Loving Daughters (26 page)

51

‘Feel that wind!' Enid cried as they flew along.

She held one end of the sulky seat and her hat with the other hand.

‘Take off your hat!' he shouted, and she did, pinning it to the floor with a foot and allowing her free arm to rest along the back of the seat.

‘I love the feel of your back!' she cried, gulping the words back with great draughts of air. She knew he didn't hear. But she imagined he did, and the softening of his profile was his reply.

About a mile from the rectory he let the horse slow down and she let her body sway with the swaying motion of the sulky, until the horse, with head down, dragged along, and the sulky seat ceased to jig and her buttocks ceased to quiver and her whole body was like a spring that had been pushed down by a powerful hand and was suddenly released. There was the rectory in sight! Oh, no!

‘We could go for a longer drive,' he said. ‘There is a little more time.'

The movement of the sulky now was barely jerking her waist, as if a light and gentle hand was pushing it in and out. She felt like a child falling into a deep, sweet sleep with a dream awaiting. At the rectory gate he passed her the reins and leapt out.

‘Wait here!' he said. Wait here! A command! She saw a curtain rise and fall at Violet's window.

‘I should have waved,' she murmured. Then she started and Violet's curtain was flung boldly back. The church bell clanged half a dozen times. The horse, never harnessed when the bell rang, jumped to go forward and Enid had to pull him up and speak soothingly to his twitching ears.

Edwards appeared running, putting his arms into his short coat, evidently discarding his long one.

‘Just to the school turn-off,' he said, unlooping the reins from Enid's gloves.

The horse began to trot and he lifted his hat as high as it would go to Violet on the verandah with Small Henry in her arms.

‘He would love to come!' Enid said.

He slowed the horse to a stop. ‘We could go back and ask,' Edwards said.

The horse turned his eyes in their direction, chewing at the bit, only obliging because it was the one he tolerated, not the other.

‘Get along, get along!' Edwards said, in a voice he hadn't heard before. Stepping out smartly he stopped with a curved neck over Violet's fence, quite close to the jigging Small Henry who seemed in danger of leaping from Violet's arms with joy.

‘We are out looking for Una!' Edwards said. ‘She is missing!'

He frowned as severely as he could on Violet, who tossed her head and snorted so loud the horse looked about it, searching for a rival.

‘For my money she can stay missing!' She took Small Henry's hand thrust towards Enid and pinned it to her neck. ‘Not that she will! She knows her way around, that one!'

Enid climbed from the sulky and in front of Small Henry clapped her hands together, then parted them. ‘Let me!' she said. ‘I haven't had a nurse for a week!'

Small Henry, sensing her connection with the sulky and its connection with activity, swooped towards Enid, and Violet with a tightened face loosened her hold.

Enid sat tenderly on the edge of the verandah, wrapping Small Henry's nightgown around his legs, which were pumping up and down as if attached to bicycle pedals. He screwed his body to keep an eye on the horse. Edwards came and sat beside them. Enid put her face into the back of Small Henry's neck.

‘I believe he loves me best of all,' she whispered.

‘Me too,' he whispered back.

Violet heard, but couldn't distinguish the words. Enid's head flew up and Edwards was very still, his face and Enid's face in the wash of the last of the day's light, as if drawn by someone who could only manage one expression.

‘You rang the bell for church!' Violet said in reprimand.

‘I must ring it twice a day for the Boyds!' Edwards said. ‘There old clock won't go any more, Mrs Watts told me, and they have to tell the time by the bell!'

‘We should give them a clock, shouldn't we, Small Henry?' Enid said. ‘Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock! There would be a clock to spare at Honeysuckle!'

Edwards smiled a small, dreamy smile imagining the two of them delivering a clock to the poor Boyds, who lived with their ten children in an old tumbledown house on the roadside a half mile from Wyndham.

Violet stood frowning, waiting for Small Henry to be returned to her. Though Enid held him loosely, there might have been steel inside the soft flesh of her arms. She had her head laid sideways on his head and it was a leap from him that dislodged it, for there was the clip clop of Dolly's hoofs bringing George in the sulky.

He had barely finished tying Dolly to a telegraph pole and just escaped a clout on the side of his head, for Dolly questioned the presence of Edwards's horse there ahead of her, and swung her head to ask why, when Jack cantered up on Horse, swinging through the church gate, having recklessly jumped Horse over an obliging panel of staggering fence here and there.

Edwards's horse stamped, snorted and broke wind, saying he was there first and wasn't going to be crowded out. ‘Whoa!' Edwards called when the sulky tipped.

