Black Diamonds (40 page)

I am happy, I tell myself, and relieved. But everything I've ever reined in now just floods out. Better to do this here, on my own. It's too much to think about in one go. Just too much. Wear myself out till I can only see the pictures, flicking one after the other. Fair few of them.

Then I have to sit here a while longer, with the anger. It sits hard in me like it'll never shift from my gut. I'm that full of blinding hatred at the minute, for those that let this loose. So Britannia stays top monster: now we can all get some sleep. I wonder where Johan Schultz is, if he's alive, wonder what he's thinking, about going home. I wonder what it must be like to be an ordinary German today, hearing this news. Can't imagine that: I've never picked a fight and then lost. Only been decked the once, thanks Dunc, and deserved it. I wonder what people will say and think here as they wake up to the extent of it; they'll be relieved, and proud, for sure. Will they feel shame for their part in it? I doubt many will: why would you when there's so much to be relieved and proud about? Just as you don't need to be a fortune teller to see Hughes pressing the advantage now it's over: the government will ride the victory for all it's worth. That's politics.

Feel the breeze on the back of my neck and float away from it. Let it go. I do, violently. Another good reason to be alone right now: I lean forward and chuck like the earth's shifting beneath me.

And then that's enough. Long piece of string, that was, and I can see both ends now: how lucky am I? Never forget that. Ever.

Go home, Daniel, clean your teeth and appreciate every break you've been given.

I run the rest of the way home through the silver grey dark; haven't run anywhere since … since I picked up Stratho that night. And for the first time, seems like forever, they are my legs. It feels good, very good. And I decide that I'm going to run a bit every day from now on, just because I can.

 

FRANCINE

He clumps into the kitchen just on dawn, goes straight to the bathroom. I leap out of bed, run down the hall and then stand at the door, watch him cleaning his teeth. He reaches down to turn on the bath taps.

He's so thoroughly filthy, I say: ‘You're not going to make a mess of my
indoor bathroom
, are you?'

He says: ‘Just this one first and last time — special occasion.'

‘Mmn.' Very special occasion. I tried to stay put when I heard the whistles, but ended up waking up Harry to fib to him that I had to go round to Grandma's with Davie, trying not to sound panicked, with a thousand different kinds of hysteria surging, main one being:
Holy Mother, he has blown himself up, and I willed it to happen, didn't I
; but then I saw the scene up Dell Street: singing, dancing, shouting; blabbered incoherently at Sarah and Mim, then came back home to wait. No morning whistle today: everyone's having the day off so they can go completely berserk when the official announcement arrives. I say: ‘There's no hot water, though.' I don't light the heater round the side till four o'clock.

He says: ‘Doesn't matter, I'm boiling anyway.'

He must be too: his shirt is sweat-drenched. What's he been doing out there all night? Don't ask. I watch him take it off: rush of relief and delight at the sight of that pair of shoulders, that back: it's a small country. I watch him take off the rest and hop in the water and I watch him wash. He flicks the flannel at me: gets me right across the face with the perfectly aimed spray.

He says: ‘Go and tell the boys to look after the littlies for a spell. I have to take you somewhere.'

‘I'm just about to make breakfast.'

‘Make it later.'

‘If you insist.'

‘I do.'

We go round behind the shed on the far side of the orchard. The sun is just peeking into our valley and everything is flushed through soft dusty pink.

This is the way to end a war. No need for any other language. I imagine there's a fair bit of this sort of thing going on right round the world; I certainly hope so. I won't contemplate any other possibility, not now. Let's pretend that this love cancels out everything else. Highest thought ever.

 

 

SIX

JANUARY–DECEMBER 1919

 

DANIEL

If there is such a thing as the gods or whatever, this is what they do for a top cracking laugh.

I'm doing exactly what I should be doing, I've been so well behaved even I'm impressed. In the last few months I've been a good boss: staying out of everyone's way, doing all the boring rubbish in the office, and getting plans for a proper bathhouse organised. And I've got some fat contracts underway for electricity production to kick in next quarter, to pay for a good deal of debt and bathhouse over a couple of years; found myself negotiating with none other than Drummond at one point too: he's bought into a new mob manufacturing motor parts and bodies and approached me for supply; he thought he could get it for nothing, and I thought he'd come to love me: armed with France's bottom price, I told him to bugger off and thieve from someone else.

I've been a good
artist
too, sending off Dunc to his father, without making myself any dippier over his knee: no one but me could see the splash for what it is beyond a stain, and Mr Duncan sent me back a letter full of happy tears anyway. And I sent strange Fanny Adinov my first portrait of France — she's just got up, sitting on the edge of the bed, blinking awake for the baby — to see what he thinks of me without horror. He thinks he wants some more pretty. All right, I'll see what I can do.

