Freedom's Land (28 page)

When they eventually sat down to a simple tea of corned beef and boiled potatoes, Nora let Andrew explain to the children that they’d have to be very careful with money until he was earning again.

He smiled at Jack. ‘And if you can catch the occasional possum, we can make stews and not have to open tins of meat. Gil says parrots aren’t bad eating, either. The less we have to buy at the store, the better.’

Janie pulled a face at the mention of possums. Norah knew she didn’t like the meat – well, it wasn’t nearly as good as beef or lamb – but this was no time to be fussy.

At least Janie was tending the chooks conscientiously, though not with the cheerful willingness of the boys.

That was a good sign – wasn’t it?

17

I
n the month that followed, Norah worked harder than she ever had in her life before. She was up at dawn and out to supervise the milking, whatever the weather, trying to fit in her household duties around the things they had to do on the farm. She used old flour and sugar sacks to keep the worst of the wet off herself, and kept a fire burning in the lean-to kitchen all the time.

Even with the warmth from that coming through the corrugated iron wall next to it, it was miserably cold inside the house because there was no way of heating it. It was a good thing they’d not bought the wood-burning stove, though, because they needed the money while Andrew was incapacitated. Though he didn’t complain, he spent a lot of time huddled under the blankets, grateful when she could refill his hot-water bottles.

Several times he grasped her hand and said, ‘You’re a grand lass,’ or simply, ‘Thank you.’

It was enough to make her feel happy, in spite of all their worries.

During the first week he suffered a lot from headaches, but then, to her relief, he improved suddenly and began to get his old energy back. From then on, he insisted on getting out and about and worked alongside Norah, using his sound arm when he could to steady things for her or pick smaller things up. It was good to have his company and his advice was always sound, but she worried that he was pushing himself too hard.

Their whole lives now revolved around getting the cream out to the entrance to the block in time to be picked up, so that they’d earn a few shillings a week at least to be credited against their purchases at the store.

By the end of the second week, Andrew had decided that he and the boys could do some further clearing of the smaller bushes and trees for an hour or two in the middle of the day.

‘Are you sure you should be doing this?’ Norah asked.

‘I’ll not be doing much except supervising the lads. Janie could help us clear the undergrowth, too. It’s light work but it’ll help once I get fit again and can work on the bigger timber.’ He scowled at his arm, still in its sling. ‘I’m glad we’ve not got any monster trees like that devil which hit me. Make sure you never stand under Karri trees, Norah.’

‘I won’t. And Gil’s being a big help. That kangaroo meat he gave us was nicer than the possum, don’t you think?’

‘Yes. He’s a good friend.’

The boys didn’t complain about the strange assortment of food. They were always hungry. Janie pulled a face sometimes, but Norah ignored that. And Andrew’s appetite was coming back, thank goodness, though he’d lost some weight since the accident.

But all in all, things could have been worse.

Freddie and Irene quarrelled more during the first two weeks after the accident than they had in the whole five years of their marriage before, usually about the baby. After that he grew morose, refusing to discuss his feelings with her.

When she was sick in the mornings, he didn’t offer any help or comfort, just watched her with a disgusted expression.

She didn’t know what to do about the situation, tried several times to talk to him, and got nowhere.

One evening Gil called in on his way to see the Boyds. ‘I just wanted to let you know that Freddie will be late back.’

‘Oh? Is he finishing a job?’

Gil hesitated.

‘Or is he drinking again?’

Gil picked up the heavy bucket of water she was fetching from the stream and carried it to the house for her, a job Freddie had done before but hardly ever bothered to help with now.

‘You shouldn’t be carrying heavy buckets like that. At least don’t fill them to the brim.’

The sympathy made her want to cry. Well, she cried easily these days. She blinked hard, but the tears wouldn’t be held back and next thing she knew he’d put the bucket down and was letting her weep against him, patting her shoulders. That made her weep all the harder.

After a while, the storm of emotion subsided and she was just going to pull away, when a voice roared, ‘Get your hands off my wife, damn you!’