Dolly backed excitedly, her sulky wheels grinding against Edwards's wheels, and Horse, tied by Jack to Violet's gatepost, lifted his head and whinnied, letting the others know he was the least encumbered of the three and able to make the easiest getaway if the occasion called for it. Horse pranced in a half-circle to demonstrate he was practically free.

My goodness, Rachel said to herself from the gap in her curtains at the front window. There's something going on there. She could take something across perhaps to Edwards, but had dropped the habit, since the Herbert girls were the better cooks, and Edwards was looking sleek and plump from two larders. Her curiosity sent her looking at her kitchen shelves, and seeing nothing there she went out the back to her vegetable garden, in a state of wilt after the day's heat.

She found a watering can on the tankstand and trotting to the front began watering a clump of geraniums near the Post Office steps, an action that caused Enid's dreamy smile to deepen.

‘Come and sit by me, Father!' she called to Jack. ‘And say hello to Small Henry. He grows more beautiful every day!'

Edwards took hold of one of Small Henry's flapping hands to indicate his agreement and let Jack know he would not be giving up his place and Jack would have to squeeze himself on the other side, verandah post or no verandah post.

But Jack remained with fists on hips, a whip dangling from one. Violet decided to take a verandah chair and leave Small Henry where he was. She had been lumping him around all day, upset as they both were over the morning's trauma.

She didn't mind having a longer gander at the Reverend and Enid. She knew from the start Enid was the better catch! Rachel should be in on this!

‘Come across!' she called to the stooped shape with the watering can. ‘Half Wyndham is here anyway!'

Rachel dropped the can and came. She sat near Violet's feet with her hands in the silk lap of her Sunday afternoon dress.

‘She's missing!' Violet cried. ‘As you can see, we're all out looking for her!' Rachel ran her eyes over the assembled group to work out who she was.

‘Nonsense!' Enid said getting up. ‘Una has merely gone for a walk to the old racecourse!' Then she sat in confusion with an apology on her face for Edwards, remembering it was he who had said Una needed to be found and he and Enid were out looking for her.

‘I thought by the way the sulky was heading she was somewhere on the road to Candelo!' Violet cried.

Jack stirred the whip and Edwards crossed his legs quite firmly.

‘Take Small Henry if you like!' Violet said. ‘The air will do him good after the morning we had!'

Enid stood, pulling Small Henry's gown around his feet and shifting him in her arms to shut Jack off.

Edwards stood too. ‘For a very short run then,' he said.

He took Small Henry while Enid climbed into the sulky, then handed him up.

Small Henry flung his round head downwards to the sulky wheel and then to the horse's rump, and slapped a hand on the back of the sulky seat and rubbed a foot on the leather by Enid's lap. His body was like a tight, slippery barrel inside his clothes and Enid held him on the knee nearest Edwards so that his head touched first one shoulder then the other as the sulky bounced along.

‘Sit down, Jack!' Violet cried. ‘Let your blood cool down in the breeze!' Jack dug his whip handle deeper into the earth.

‘All you did wrong was to marry the wrong one off!' Ned's measured tread could be heard crossing the back verandah. ‘It's happened before and will happen again! You can be sure of that!

‘George! Come and sit here on the verandah! That pole will stay up on its own!'

George came. He sat in the doorway and miraculously Violet skidded her chair back on the boards so that his stretched out legs were by the chair legs.

Ned came through the hall deciding to lean heavily on his stick, and when he reached the doorway George had to move to let him through and he moved towards Violet, so close his face brushed that loose hanging arm and he could have gently bitten those twinkling fingers, playing away at an unseen piano.

He would too one day. One day he would!

Ned stabbed his stick on the verandah and Horse turned to look at him and sent the flesh on his back quivering like a ripple on dark water. He raised a foot and stamped it, alerting Dolly to something new. Dolly sprawled her legs and the sulky shafts were raised pointing like gun barrels towards the sky.

‘Whoa! You fools!' Jack called.

Ned plunged off the end of the verandah and beating Violet's lilies away with his stick fled down the side of the house towards the back.

‘Show him more than one horse and he's back in the front lines!' Violet cried. ‘He never fed a horse, watered a horse, rode a horse or probably saw a horse, but he wants you to think he rode them into battle!'

‘Poor Ned!' Rachel said. ‘He doesn't get any better!'

‘Do any of them?' Violet said. ‘Show me one that does!'

George bent his head so that an ear brushed Violet's waist. Me, me, he cried silently. Give me a chance to show you!

Jack went to Horse and untied him. Horse curved his neck in the direction of Dolly, who put her neck over Violet's fence and snorted inside a withered rancid geranium.