I've been a good and proper husband for my France, too, in all the obvious ways, as well as suggesting that she find something better to do with her own time, eventually, if she's not going to have that big family. She's not just going to be my wife, that's certain, and she's well earned her Certificate in Housework. I would like her to give that up altogether, but when I suggested that she send the washing out, she gave me that sharp look and said: ‘No, couldn't now.' So, instead, she's driving down to Sydney today to talk to her
angels
Stanley and Bragg to see how she might go about studying the law, without having to go to university — Stanley and Bragg won't live forever, it's amazing they're still alive, and France wants to be on top of that side of the business herself: contract, insurance, liability, company, industrial laws, all that palaver. Good on her. She's taking Mim and the three eldest girls, Kathryn, Roz and Bronnie, with her, so she can haul them all before the court of David Jones. She's had to take our Davie too, of course, since he has to go along with her for the food. What a legend she is as always. My only disappointment is that she's cut her hair again. Can't have everything. They'll be back sometime day after tomorrow. And I'm not even thinking about the cost of the hotel and inevitable unnecessaries, since she presented me with a
budget
for them, entitled
The Essentials of Feminine Indulgence
, including
Swishest French knickers, as of yet indeterminate value.
It's all all right. Better than all right.

I'm busy being an all right boss this morning. Seven o'clock and everyone's about to head in and I'm looking at a skip I've moved onto a flat bit of side track, out of the way. It's funny looking at something you look at all the time for the first time. Really look at it. It's a very simple animal, the skip: four iron wheels with a hardwood crate on top. I'm looking at it because I want to work out if it's possible to somehow put a brake on it, to avoid the need for spragging. Spragging is also very simple: shoving a piece of hardwood between the spokes of one of the wheels to keep the skip stationary. It's a finger-losing exercise for boys, as a few blokes here could attest, apart from being very inefficient at times, as Jimmy Skelton might say if he was here to tell you more about it. There must be a smarter way of doing it. Wouldn't have a clue how, though: I'm no engineer with this sort of thing; I don't even know how the brakes on the car work. I could build a house that wouldn't fall down for a thousand years, but anything mechanical: ask France; and I will when she's back, and she'll no doubt tell me, again, that we should look at investing in a whole box of safer mechanised cutting, loading and hauling like they have everywhere in America; and I'll tell her again that the union wouldn't have us put wheelers, let alone colliers, out of jobs; neither would I. So, now, I bend down to have a look underneath, as you do when you have no clue. And there's absolutely no explanation for what happens next.

Something makes the skip move, very sharply, like it's been kicked by a pony, very cranky one, right smack into the side of my head. That's all I know for the moment as I hit the deck.

I can see stars and hear Evan say, very slowly: ‘Oh boyo. Nasty.'

 

FRANCINE

We pile into the car and I'm still feeling a little queasy; have been since I woke up. There's a smell of coaldust and something sweet in the air, some sort of chemical perhaps floating across from one of the fat cigars in town, and I think, yes please, let's get out of Lithgow today. I don't really have to go to Sydney; I could have simply written to my angels and asked them to send books and advice and they'd send back the entire College of Law library and pay the freight. They're an odd couple, don't know how they make money out of their practice. For all the advice they've given us, they've never sent more than the slimmest of bills, a token. I suspect, being old acquaintances of the Leprechaun, they play stocks and horses to make up the shortfall. They don't look much like gamblers, though, those sweet old men; but you can't ever tell who you're looking at, really, can you.

It's Mim we're really making this trip for; she's so excited as she climbs in next to me, holding Davie, and it's not about the DJs experience much at all. There's a few ships due in to Sydney Harbour sometime tomorrow and she wants to see them come in. She says it's because she loved going in to Wollongong and Port Kembla as a child, seeing all the steamers and the bustling round the docks. Not coal steamers coming to the Quay tomorrow, though; they're troopships, and I think I can fathom another reason why it might be important for her to see them. To see the soldiers disembarking, perhaps to make Roy's absence real and sharp and bathed in the joy of others' reunions. She is back with a vengeance: impossibly jovial. The Ackerman stern- stoic trait missed her entirely. Praise be.

She says now: ‘The first thing I want to do when we get there is go to one of those fancy
continental
bakeries I've heard about. Must be the Fritz in me because I had a dream about strudel last night.'

Ackerman obsession with food didn't miss her at all; I say: ‘Strudel? Haven't you had enough apples? I want something crammed with chocolate and walnuts and laced with brandied caramel.'

One young lady and two little girls behind us say: ‘Oh, yes!'

‘No, no, no,' Mim says, as serious as she gets. ‘You can't have too many apples, Francine. Humble but perfect in every way.'

I glance at her as we turn into Main Street.

She adds: ‘So long as they come with lashings of brown sugar and honey and cinnamon and buttery pastry.'

I'm still laughing as I pull up outside the grocers, to grab a bunch of bananas to tide us over till morning tea, when I hear my name: ‘Mrs Ackerman.'