They jerked apart as Freddie strode up to them.

‘So it’s him!’ he yelled at Irene.

‘He was just comforting me.’

‘Is that what you call it?’ He turned to Gil, fists bunched.

She pushed between them, terrified that Freddie was going to start a fight. ‘He carried the bucket of water back for me, then saw I was upset.
That’s all!
’

Gil set her gently aside. ‘I don’t need to shelter behind you, Irene.’ His expression was scornful as he faced the angry man. ‘There’s nothing between us, except me feeling sorry for her, because of the way you’re treating her lately. You don’t deserve to be a father.’

Freddie swung a wild punch at Gil, which the older man countered easily.

‘Stop it!’ The foreman’s voice rang with authority and made Freddie hesitate. ‘I’ll swear on the Bible that I’ve never touched your wife in that way, if it helps.’

For a moment, all hung in the balance, then Freddie muttered something and strode into the humpy.

‘Will you be all right?’ Gil whispered.

Irene nodded. ‘He’d never lay a finger on me.’

‘If he does . . .’

‘He won’t.’

But she wasn’t nearly as sure of that as she sounded and waited till Gil had gone on towards the Boyds’ block before following her husband into the humpy.

He thrust the Bible her mother had given her into her hands before she’d done more than cross the threshold. ‘Swear on that!’

She looked at it in puzzlement. ‘Swear what?’

‘That the child is mine.’

She was so outraged at this she nearly refused, but was worried if she didn’t swear, he’d go after Gil again. So she took the Bible from him, the book her mother had bought them when they were married to record the births and deaths of their new family in. The thought of Mam brought tears to her eyes and she hugged it close. She’d have given anything to be near her family again.

Then she saw the way Freddie was looking at her and straightened up, staring him in the eyes as she said loudly and clearly, ‘This is the only time I’m going to say it, so listen carefully and remember it if you ever get such stupid ideas again. I swear by this holy book,’ she raised it to her lips and kissed it, ‘that the child I’m carrying is yours and that I’ve never, ever been with another man, not before we married and not since.’

Then she shoved the book at him so hard he took an involuntary step backwards and nearly dropped it. She went out into the lean-to kitchen to prepare their food because she didn’t even want to look at him.

Tears splashed into the frying pan, making the fat sizzle, but by breathing slowly and deeply, she gradually stopped them flowing. She wasn’t going to spend her life weeping or putting up with such treatment.

He’d disgusted her tonight and destroyed the trust that she’d fondly imagined lay between them. It had been weakening since their arrival, she’d sensed that, but been powerless to stop it. She’d racked her brains but couldn’t think of anything that would mend matters. And anyway, it took two people to make a happy marriage. Freddie had always been volatile, radiating happiness one day, down in the dumps the next. But lately he’d been unremittingly miserable.

More tears threatened but this time they didn’t fall. Something had died in her tonight, something that had been ailing for a long time. She had done her best for Freddie. Now it was up to him to draw closer again – or not. But she wouldn’t let him hurt her baby. She felt fiercely protective of this innocent life. She wanted it so very much. What was a family without children?

What was a marriage without love and trust?

Freddie and Irene had another quarrel just before they left for the sing-song on the Saturday evening. He’d been in a foul mood all day, though he was usually a bit more cheerful on fine days. But he was coming down with a cold and wasn’t feeling well.

She tried to be understanding, but honestly, it was only a cold! Everyone got them from time to time. The world didn’t stop turning because you had the sneezes and sniffles for a few days. It wasn’t as if he had a weak chest as she did.

She got their meal ready early and set it down in front of him.

‘Not stew again!’

‘It’s a bit hard to cook anything else but stew or a fry-up when you don’t have a cooker or an oven,’ she snapped. ‘But if
you
can do any better, you’re welcome to take over the cooking.’

‘I’d be happy to laze around at home all day like you women do. You want to try working on the roads. It’s no wonder I’ve caught a cold, getting soaked through day in, day out. They treat us like navvies. And what a primitive way to make roads. I can’t believe they haven’t provided proper ones for the new settlements, or cleared the blocks properly for us.’