Jack, without raising his hat to the women, turned Horse thoughtfully towards the road, letting him dance and slide among the dust and stones reined tightly in.

Then he kicked one side, threw both elbows out and galloped Horse down the road.

‘So he should!' Violet cried. ‘Leave them be, I say. Surely he can light the lamp himself, for once in his life!'

52

Edwards let his horse pace smartly until they were out of sight.

Small Henry moved until his head slipped under Enid's chin and there it lolled approaching sleep when the horse slowed and stopped. Enid rocked her body gently so that Small Henry would be fooled into thinking they were still moving.

The horse flung its head up in surprise, but said no more, just rubbed a nose gently down a leg and left it lowered. When Enid gained the courage to lift her head and look at Edwards's profile she saw it stern and sad against a sky pale and thin like separated milk.

Around them the bush was slipping into dusk. A little wind brought a sharp and cruel edge to a day that had been all warmth like thick sweet custard. She saw the flesh over his jaw move. Words were inside there. She waited, breathing leaves and dust and dogwood and Small Henry's sweetly sweated head.

He pulled the reins and the horse, not knowing what was next, backed, and Enid with her awkward gloves groped for support and clung for a second to Edwards's thighs. Small Henry looking for a pillow threw his head about until he found the softness of Enid's breast.

Edwards turned the sulky with the horse threading its legs in and out and the wheels making great furrows in the dust. The horse was still, waiting.

Both of us, Enid thought.

‘I have to go back,' he said.

‘Of course,' she said.

Violet went ahead into Small Henry's room and turned the bedclothes back for Enid to lay him down.

Back on the verandah finding her hat and smoothing her sleeves she said she would go home with George when he was ready.

George rose at once from the doorstep. ‘George is always ready!' Violet cried.

Edwards walked his horse to the big tree and unharnessed it. Enid saw the horse's rear with the tail swishing about the deep dark seam separating its buttocks.

The seam in Edwards's trousers separated his, moving busily while he unbuckled straps and hauled the harness off.

Enid thought of the shells, feeling the seam, pushing her fingers at the crevice, searching for a blemish and finding none.

Edwards held the sound of George's sulky in his ears, allowing himself only one glance, and seeing the two white blobs of Enid's gloves flying like white moths through the dusk.

Inside the rectory Edwards called Una's name and ran through the rooms half expecting to find her on the bed in the room she had fixed for Small Henry. Then he started off down the creek.

The racecourse was about a mile along, one corner so close to the creek bank the races had to be abandoned one year when floodwaters spilled over the track.

She would have left there by now, he thought, and would be wandering up and down the creek.

First he would check the waterhole where the Herbert males swam. The activity was forbidden the girls, a rule of Nellie's that Jack upheld. Una defied him, trailing home dragging a bathing costume with her blouse clinging to her damp skin and her hair in wet strings on her sunburned neck. Enid usually succeeded in getting her wet things out of the way and saw her bathed and changed before Jack appeared. Inheriting many of Nellie's rules and habits she would have earned Jack's wrath if Una was caught, just as Nellie would have.

Edwards knew Una had taught herself to swim in the hole and appeared to him to do a good overarm. His plan had been to watch her closely and see if he could work out her method.

But she had flashed into the water on their honeymoon, bobbing up between the waves quite a way out and he had walked about in agitation looking to others on the beach for assurance that she would not drown. When she raced out finally and flung herself on the sand her wet body trembled, not with cold, vibrating with the power it held to battle the sea, whatever its mood. He sat beside her not going in, ashamed that he could not manage to get beyond the second breaker and out of his depth.

He found her now lying much as she did on the beach, only she was on the big rock that rose with a sheer face out of the water and levelled at the top, smooth as a table. A wattle with its trunk wedged against the rock at one side gave shade and a long stout rope was tied to a branch just above the spreading roots.

The rope now lay coiled on the rock and Una on her stomach was playing idly with one end. An early moon washed her with light, making him remember briefly the long summer evenings at home in England.

Una was in bloomers and camisole dappled with reflection from the tree. Her dress was flung among the branches, making the tree look as if it bore one large tawny coloured flower.

‘There you are!' Edwards called, and she rose on her hands then dropped down again and laid her face on the rock. He felt with her, the hardness meeting her cheekbones and hips and knees and squashing her breasts.

He could cross to her by going several hundred yards downstream to a crossing of rocks through which the water poured, but were raised clear of it, making it possible to step from one to the other.

She could well fly off while he was about it. ‘A shame I can't walk on water!' he called.

