Matilda's Last Waltz (30 page)

‘What are your plans for when shearing gets too much, Stan?' Jenny couldn't imagine him in a unit by the sea.

‘Reckon I got a few seasons in me yet,' he mumbled around his cigarette. ‘I always promised Ma we'd have our own place when the time comes. Not too fancy, mind. Just a small place, with about a thousand acres so I can keep me hand in.'

Simone snorted. ‘Promises, promises! There's always one more shed, one more season. Reckon they'll carry you out of a bloody shed in yer box.'

Jenny heard the disappointment behind those sharp words and wondered if the idea she'd been harbouring was so silly after all. ‘If I decide to stay,' she began, ‘and I'm not promising I will, would you and Stan consider living here?'

Simone glanced quickly across at her husband, a flicker of hope instantly quashed as she looked back at Jenny. ‘I dunno, luv. We been moving around for so long, won't seem right being in the same place all the time.'

‘You could live in the bungalow by the creek, help me keep house and organise the food for the shearers. Stan could help in the yards and oversee the woolshed.'

His expression was as dour as always, the lack of response more telling than words.

Simone looked at him and sighed. ‘Sounds like heaven to me, luv. But Stan ain't one for settlin' down. Got itchy feet.' She shrugged, her smile forced.

‘No worries, Simone,' Jenny said hurriedly. ‘I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet, but if I do stay then I'll write. Perhaps by then we can twist Stan's arm a bit.'

Simone bit her lip as she looked from Jenny to Stan, who was peering into the depths of his beer as if the answers were to be found at the bottom of the glass. ‘Me and Stan are right with the way things are for now, Jen. But I'll give you the address in Newcastle anyways. Our daughter will see we get your letters.'

Stan drained his beer and stood up. ‘Thanks for the tucker, Mrs Sanders. Ma and me really appreciate all you done, but we got an early start tomorrow.'

Jenny shook his hand. It was soft from years of handling wool, the lanolin a natural protection from calluses. Simone's embrace was warm and comforting, and Jenny realised she would miss her dreadfully. This cheerful, stoic woman was the nearest she'd come to a mother since Ellen Carey, and the thought they may never see one another again was hard to accept.

She went with them out on to the front verandah, and watched them cross the yard to the cookhouse. With a final wave, she turned back into the house. It already felt deserted, the sight of the dishes in the sink and the empty chairs merely highlighting that sense of emptiness. The dust had returned, silently and almost secretly as it always did. The polished tables were dulled by it, the bright flowers wilting beneath its gossamer weight.

Ripper was released from the bedroom to be fed the scraps, then turfed out for his nightly run while Jenny saw to the dishes. Then, with a final cup of coffee, she plumped down into an easy chair and breathed in the scent of the night.

The warmth caressed her. The rustle of leaves and dry grass lulled her. The music was playing again. Drawing her back – back to a gentle embrace and the whisper of satin. The time had come to open the diaries again.

*   *   *

Dry winter was followed by rainless summer. There was no time to mourn her baby, for the knee-high, tawny grass was crisp beneath a merciless sun, the trees stark, their leaves shrivelled and wilting. Rabbits in their thousands and vast mobs of 'roos came ever southward to the grassy plains as the great outback dried up and sweltered.

Matilda looked out over the pastures, her hat low on her brow, shielding her eyes from the glare. Thanks to Tom Finlay, and his help with overseeing the shearing shed last year, the wool cheque had covered the final payment on the bank loan. This left her with just enough to see her through another summer. She was under-stocked for a station as large as Churinga, and if it wasn't for the rabbits and 'roos, the grass just might last out. There were a thousand head of Merinos left of the once great mob, yet their depleted numbers would make them easier to keep an eye on. If the rains didn't come, then she would have to scrub cut and hand-feed them.

With their meagre supplies in saddle-bags, Matilda and Gabriel patrolled the pastures. She learned to sleep on hard-packed earth, boots on, rifle cocked, alert for the rustle of a wild pig or the stealthy creep of dingo or snake. Searing days followed freezing nights. With Bluey trotting at her side, she rode amongst the widespread mob. Each dead sheep made her want to cry, but she buried it in grim silence, knowing there was nothing she could do about it.

