Freedom's Land (6 page)

Somehow the money was found for these items and no one would say how. Pieces of material would simply appear and be cut up into pillowcases or sheets or underwear. And there were blouses to be embroidered on the long voyage to Australia. Never mind that Irene wasn’t a good needlewoman. She could learn, couldn’t she?

It seemed that there wasn’t a minute to spare and the day of departure came racing towards them.

That day, Mam wept solidly from the time everyone got up and Da’s eyes were bright as he said his final farewell before he left for work.

It was a relief to Irene when she and Freddie got on the train and waved goodbye. She felt torn apart. Half of her wanted to jump out of the train and stay with her family, the other half was excited about this adventure.

As they pulled away from the station, she sat there numbly for a minute or two, feeling exhausted. Then she looked at Freddie and burst into tears, sobbing against his chest, not caring what the other passengers thought, until she’d wept herself dry.

After which, she blew her nose and dredged up a smile for him because he was looking so anxious. ‘We’ll make a fine new life for ourselves in Australia, won’t we, Freddie?’

‘Yes, love, we will. And one day there’ll be enough money for you to come back and visit your family, I promise you.’

She nodded, though she didn’t believe him. People like them didn’t make enough money to travel round the world. People like them struggled to make ends meet. He was always too optimistic about his various schemes. She’d seen it time and time again. But this one was run by the government, so surely you could trust in them not to cheat you.

And not only were she and Freddie going to the ends of the earth, but they were getting themselves into debt to do it, because you had to pay back the price of the farm equipment and animals. They had precious little saved if things went wrong.

Still, Freddie was young and strong, and she was going to be better in a warm country, she just knew she was. It was a leap into the dark, exciting and terrifying at the same time. But they’d make it work.

AUSTRALIA, 1923

Gil Matthews

4

L
ife was never the same without Mabel. Gil still missed his wife, even five years after her death. She’d only been twenty-eight at the time, the same age as him. Not a long life, that. So unfair for her to die. If she’d lived in the city, she might still be alive, but they were too far away from help on the farm and she died of a ruptured appendix before they could get her to hospital.

He wasn’t even there to say goodbye to her. He’d been away fighting in Europe, had heard about her death from his brother weeks after she’d died –
in a damned letter, two scribbled paragraphs!

The war had ended soon afterwards. If only it’d ended a bit sooner, he’d have been home and maybe he could have done something to help her. He’d learned a lot about first aid in the Army, been on a training course and all. He preferred tending the wounded to killing any day.

They’d told him he was fighting for his country, but he was never quite sure what his country was fighting for. None of it made any sense to him.

He’d turned into a loner since he got demobbed, not wanting any close friends, not going back to the farm, just working here and there, finding ways to fill the time, wondering if it was worth even bothering.

He still had Mabel’s letters, and every now and then he’d feel a desperate need to read them and hear her voice in his head again. Lovely letters they were, written just as she spoke. She’d had a real gift for words and in spite of her anger at him for enlisting, she’d written to him every week while he was overseas, telling him little stories about the farm and the other people in the town.

After he’d read as many of her letters as he could bear, he’d get drunk, not roaring drunk, he didn’t want to be a trouble to anyone or to shame himself publicly. He just drank quietly on his own till he passed out and the pain went away for a while.

He’d expected Mabel to be waiting for him to come home, dammit, had needed her desperately after what he’d gone through.

He shouldn’t have enlisted, really, still felt guilty about that. But after she’d lost the fifth baby, something had snapped inside him and when two of his friends enlisted, he did too in a fit of black misery.

He and Mabel had had such hopes this time that the baby would live. She’d reached six months, longer than ever before, and the baby had quickened, not vigorous like some but giving gentle little kicks and twitches. They’d joked that it must be a girl. Then it’d stopped moving and they’d begun to worry.

One day his brother had come running out to the paddock to fetch him and he’d stood helplessly outside the bedroom as Mabel lost the baby, screaming and sobbing and begging God to save it.

Gil hadn’t believed in God since then.

A boy, it’d been, not a girl. Perfectly formed. But white and still in the bloodied sheet they’d wrapped it in. It had never breathed, had died inside her, they said.

The doctor had tried to stop him looking at it, saying it wasn’t really a child yet. But it was. And it was the only son he was ever likely to have, so he’d looked his fill and named his son John, holding him close until they forced him to let go. It took three of them to do that.

Afterwards, while his cheeks were still wet from weeping, the doctor had told him there was no chance of Mabel ever giving him a child, and if he valued her life, they shouldn’t even try to have another.

They took away the poor limp body, but he’d found where it was and retrieved it from the rubbish tip – that was the best way to think about it,
retrieved,
not dug up. He’d buried John surreptitiously in the family plot in the church yard, wrapping the poor little body in his mother’s silk shawl and saying prayers over it before covering it up, not really believing them but it seemed wrong not to say the words. Babies that hadn’t gone to full term didn’t count, didn’t get a proper burial, but his son had.

And at least if Gil enlisted, he’d not be able to get her pregnant again.

He’d soon wished he hadn’t, because he hated Army life and missed her horribly. But to his surprise, he’d survived everything the Army threw him into, starting with Gallipoli in April 1915.

He’d never forgotten his first battle or how cold they’d been. He’d wake up shivering sometimes in the night, as he’d shivered during the hours before the landing. And all because some stupid bloody officer, all fancy braid and brass, had given orders to keep greatcoats rolled in packs and roll tunic sleeves up to the elbows so that flashes of white skin would identify their lads.

He still had nightmares about that battle and the good mates he’d lost there.

He had a lot of nightmares after the war. You saw things that you never spoke of to civilians. But you could never forget them. They were etched into your brain with acid.

