty-fifth of April, 1915, Pt RT Cullen was killed in action at Gallipoli. It then conveys to Mrs Cullen, care of the post office:
deep regret and sympathy of their majesties the King and Queen and Commonwealth Government in loss that she and army have sustained by death.

Sure.

It doesn't say plainly and directly to her what she urgently needs to hear:
We are very, very fucking sorry we killed your Robert Timothy and we promise to burn in Hell for this.
Bastards.

Robby is dead. First day on the proper job.

Cass's just sitting there nodding, trying to keep it from screaming out of her, baby boy on her lap, little curly-haired girl hanging onto a fistful of her mother's skirt and looking at me like she knows too. I tell Cass we'll look after her in some way, France'll work something out with the fund, on top of whatever pension the government might come up with. But it's not enough. She can't hear me, not really. She's thinking about no more Robby, and so am I. It's a different kind of anger: I know what I'm going to do.

Still, it takes me a few weeks to get the bottle up. A few weeks of being a cranky bastard with Francine; I can hardly look at her. I know it's her birthday this month, but I've forgotten the date, and I can't even ask her that. Can't ask Mum either; can't look at her at all. A few weeks of laying into the coal like a maniac, whether or not there's enough men come in now, and not looking at anyone.

Then, when I do do it, I do it like a coward. Not a good start. But at least I'm firm about it.

I leave Francine in the morning, early so she's still asleep, and I kiss her as I always do, but I go on into town and catch the train to Sydney. Not like the Wattle won't turn around without me for a day, is it. It's not hard to get where I'm going, it's practically signposted the whole way to the barracks. The bloke at the front desk of the enrolling office hands me a form along with the rest, but I tell him: ‘I don't want to fill in a form, I want to speak with someone first.'

He raises an eyebrow, about to tell me to piss off, but looks at me again and says: ‘Take a seat.' Spanner in the works that I am.

So I take a seat and wait, while twenty or so blokes fill out forms.

After ten years and twenty more blokes filling out forms, I'm looking at the floorboards when a pair of boots shows up, very small boots it seems when I look up and see the extent of the bloke standing over me saying, ‘You want to speak to someone?' He must be as tall as me, and the first thing I want to ask him is how he stands up on those tiny feet. But I say, ‘Yes,' as I stand up; and he's not quite as tall, but he's older than me by a good few years.

He's got this look on his face like I'm wasting his time already, poor bloke on spanner duty today as he is, so I get to the point: ‘I want to join up but I'm not interested in killing anyone. I want to do something useful, if I can. But I've got no idea.'

He laughs and I think, well, that's it then. But then I hear something in it like he knows what I mean.

‘Come on then,' he says, cocking his head for me to follow him behind a partition where there's a desk and two chairs, one on either side. He says as he sits down on the one behind: ‘Captain Duncan is my name. And who might you be?'

‘Daniel Ackerman,' I say sitting down too, and suddenly I'm all wound up and don't know what to say next.

But he solves that quickly; he's the one asking the questions.

‘How old are you?'

‘Twenty — twenty-one in September.'

‘Do you have parental consent?'

‘No.'

He has another chuckle at that, a gentleman's sort of lazy chuckle, but I'm starting to like this bloke already. He doesn't mind not getting bullshit.

‘What's your current occupation?'

Good question. I stumble around it: ‘I manage a mine, coal, the Wattle, out of Lithgow,' like I'm ashamed of the fact and add: ‘But I'm a miner, really.'

He squints at me and says: ‘What did you say your name was again?'

‘Ackerman, Daniel.'

‘You're that chap who married Frank Connolly's daughter, aren't you?'

Jesus; I nearly jump out of my seat. ‘How do you know that?'

‘My father and Connolly used to meet at the track — hard not to follow the life and times of an eccentric such as Mr Connolly, eh?'

Not sure I like the sound of that; I feel a bit protective of the old ghost, who might well have to come back to murder me for what I am doing today. This Duncan
chap
sees, though, and says: ‘Besides, I'm a government engineer, roads and bridges, for the railways mostly, when I'm not doing this, and news travels round our industries, you know what it's like.'

No.

‘Sounds like he was a good sort, Connolly,' he adds.

‘Yes.' Now shut up about it, and thankfully he does.

‘So, you're a miner,' he says. ‘Well, I have another coincidence for you.'

What next?

‘It so happens we're looking for men who can handle explosives and tunnel and work with their eyes closed and one hand tied behind their back and not panic for anything. And I haven't seen a soul today who doesn't want to join the artillery or light horse, or who's only good for it. Higgins, out the front, thought he was having a good laugh getting me to look at you, but sapper might suit you.'

I know I'm a joke but I don't know what sapper means. ‘I don't want to blow anyone up,' I say.

‘No. Why would you? We need men for fieldworks, building and maintaining trench lines, bunkers, supply routes, bridges, that sort of thing, supporting the infantry et cetera, chaps who can get a job done quickly and regardless. But you'll have to learn how to shoot people regardless too. It's a hazard of the job, I'm afraid. Most men, when being shot at, will feel inclined to want to shoot back and live; best to know how to use a rifle in those circumstances, eh? Besides, you'll do as you're told when you're told. Are you still interested?'

‘Yes,' I tell him; can't believe I'm going through with this, so I have to tell him something else first to see if he'll still be interested. ‘You should probably know that my parents were born in Germany, in case that's an issue for you.'

He pulls his head back in surprise. ‘Good God, you are a bit special, aren't you. I think the question is, is it an issue for you? Is that why you don't want to kill anyone?'

‘No.' Dad would have no problem with the issue of my nationality. Mum, on the other hand, is going to be very unimpressed, but not, I don't think, for any lingering allegiance to Deutschland. She's just going to want to kill me. France, well, don't think about that now. ‘Not at all,' I say. ‘I wasn't brought up German.' Wasn't brought up a subject of the realm either.

‘You'll have to kill Germans if you're told to, or we might be obliged to shoot you,' he says and means it, then squints at me again: ‘You don't speak the language?'