Lambing time came, bringing a race against the natural predators. Matilda checked the pens she and Gabriel had put up on the far western corner. With a depleted mob, it would be easier to have the ewes all in one place before they dropped their lambs.

Each lamb had to be caught and graded, its tail ringed and ear tagged. Castration was a bloody, filthy job, the testicles popped between the fingers, chewed off and spat out. It repelled her, but after her initial hesitancy she learned to do it swiftly. For if she was to maintain a superior quality wool, it was a necessary evil.

So was crutching – an arduous, repulsive task that had to be carried out in the fields. No self-respecting shearer would touch a dirty fleece unless he was paid double rate and she couldn't afford to run a learning shed like Kurrajong, where the young shearers learned their trade on wets, cobblers, dags and fly-blowns.

The rear end of a sheep is the dirtiest thing this side of the black stump. Covered in excrement and buzzing with egg-laying flies, the wool gathers in black lumps or dags. Matilda and Gabriel wrestled with the squirming, brainless beasts and cut the wool close to the papery skin. Gabe seemed unaffected by the flies, but Matilda had to stitch bobbing corks to the brim of her hat – it was her only protection from the black swarms that never seemed to leave them.

As the shearing season loomed closer, she and Gabriel began the muster. The mob was graded in each pasture, some penned, others brought down to the paddocks near the homestead. Matilda followed them over the dry, dusty land and began to fret. Her mob had increased, and although it was nowhere near the numbers it had once been, she couldn't afford to pay a quid a hundred to have them shorn.

She stood in the silent shearing shed and looked up at the cathedral roof where dust motes danced in beams of light. The smell of sweat and lanolin, of wool and tar, hung in the air. She breathed it in with deep pleasure. This was what it meant to be a squatter, a keeper of sheep, a provider of the best wool in the world. Her glance fell to the floor and the bleached circles on the wood where generations of shearers had dropped their sweat. Then she eyed the tar buckets in the corner and the generator. It had been fixed by a passing swaggie in return for a couple of meals and a bed for the night. The ramps and sorting tables were sturdy with new wood, but what use were they when she had no shearers, no tar boys, no shed hands or sorters?

The sigh came from deep within her. Shearers wouldn't wait to be paid. But no men meant no wool. And without the wool cheque, she couldn't survive.

‘G'day, Matilda. See you got the muster under way.'

She turned and smiled at Tom Finlay whose Irish ancestry was evident in his dark hair and green eyes. She shook his hand. ‘Yeah. Almost done. How're things on Wilga?'

‘Mob's almost in. Bonzer lot of lambs this year despite the lack of rain. Been a fair cow trying to hand-feed the buggers, though.'

Matilda nodded her understanding. ‘Come into the house for a cuppa. I might even have a bottle of something stronger somewhere.'

‘Tea'll be right.' He walked with her across the acre of cleared, flattened earth. ‘Good to see you looking well, Molly.' His endearment made her smile. He'd always called her Molly, and she'd always liked it. ‘Had me and April worried when you took crook last year. She wanted to come over and visit after I finished managing your shed, but you know how things are.'

She pushed through the screen door and headed for the range. ‘Probably wouldn't have found me,' she said as she cut hunks of cold mutton and stuffed them between slices of bread. ‘Spent most of the year patrolling the pastures. With only me and Gabe to keep an eye on the mob, there didn't seem much point in coming back here much.'

‘What about the young Bitjarras? Surely you and Gabe could have used them?'

She brought the rough meal to the table and shook her head. ‘Worse than useless. Most of them are too young, the others only get in the bloody way. Besides, I haven't enough horses for all of us, so I left the boys here to sort out the barns and sheds and to tidy up after winter.'

They ate in silence, and when they'd finished, leaned back in their chairs with mugs of good, strong tea.

Tom regarded her thoughtfully. ‘You've changed, Molly. I remember a skinny little girl who wore ribbons in her hair and liked to dress up in her Sunday best for the picnic races and barn dances.'

Matilda took in his handsome Irish looks, the character etched in fine lines around his eyes, the sunbaked skin, the broad, capable hands. ‘We all change,' she said quietly. ‘You're a man now. Not the horrid little boy who used to pull my hair and rub my face in the dirt.' She sighed. ‘The time for ribbons and party dresses is over, Tom. We've both had to grow up.'