‘Are you sure you can't?' she said. She sat up and wrapped her arms around her legs. The ribbons tying her camisole were reduced to thin strings in their wetness. He thought of the feel of her breasts, bluish white porcelain, cool to touch, chillingly cold, but heating under rubbing fingers.

The water near him lapped his boots, but ran deep in the centre where he knew it was several feet over Alex's head, the tallest of the Herbert men. It was dark and still, no ripples there, speaking in some strange way to him of the space between them.

More sheer rock rose on the upper side of the creek helping form the waterhole. The hole was kept full by a steady flow of water through crevices at the bottom. The water spread out on the top side and here it was waist deep on an adult.

The Herbert boys and their cousins and friends learned to swim in what became known as the kids' hole. It was a positive step towards manhood when they could slide down the rock face and stay afloat in the big hole. Manhood was established when they could grasp the rope and swing wide over the water, dropping in neat as a stone and rising to fling wet hair from wet eyes and throwing the floating rope out of their way and strike out for the bank.

If Edwards removed his trousers he could wade through the kids' hole and reach Una with terrible lack of dignity and not knowing whether to get into the trousers then or fling them on the branch beside her dress.

Perhaps Una up there like a white bird newly landed, uncertain whether to stay or fly off and look for something better, was watching for this.

Damn her then, he said to himself and took off his boots. He set them on a log and rolled his trousers to his knees.

He waded into the big hole, surprised at the warmth of the water than feeling it cold when it slapped the cloth against his thighs. Colder still when it ran into his crotch, failing to cool the heat there, fiery as a branding iron. No relief, no relief, he thought wading on. He saw his white shirt turn grey and limp, felt the sting of the water under his arms and the cut of his starched collar into his neck like a wet knife.

‘Here!' she called, standing. ‘Take the rope!'

She flung it and he had to struggle from a hole taking a draught of water when he reached for it and it bobbed past him. He would float. He would show her how well he could float! Pray to heaven he didn't float over the deep part.

She hauled the rope back, coiling it with an expert hand. She threw it again and it slapped heavily his floating face. He seized it but it was a feeble thing weak as a twig. He gulped more water, slipped under the water – is this the way you drown? – pedalled wildly with his legs and got his head out again. He blew out his cheeks but his hair remained plastered to his eyes, limiting his vision. There was a blur of white, her legs dangling down unconcerned. He pulled at the rope, hand over hand, but it seemed never to become taut. He would die this way, bloated and helpless, dragged towards the rock but reaching it too late.

‘Wait!' she called, and his ears must have been out of the water for he heard. Wait? For what? He was drowning! What did she mean? Wait for a quick and painless death? He couldn't tell her for he was choking as well as drowning.

Then there was a splash and she was beside him. He must not hold her too tight and drown them both, he knew that! She held the rope high – it went taut for her! – and he throwing away his shame bound his arms around her and his mouth miraculously free of water was pressed to the sweet flesh of her breast. Gently they bumped the rock together and she with a cry kicked it hard with both feet sending them out again, the rope twirling, and her with both legs around his waist, a heel digging and rubbing at one of his buttocks.

They swung back to hit the rock and she with a practised foot found one of the small steps hollowed below the surface of the water and guided his foot to another.

‘I'll scale up,' she said. ‘Don't drop back!'

Drop back? Fall into that black, watery ravine? The air was sweet as wine, the moon was balanced up there, rocking like him, but safe, safe! He pressed his face to the rock, his knees were torn by the rock, his hands scratched by the rock, but the rock held him until he slipped, and was almost gone again. He heard her chuckle above him and the rope tickled his nose. He grabbed and he heard her feet running back and her breathing laughter and he was hauled up, ashamed he did so little for himself, wanting to shout and laugh when he at last rolled over, arms and legs flung out and her dress on the tree so close he could have touched it.

She sat beside him in her old pose, arms wrapped around her knees. One side of his face saw her narrow feet and her ankles hollowed beautifully, faintly blue where the skin stretched over the bone, like the pointed end of an eggshell.

He reached up and squeezed some water from her bloomers. She slipped a hand down the front of his trousers and taking a handful of cloth turned her hand so that water trickled down his belly and ran off, the way a stream runs into reeds. He stroked her wet hip and she turned her body and laid it on his hip, pressing so hard she wrung more water from them both. She rubbed her wet legs on his wet trousers and he undid them so that she could rub and push them off, he helping, and she pulling at his wet collar too and putting her face there, sticking to his skin at first, but soon fanned dry with her warm breath.

In a very short time the furnace of their bodies had dried them both.