Elianne (45 page)

Big Jim was not in the least surprised to learn that Bartholomew had failed to pass the army’s medical examination. He made his views evident that very same night as he and his wife prepared themselves for bed.

‘Well, it’s to be expected, isn’t it.’ he said when Ellie voiced her worries about the discovery of Bartholomew’s weakened heart condition. ‘He might not be the youngest, but he’s always been the runt of the litter.’

Ellie detested the way Jim was so disparaging of Bartholomew, even speaking at times with contempt. Throughout the boy’s childhood he had considered Bartholomew’s peaceful nature a character flaw. He was proud of the aggression his other sons displayed and openly encouraged their competitiveness, pitting one against the other. The fact that Bartholomew chose not to compete he saw as the epitome of weakness. Ellie didn’t. Ellie saw it as a show of strength, a silent rebellion from a boy who had no desire to conform. She admired her son’s resilience, and did her best to protect him whenever possible from his father’s bullying.

‘I take it you’re not at all concerned about the doctor’s report,’ she said icily, staring at him in the dressing-room mirror as she sat brushing her hair.

‘Why should I be? The doctor told him it was nothing to worry about.’ Jim could see from the cold green glint of her eyes that his glibness annoyed her. He didn’t like it when Ellie was annoyed. ‘I’m not being heartless, my dear,’ he assured her. ‘They have to select only the very fittest, you must understand that. They can’t afford to accept men who might let others down under pressure. It’s a safety measure only, believe me. Now come to bed.’

Ellie allowed herself to be mollified. ‘I’m very glad he’s been turned down,’ she said, ‘and I’m sure dear Mary is too. Bartholomew should be by her side when the baby comes.’

Jim laughed. ‘By her side? I don’t think so. Hardly a place for a man – childbirth is women’s business.’

‘I didn’t mean literally of course,’ she said crossing to the bed where he was propped against the pillows waiting for her. ‘But what if Bartholomew had passed the medical test? What if he went off to war and didn’t come back?’ The thought sent a chill down Ellie’s spine. ‘His child would be deprived of a father.’

‘I would be the child’s father, Ellie,’ Jim said heartily as she climbed in beside him, ‘we’d have another Durham and I’d raise it as my own.’

This time his glibness bewildered rather than annoyed, she found his cavalier attitude to the war mystifying.

‘Do you not fear for our sons, Jim?’ she said resisting just a little as he drew her to him, looking into his eyes, trying to fathom his reasoning. ‘Do you not worry for their safety?’

‘You worry enough for both of us, my love.’ He buried his face into the curve of her neck, breathing in the smell of her, running his hands over her body, feeling the flesh beneath the nightgown. ‘Let the boys have their adventure. The war will be over in no time and they’ll be home with such stories to tell.’

Now, four months after the deaths of Edward and George, Big Jim continued to despise Bartholomew for surviving his brothers. He didn’t say so out loud in his son’s presence – not through any concern for Bartholomew’s feelings, but rather in order to avoid incurring Ellie’s displeasure. He had no wish to further upset the wife whom he adored and who, like he, was grieving deeply. It was true, however, that he had always disapproved of the way Ellie had mollycoddled their middle son. The boy was spineless and should have been whipped into shape years earlier. Now, Big Jim couldn’t stand being in his presence, couldn’t stand the very sight of him. Bartholomew was a constant reminder of all he had lost.

Bartholomew was fully aware of his father’s feelings. Big Jim’s contempt was nothing new to him: he’d suffered it for years. He’d long ago acknowledged he was a disappointment to his father and had refused to feel guilt, but he did now. Bartholomew felt guilty that he should be alive when his brothers were dead, and Big Jim’s silent, ever-present condemnation compounded his guilt tenfold.

Big Jim’s escape was the Burnett Club, where he had the sympathy of all and where he drowned his sorrows in imported Scotch or rum produced by the Bundaberg distillery, dependent upon his mood at the time. Huge man that he was and with a high tolerance for alcohol, he rarely displayed overt signs of drunkenness, but the liquor proved a welcome distraction and the club kept him away from the son he couldn’t bear to look at.

Bartholomew’s escape was work. Work and family – baby Stanley was now nearly one year old, having been born while Edward and George were still in training camp. But above even family, it was work that took precedence. While his father wallowed in self-pity and liquor at the Burnett Club, Bartholomew threw himself into the running of the mill, shouldering the burden of management in the absence of Big Jim and personally taking on the tasks of skilled workers, all the while pushing himself tirelessly, day after day after day.

