Orphans of the Storm (11 page)
She dipped her pen in the ink but had only written
Dearest Nancy
when there was a knock on the front door. Jess laid down her pen with an inward sigh and crossed the kitchen and then the small hall. It was a nice house and Penny Lane was in a nice area. She and Ken had rented the house when she was first pregnant, still meaning to buy property at some stage, but Ken had decided against it. They had put the money Jess had inherited away in an account where it grew a little larger each year. Ken always called it ‘your nest egg’ and refused to allow her to use it because he said it was there for a rainy day and English weather was so uncertain. So the house had been furnished gradually, over the years, and now it was beginning to repay their care. The walls of the hall were cream washed, the boards were shiny, and the strip of red and blue carpet which covered the stairs matched the rug upon the floor.
Dearest Nancy
when there was a knock on the front door. Jess laid down her pen with an inward sigh and crossed the kitchen and then the small hall. It was a nice house and Penny Lane was in a nice area. She and Ken had rented the house when she was first pregnant, still meaning to buy property at some stage, but Ken had decided against it. They had put the money Jess had inherited away in an account where it grew a little larger each year. Ken always called it ‘your nest egg’ and refused to allow her to use it because he said it was there for a rainy day and English weather was so uncertain. So the house had been furnished gradually, over the years, and now it was beginning to repay their care. The walls of the hall were cream washed, the boards were shiny, and the strip of red and blue carpet which covered the stairs matched the rug upon the floor.
Upstairs in her small room, Debbie slumbered under a pink and white chequered counterpane with matching curtains at the windows and a rose-coloured carpet on the floor. There was a bathroom, a luxury almost unknown to householders in the area where Jess had been brought up, a spare bedroom, and the master bedroom overlooking the street, which Jess had carpeted in blue Wilton, with curtains of a paler blue at the windows, and a matching bedspread.
Now she crossed the hall and opened the front door, expecting to see Mrs Rudd, or perhaps the vicar, for Ken always came round the back. She eased the door back carefully and saw that the man outside was a policeman. He had a round and rosy face, and at first she smiled at him brightly, thinking he was going to tell her that he was collecting for some good cause, or perhaps warn her that the water would be turned off next day. Then she read his expression, the strained and anxious look, the almost apologetic way he was turning his helmet between his hands. She grabbed at the door jamb, feeling suddenly dizzy and sick. She managed to say: ‘Ken? Is it – is it my husband? Is he . . . has he . . . ?’
The policeman looked supremely uncomfortable. ‘There’s been a motor accident,’ he mumbled. ‘I think it would be best if I were to come in, Mrs Ryan. Then you could sit down and mebbe I could put the kettle on and we could . . .’
But Jess heard no more. She saw the policeman’s face tip crazily sideways and the hall carpet come rushing up to meet her. Then she plunged into darkness.
It was weeks and weeks later before Jess felt strong enough to continue the letter to Nancy which she had begun on that frightful evening when the constable had come to tell her that Ken had been killed. He had been driving the old gentleman home when an approaching driver, in a lorry, lost control of his vehicle and ploughed into the hire car. Ken and the lorry driver had been killed instantly, yet the old gentleman, sitting in the back seat, had escaped with only minor injuries, and this had seemed to Jess the most unfair thing of all, for Ken was young and had a family to support. However, by the time she picked up her pen to write to Nancy once more, autumn was bringing the leaves down from the trees in Prince’s Park and there was a nippy wind which had driven Debbie to play indoors. Jess was still devastated by Ken’s death, knew she would miss him as long as she lived, but she was beginning to be far too busy to spend time simply bewailing her loss. At first, she had been tempted to break into her nest egg, but had decided not to take an action which would have grieved Ken deeply. The trouble was, of course, that the little family had been reliant upon Ken’s wages for such things as the rent, the electricity and gas bills, and Jess’s housekeeping allowance. The money she earned from Dr Foster had simply enabled them to pay for the odd treat, and because she had been too grief-stricken to continue with her job immediately after Ken’s death Dr Foster had engaged another nurse, and no longer needed her services.