One day in 1923 an advertisement in the newspaper caught Gil’s eye and he decided to apply for a foreman’s job on this new Group Settlement Scheme the government was setting up. It sounded like a worthwhile project, and he’d be doing something useful for lads who’d fought in the war. The idea of that gave him more hope than anything had for a long time.

Maybe he’d be so busy he’d not slip into his drinking bouts.

Maybe.

They accepted him for the position, but they weren’t starting work yet, so he had to fill in a month or two before he was needed. They offered him temporary work but he decided to spend the time going down south to see the country that was to be settled, working his way by doing odd jobs. He was a handy fellow, if he said so himself, and could always find a way to earn a meal or a night’s shelter.

He was appalled to find how little had been done to prepare for the settlers, raw lads from Britain most of them, by the sounds of it. It wasn’t farming land they were being offered, either; it was forest mostly. Big trees, magnificent some of them, like gods of nature.

Why the hell did the authorities want dairy farming set up there?

He nearly quit the job in sheer disgust, because he didn’t want to be part of something so badly organised that it would be bound to hurt the lads involved.

But something drew him back to Perth on the appointed date. After all, if the scheme was a muddle, they’d need practical fellows like him even more, to help sort it out. He didn’t waste his time complaining, either. When had the authorities ever listened to anything they didn’t want to hear?

A few days before he was due to go south, he shut out the world, opened a bottle of rotgut and pulled out Mabel’s letters.

It was the last time he’d do this, he told himself, definitely the last.

It was two days before he could see or think clearly again.

This time, however, the drinking didn’t bring the oblivion he sought. However much he poured down, he seemed to keep hearing Mabel’s voice. She was angry with him, telling him to shape up, telling him to make something of his life not throw it away.

She’d have gone for him with the poker if she’d found him drunk during their life together. She didn’t believe in boozing, Mabel didn’t.

Well, she might be safely at rest, but he wasn’t. So if he wanted to booze, he damned well would.

5

T
he Boyds set off for Australia early one morning, well before it was light. The children had been excited the night before, even Janie, getting in the way of the final packing, unable to settle to sleep. Now they were subdued and yawning, which was probably a good thing.

They all walked through the dark frosty streets with their remaining worldly possessions piled on a handcart, pushed by her brother-in-law. Andrew was monosyllabic, the boys were equally silent, but kept very close to him, Norah was fighting a desire to weep and Janie was clinging to her hand.

The journey south seemed interminable. On the train the boys grew restive and Janie wouldn’t leave her mother’s side. She’d stopped sobbing now but her face was white and anxious. She turned away from the boys when they tried to talk to her and she ignored Andrew’s questions.

Jack was used to bossing his younger brother around and had expected to do the same with Janie, but she was adroit at avoiding or ignoring him. That baffled and irritated him. Ned ignored her back. He had a happy nature, was still a little boy unlike Jack who was growing up fast and tried always to emulate his father.

Andrew looked exhausted, which was no wonder, because he’d worked well into the night for the past few days, packing and repacking, finding ways to fit as many of their possessions as possible into the wooden crates which he was paying extra to ship out with them. They’d been deposited at the railway station the night before, ready to be loaded on to the train.

When her husband and the children fell asleep, Norah was glad of some time to herself. She stared across at his face. No need to study his features, she knew them by heart now, but she sometimes wondered what was behind the attractive mask. She didn’t feel she knew him much better now than she had when she’d agreed to marry him. Oh, she knew what he liked to eat, that he kept himself very clean, was an extremely hard worker. But what was he
thinking?
How did he
feel
about being married to her?

She presumed they’d be sharing a cabin on the ship and she wasn’t sure she was ready for that yet. But he hadn’t said anything about it, so she hadn’t either. That was one area of their lives that neither of them had talked about since he’d suggested they wait to consummate the marriage. But she still remembered that kiss.

After a long, weary day’s travel they arrived at Tilbury and saw the ship they would travel on anchored midstream. They had to go on board by barge, together with a couple of other families. The novelty of this revived the lads considerably, but Janie didn’t like heights and was white-faced and shivering as she clambered on to the ship.

Once on board, they were asked to stand in family groups on deck while their cabin luggage was carried on board, though the wind was cold and it was threatening to rain. An officer called for silence and introduced the two people beside him as the matron, in charge of women and girls, and the steward in charge of the men and boys.

‘Will the women and girls move to this side of the deck, please,’ Matron said.

Norah exchanged puzzled glances with Andrew, wondering what this was about. One of the younger women clung obstinately to her husband’s hand, insisting she wasn’t leaving his side.

Matron looked at the group and sighed. ‘They didn’t tell you that the women and girls would be sleeping separately from the men and boys, did they?’

There was a burst of indignant protest and when it didn’t stop, the officer roared, ‘Quiet!’

‘Will you be all right?’ Andrew asked in a low voice.

‘Yes, of course.’ Norah moved across the deck with her daughter. Janie had perked up considerably at the news she’d have her mother to herself. Norah was rather sorry about that.

After Matron had ticked off their names on a list and given them cabin numbers, she led the way down to the passenger cabins, where the women were to sleep in fours. The men and boys were to sleep in the hold, it seemed, which had been fitted up with bunks for the trip.

Norah and Janie were the first into their cabin.

‘Can I sleep on the top bunk, Mummy?’

‘Why not?’ She lifted Janie up to try it.

‘I’m glad we’re not with
them,
aren’t you?’

‘No, I’m not. Families should stay together.’

‘They don’t feel like family to me.’

‘Janie, you have to stop this—’

Just then a young woman came into the cabin and smiled at them shyly, so Norah stopped scolding her daughter, not wanting to air their private business.

‘I’m Irene Dawson.’

‘Norah Web— I mean, Boyd. And this is my daughter, Janie.’