His wife and his mother worried for his health. ‘You mustn’t overtax yourself, my darling,’ Mary said time and again.

Ellie echoed her: ‘You must slow down, Bartholomew.’ But all their protests were to no avail. Bartholomew was insistent that with a wartime shortage of skilled labour it was imperative he take on whatever job he could, and he was right. Without his intervention on all levels, and most particularly his inspiration to his workers, Elianne’s production would have been drastically diminished. Indeed the mill may well have ceased to function at all during that crushing of 1915.

Necessity, it was true, had dictated Bartholomew’s devotion to duty, but he was also without doubt assuaging his guilt. Here was a way of proving his worth, to himself and perhaps also to his father. It was an ethic that was to remain with him throughout the whole of his life.

During the slack season that followed, Ellie continued to tolerate Big Jim’s maudlin moods and his lengthy bouts at the Burnett Club, but as the months passed and the crushing once again drew near she decided it was time to rectify the situation. Bartholomew could not be expected to work a second time at such a pace and under such pressure.

‘It’s well over a year now since the boys died,’ she said meaningfully as the two of them lingered over the breakfast table. Mary was upstairs feeding the baby and Bartholomew had gone into town to purchase fresh hardware supplies from Wyper Brothers.

‘So?’

‘So I think it’s time you returned to work,’ she said crisply. ‘The mill needs you.’

He gave an uninterested shrug. ‘The mill appears to be managing quite adequately without me.’

‘Only because of Bartholomew,’ she said, curbing her irritation. ‘Without Bartholomew it might well have ceased functioning at all last season – he kept Elianne alive for you, Jim.’

‘And so he should,’ Big Jim sneered. ‘He owes me that much.’

Ellie felt an uncontrollable surge of rage. She could no longer bear her husband’s self-pity, nor his contempt and the way he spoke as if Bartholomew was personally responsible for the deaths of his brothers.

‘What, would you have all three of them dead?’ she demanded loudly, almost to the point of yelling, her eyes gleaming angrily. ‘You have a son, for God’s sake! You have a son and a grandson – can you not see that? You have a family! You have a reason for living!’

Big Jim stared back at her. He was shocked, stirred from his apathy. Ellie never raised her voice, Ellie never displayed anger.

Ellie was thankful that she appeared finally to have broken through his wall of self-pity. ‘You must resume the mantle of responsibility, Jim,’ she said. ‘You must do your duty by your family. If you cannot love your son, then love your grandson, but do your duty by your family or you will lose us all.’

Lose us all? Was that what she’d said? Lose us all? But he dared not lose Ellie. He could cope with the loss of his sons, he could live without them, but Ellie, never; he could not live without Ellie. He would kill anyone who threatened to take her. Why, he would kill Ellie herself if she were ever to leave him. Ellie was his life.

Big Jim had been shaken back to reality and from that moment on his attitude changed. He even admitted his gratitude to Bartholomew, albeit begrudgingly.

‘I appreciate all you have done over the past year,’ he said stiffly when his son had returned from town. ‘Your mother has impressed upon me how hard you have worked to keep the mill going in these difficult times.’

‘I was doing no more than my duty, Father, my duty to both the family and the nation.’

Bartholomew’s surprise at the change in his father’s attitude was evident, and he glanced at his mother, wondering what had brought it about, but Ellie’s face betrayed nothing. ‘Sugar is vital to our men at the front,’ he continued. ‘The government has urged the mills to keep up production, despite the shortage of labour and fuel.’

‘Quite, quite,’ Big Jim said, ‘and your dedication to duty has been most appreciated. We shall work as a team from now on, you and I.’

They did work as a team, father and son, but work was the only true connection they shared. Big Jim could not warm to Bartholomew, who remained in his eyes ‘the runt of the litter’ and a constant reminder of his loss.

He did, however, warm to Bartholomew’s son. Heeding Ellie’s advice he took an interest in his grandson and, as the years passed, young Stan filled the void in Big Jim’s life. Here indeed was a worthy heir to the Durham throne. And little Julia too, pretty and beguiling. Ellie had been right, Jim realised. He had a family and a reason for living. But most of all he had Stan. Stan was Edward and George reborn.