He leaned forward. ‘That doesn't mean you can't have fun, Molly. You're young and pretty under those old rags. You should be going to the parties and looking for a husband. Not sleeping rough and up to your armpits in sheep shit and daggy wool.'

Matilda laughed. She felt a hundred years old, and knew she must look a sight in her father's old flannel trousers and much darned shirt. ‘If you think that, then you've been out in your own fields for too long, Tom.'

He shook his head. ‘This is no life for a young girl on her own, Moll. And there're plenty who'd like the chance to get to know you.'

Her amusement died. ‘Men, you mean?' she said sourly. ‘Andrew Squires still sniffs around, and there've been one or two others, but I send 'em off with a flea in their ear.'

His green eyes were full of humour, and she glared back at him, daring him to laugh at her. ‘I don't want or need a man about the place unless he's a shearer and leaves when he's done his job.'

Tom pushed the pouch of tobacco towards her then rolled himself a cigarette. ‘Talking of shearers,' he drawled, the humour still making his eyes dance, ‘how many head do you reckon you got?'

‘Just under the fifteen hundred,' she said promptly as she inexpertly tried to roll her own. ‘But I'll manage this year. No worries.' She kept her eyes on her cigarette, afraid to let him see the hope in her eyes.

‘I got the shearers coming next week. If you can get your mob marked, crotched and over to Wilga by then, they can be done with mine.'

‘How much will it cost?' Tom's kindness was overwhelming, but she had to be practical.

He grinned. ‘Well, now, Molly,' he drawled. ‘That all depends.'

She raised an eyebrow and looked into his face.

‘I got me a deal with Nulla Nulla and Machree. They're bringing their mobs to me this year, and they can both afford an extra penny here and there to cover your expenses.'

She grinned back. ‘Crafty.'

He shook his head. ‘Not at all. Old Fergus can well afford a few pennies, and so can Longhorn. Tight-fisted bastards, the pair of 'em. Now, what do you say?'

‘Thanks,' she said simply, real appreciation in her eyes, offering the firm handshake of a deal agreed.

‘Another cuppa wouldn't go amiss. Me mouth's like a drover's armpit.'

She poured him more tea, wishing there was some way in which she could repay him. But Tom Finlay had always been able to read her mind and age apparently hadn't dimmed that particular talent. ‘You'll live in the house with me and April, of course, but you'll not be getting your sheep sheared for nothing, mind. There's plenty of work you can be doing, and you'll be too tired at the end of it for gratitude.'

Matilda smoked the last of her cigarette in silence. One day, she promised herself, she would repay Tom. He was the only one out of a dozen neighbours who'd offered help, and she would never forget it.

After he left, she crossed the yard to the Abo gunyahs. ‘Gabe, I want you to ride out with me tomorrow and finish mustering. Your two eldest boys can stay here and make sure they're kept in the home pasture. We're taking the mob to Wilga.'

‘Bloody good shed here, Missus. Why we going Wilga?'

She eyed the bony figure in the thin blanket. ‘Because we can get the job done cheaper there.'

He frowned, his mind working slowly. ‘Big job, Missus. Taking mob to Wilga. Me and the boys is tired,' he said mournfully.

Matilda swallowed her impatience. She was tired as well, exhausted if the truth be known, and Gabriel was a lazy good-for-nothing bludger. ‘You want sugar and baccy, Gabe?'

He nodded with a grin.

‘Then you'll get it when the mob's back here from Wilga,' she said firmly.

His smile disappeared and he looked slyly at his wife. ‘Can't leave the missus. Baby coming.'

Her exasperation reached boiling point. ‘There are six other bloody women to look after her, Gabe. This is her fourth kid, and you never stuck around when the others were born.' She eyed the grubby children playing around the encampment in the dirt. They ranged from crawling babies to adolescents, from rook black to pale coffee. Most of them had the wild, black hair of their ancestors, but some were tow-headed, almost blond. A drover or two had obviously got lonely for female company on his way through. ‘Where are the boys? I'm going to need them too.'

Gabriel looked into the distance. ‘Kurrajong,' he muttered. ‘Good money for jackaroo there.'