I turn around and see Polly, it's Polly Rogers, after all this time. ‘Goodness, Polly. How are you? Please, it's Francine to you.'

‘Yes,' she says frowning, her great bust on the verge of heaving up a sigh, except she's in a bother. She says: ‘I think I should tell you I've just seen your husband, on my way down the hill. He didn't look very well.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘You should go to the hospital.' She means now.

Mim says: ‘What's he done this time?'

Don't wait for the answer Polly seems too shocked to divulge. Head up the hill, here we are. Mim stays in the car with the children while I go in. Dreading.

And there he is. Big gasp.

He sees me and says: ‘It looks a lot worse than it is.'

Couldn't look much worse. Looks like someone's thrown a bucket of blood over him. He's holding a towel to the side of his forehead and that's soaked through too. There's a puddle of blood on the floor.

I say: ‘It looks fairly bad to me. What did you do?'

He says: ‘You don't want to know.'

‘Yes I do.'

‘I hit my head is all. You don't have to be here. Keep on to Sydney, I just need a stitch.'

‘No,' I say. ‘I won't go to Sydney.'

He says: ‘Don't be ridiculous. It really isn't anything.'

But it is something, with a shiver: some kind of two and two? The smell, the sweet smell … it's here, stronger than blood or bleach. It's hyacinth, unmistakable, like a perfumed hankie under my nose; and an odd collection of memories hits me quick as a flutter of playing cards … fresh linen, lilac glitter of amethyst, Mama dabbing a spot from my cheek … I
did
call her Mama. Odd moment for epiphany and this one feels like a warning: not for Daniel but for me. Don't go to Sydney. Don't come back. Look after Danny.

Can't tell him that, can I, it's all a fluttery figment, so I say: ‘Don't you be ridiculous.'

He belts out a big laugh then and says: ‘Apparently I can't help it.'

Poor darlingest.

But a week later I'm just about prepared to accept bizarre extrapolations as clear and direct instructions. Timely ones. The soldiers returning from the Middle East have brought with them a different kind of rapid and brutal destruction: influenza. Hundreds have dropped with it within a few days and it's well out of control in Sydney; papers say Melbourne and Brisbane too. The thought that some of those men made it through all that, only to die of the damn flu, or bring it home for the family: must be somewhere near the zenith of unfair. To make it through bullets, bombs, dysentery, cholera, pneumonia, malnutrition and who knows what else, only to … Grateful to be an atheist and not prone to thoughts of God's wrath.

I tell Daniel what I think about my ‘rescue', mainly just to lighten the news.

He says, and he's still got a corker of a black eye below the bandage: ‘So you think your mother pushed a skip into my head so you wouldn't go to Sydney and get the flu?'

‘Yes,' I say, and I'm teasing him now, but who knows? It's as reasonable an explanation as any. Kinder than the thought that he's simply inexplicably prone to injury. Kinder than the thought that I was inexplicably destined to see him drenched like that, like a vision come back from the depths of old terrors.

He says: ‘You really are barking, aren't you.'

But I can see he's considering it too. He considers it fairly seriously in the months that follow, when the flu begins visiting Lithgow, closing the schools, churches and even the pubs — even the arms factory shuts down completely with a mass outbreak. He forbids me from going beyond Sarah's, even as he tells me the only ones dying of the flu in any numbers are alcoholics and those on their way out anyway. Daniel, of course, doesn't get the flu, doesn't wear a mask in town, doesn't need to, because he's infection- proof. I have to wonder if that might not be true. Fate might have had a decent go at mangling him, but he's never had so much as a sniffle. Neither have I for that matter. But I obediently stay under house arrest at Josie's with the boys till the threat passes, not prepared to push our good fortune an inch further.

Fortune. That's a tangle, isn't it. At least I've come to recognise there are antidotes available against the worst of it, and they are really rather easy to obtain when you need them; you only need look for them: David's seven months old now and he has a little dimple in his chin when he beams, a little dimple that no one else has. I can wonder all I like if Joe would have had that dimple too, but I don't wonder too long, because I have a choice, and I do have a power. Sometimes I like to imagine that Joe made that little dimple on his brother, with his tiny, perfect pinky finger, when they were playing tip inside me; sometimes I wrap myself in the gentleness of an old man with a deep raspy voice saying to a small boy:
Look at the sun on the hills
; and I don't care if that makes me a nut. It has its own logic, one that makes sense to me.

One that means I have now taken my mother's photograph out of the bottom drawer in the wardrobe, so that she sits on the mantel in the parlour next to Father — whose photograph I had left inside a packing box with that tatty old piece of embroidery I never finished, all this time. Mama.
Good gracious, look at the girl you raised, Frank.
And imagination or not, I can hear her laughter somewhere. True enough I would have heard it once: she was married to the Leprechaun, after all.

Look at them there together, Mr and Mrs Connolly: hard not to imagine they've been in cahoots here all along. Fanciful but beautiful notions. My
Insurance
, if you like.