Ellie watched with trepidation as Big Jim took over Bartholomew’s son. She watched as Stan grew to idolise his grandfather – what boy wouldn’t? A figure so much larger than life. Bartholomew could not have competed even had he wanted to, but then true to his nature Bartholomew did not try.

She felt somewhat to blame for her husband’s preoccupation with his grandson, remembering the advice she’d so sternly given that morning years ago. ‘If you cannot love your son, then love your grandson,’ those had been her very words. But Big Jim would never have grown to love his son. As things were now, with his affection focused upon the boy, perhaps his son would be spared his contempt.

Ellie knew only too well that Big Jim could destroy Bartholomew, and she had no doubt that if he wished to do so, he would. It remained her mission in life, as always, to protect her family from her husband.

F
ollowing Neil’s wake, the Durham family with the exception of Bartholomew proceeded to get drunk all four in their own particular way.

Hilda displayed no visible effects of the several healthy nips of medicinal brandy she downed in order to help her sleep, but without them sleep would certainly have evaded her.

Stanley Durham was discovered by Max slumped over the desk in his study, a near-empty bottle of Scotch before him. Upon being awoken, he did not appear overly affected and waved Max away, offended by his offer of assistance, but there was a distinct unsteadiness in his gait as he took himself off to bed.

Kate and Alan practised no restraint whatsoever, setting out openly and unashamedly to get drunk. After raiding their father’s liquor supply, they sat at the table in the breakfast room swigging back Scotch and talking about Neil.

A half an hour and two swift Scotches later, Kate wisely decided to tell Alan about Yen before the alcohol took its effect. She recounted faithfully and in detail everything Neil had told her, concluding with her promise that she would look after his wife should anything happen to him.

Alan listened in silent and utter amazement, bottle forgotten, empty glass unheeded on the table, astounded to hear of his brother’s marriage.

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you before, Al,’ she said finally, ‘but Neil swore me to secrecy. He didn’t want anyone to know until the end of the war when he could bring her home to Australia. I think he was worried that word might get back to the army.’

‘And it would have for sure,’ Alan replied, ‘if Dad had ever heard about it.’

‘Exactly. Which is why we must keep this strictly between ourselves until we can bring Yen to Elianne as I promised. What do you say?’

‘You’re on.’ He poured them a third hefty Scotch and they clinked glasses.

‘I want to show you something.’ She stood. ‘Don’t go away, won’t be a tick.’

She disappeared to return a minute or so later with an envelope that she handed him.

He recognised the writing immediately. ‘It’s from Neil,’ he said.

‘Yes. His last letter to me. Read it.’

Alan read the letter slowly, drinking in its every word. He was moved, hearing so clearly the voice of his brother.

When he finished he looked up at her. ‘Neil never wrote to me like that.’

‘He never wrote to anyone like that,’ Kate said and her eyes welled with tears.

She’s crying, Alan thought. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Kate openly cry. Even at the funeral she’d shown a restraint that most others hadn’t. ‘It proves how much he loved you, Kitty-Kat.’

‘Yes. Yes, it does.’ The tears spilled out to course down her cheeks and she did nothing to stop them.

The Scotch started to kick in very quickly after that. They told stories and wept together, the two of them, stories of Neil and stories of their childhood, on and on, until several hours later, exhausted and all cried out, they seemed to have drunk themselves sober, or they felt they had.

Kate studied the half-empty tumbler on the table before her, closing one eye and then the other, checking her vision, wondering if she was starting to see double. ‘That was a terrible thing Dad said this afternoon.’ She’d wanted to somehow make amends for the hurt her father’s vicious comment must have caused, but she hadn’t known when or how to bring up the subject. Now seemed a rather good time, she thought and a reference to the diaries seemed a rather good opening. ‘He’s not the same as Big Jim, Al. It was just grief speaking; he didn’t mean it.’

‘Course he did.’ Although the words were a little slurred Alan’s reply was brutally honest, he was not prepared to be fobbed off. ‘Sure, Dad’s not the same as Big Jim, he’s not a bad man, but he can be bloody hurtful.’ He gave one of those shrugs that Kate knew was never as careless as it was intended to appear. ‘You can put things down to grief as much as you like, Kate,’ he said, ‘but Dad’s sentiment is the same as Big Jim’s. If he had a choice between who should have copped it, you can bet your bottom dollar it’d be me. People can’t help having favourites. It’s only natural.’