She didn’t rise to the bait. This was a much-repeated complaint of his.

Everyone had been surprised when Gil started the work teams laying halved tree trunks down to form the surface of the road, starting with the muddiest patches. Corduroying, people here called it. It worked quite well, too, and though it made for a bumpy ride, that was better than getting bogged down in mud and having to unload everything to get out of it, then reload before driving off. Corduroying made sense because there was certainly no shortage of timber.

Irene preferred to walk along such roads to trying to avoid the hidden muddy hollows. She hated it when mud squished into her shoes. But Freddie always wanted jobs to be done the English way, ‘the proper way’ he called it. That was yet another cause for his grumbling and resentment.

‘Given how close a friendship you have with our dear foreman,’ he said suddenly, ‘how about using your influence to get me assigned to other work? He favours Andrew Boyd all the time.
He
gets put in charge of things. Given the way Gil looks at you, whether he’s touched you or not, I’m sure he’d do anything you asked him.’

That took her breath away for a minute or two. She didn’t intend to keep denying that she had any sort of
close friendship
with Gil, so continued to eat her meal, then, when she couldn’t force another spoonful of stew down, she cleared her plate away, and started getting ready to go out.

But the words lingered. Did Gil really look at her that way? He’d never said or done anything to make her think he fancied her, had always treated her with respect.

Freddie lingered at the table, blowing his nose from time to time and frowning into space. When she looked at the little clock her sisters had given her for a wedding present and saw how late it was, she couldn’t help saying, ‘It’s time to get ready.’

‘I don’t think I’ll go tonight.’

‘But I’ve been looking forward to the sing-song all day long.’

‘Go on your own, then. You’re good at doing things on your own, you are.’

She hesitated, then thought,
why not?
‘I will, then.’

She got ready, picked up the biscuit tin full of drop scones that she’d made earlier as her contribution to the supper, and went to the track to wait for the Boyds. She didn’t have to wait long.

‘Do you mind if I come with you tonight? Freddie isn’t feeling well. He’s got a bit of a cold.’

She saw by Norah’s searching glance that her friend had immediately guessed something was wrong.

Andrew smiled. ‘We’re always happy to have your company, Irene.’

So she walked along with them, though it felt strange not to be holding her husband’s arm.

Freddie caught up with them halfway to the camp ground.

‘How’s the cold?’ Andrew asked.

He shrugged. ‘I’ll live.’ He made no attempt to walk beside his wife.

‘Trouble?’ Norah whispered.

You couldn’t pretend in such a small community. Irene glanced sideways to make sure Freddie wasn’t within hearing. ‘Yes. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.’

Norah squeezed her hand and began to talk about something else.

When they got to the camp ground, Freddie walked off without a word of farewell to join Len Binton, with whom he’d been spending quite a lot of his spare time lately.

Irene’s heart sank. He’d been coming home smelling of booze and complaining about how expensive it was for a man to get hold of a drink or two when there weren’t any pubs. Was he going to do that tonight as well? He’d frightened her a little last time he got drunk.

Gil washed and dressed in clean dry clothes, ready for the evening out. He felt relaxed and happy. They’d nearly finished corduroying the worst bits of road and could go back to clearing the blocks again, so that everyone had the same amount of land cleared for them before they were left to clear further land on their own, which the Board would pay them to do.

Maybe then he could do something to his own block soon. He’d hardly touched it, though of course he’d have his allotted acres cleared by the working teams along with the others. It didn’t really matter, though he would like to make himself a bit more comfortable. He hadn’t even had time to build a lean-to kitchen.

Well, he’d have years to sort his own place out. He wasn’t short of a quid or two and at the moment it gave him more satisfaction to help the groupies, who were a hard-working lot, on the whole. Nearly all of them had buckled down and learned the new skills they needed here, putting up with hardship – mostly cheerfully – and making the best of it in spite of the incompetence of the Board. A grand bunch of folk, they were.