Her widow’s pension would not even have paid the rent, let alone Debbie’s school fees, and when September had arrived, Jess had reluctantly withdrawn her daughter from the small private school she had attended, and had made a big decision. She would have to work and the only work she knew was nursing and all the hospitals were in, or near, the city centre, and not out by Prince’s Park. But she might get shared accommodation, or possibly even lodgings, which would mean she could take on full-time work, yet not have to worry about Debbie’s being left alone in the house. So she had pulled herself together as much for the child’s sake as for her own and had begun to look for work. She had gained a nursing post in the Stanley Hospital and had then scoured the neighbourhood for suitable housing, ending up with a flat share on the Scotland Road over a bicycle sales and repair shop. To Jess’s intense relief, one of the other sharers had a small boy, only a few months older than Debbie, which meant that her child was not considered an impediment to flat sharing.
Having sorted out both a job and accommodation, Jess had handed in her notice to her landlord three weeks ago and had tearfully begun selling off the furniture which she and Ken had chosen and she had lovingly polished two or three times a week. It was worth a fair amount of money and any move, she was discovering, cost more than one could have credited. However, one of her mam’s favourite sayings had been ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’, and this was certainly true in Jess’s case. She had taken Debbie along to the Daisy Street school, almost opposite the Stanley Hospital, and had enrolled her as a pupil. She had then asked the teacher if she could recommend someone who would walk Debbie home to the flat after school each day. Miss Grant had advised her to try a Mrs Monk in Harebell Street and Jess and Debbie had gone round to the old woman’s house that very afternoon. Mrs Monk was a chatty, friendly little soul, talking brightly of her eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, and had professed herself happy to ‘help Mrs Ryan out’, as she put it. Fortunately, Debbie took to the little woman at once, though as they walked back to the tram stop she informed her mother that Mrs Monk’s house smelled funny, as did Mrs Monk herself.
‘Well, you won’t be visiting her house, my love, because the arrangement is that she will meet you out of school and walk with you back to the flat. Then I suppose she’ll just walk home again,’ Jess finished, rather lamely.
She waited for Debbie to make some comment but the child merely nodded. ‘I shall miss Ella an awful lot, especially her beautiful toys and her lovely garden,’ she said, ingenuously. ‘But I expect I shall soon make new friends and I did like Miss Grant, didn’t you, Mam? It will be nice to have a young teacher instead of old Miss Charlotte and Miss Abigail. They were too old to play games and I always thought Miss Abigail must suck sweets – those little purple ones – all day long because when she leaned over your desk she smelled of violets. Ugh!’
Jess laughed. The small school which her daughter had attended had been run by two elderly spinster sisters, and having seen the Daisy Street school Jess had realised that the education Debbie would receive there was likely to be a good deal broader than that which the Misses Grainger had offered. It was nice to know that, in moving her daughter away from the neighbourhood in which the child had been born and brought up, she would probably be doing her a good turn; Daisy Street School – and Miss Grant – had impressed Jess very much. Now that she came to think of it, she remembered that Ken had been doubtful over her choice of the little private school. ‘I know it’s nearby and you say the girls are taught to be little ladies, but one of these days Debbie may need qualifications of some sort . . .’ he had begun, but Jess had just laughed and told him that the most important thing right now was to make sure that Debbie learned to speak nicely and have good manners. Ken had bowed to her superior knowledge of female education, but having been conducted over the Daisy Street school Jess saw his point of view and was glad, in one way at least, of the move she was about to make.
But now she must write to Nancy explaining what had happened to Ken and how it had affected her life. She would give Nancy her new address and promise to write regularly whilst warning her old friend that because she would be in full-time work her letters might be even shorter than of old.
Having made up her mind to start, Jess took a deep breath, dipped her pen in the ink, and began the painful task.
Pete was alone in the house, unless you counted Aggie, who was making up the beds, cleaning the rooms and shouting remarks every now and then to the other women also engaged in house cleaning. At this time of the morning, his mother was usually in the kitchen or one of the storerooms, planning and preparing the meals for the day, while his father and the men were out bringing in sick cattle for doctoring.
Generally, Jamie and his youngest brother Jacko would have been with Pete because mornings were when they were supposed to do the schoolwork which was delivered regularly by the mailman. Today, however, was different. Jamie and Jacko, lucky little beggars, had been invited to a neighbouring station, the owners of which had hired a lady teacher for a whole week to instruct younger children in the art of basic first aid, mathematics and joined-up writing. Last year, Pete had done the course when it had been held at the Walleroo and it had been great fun. Other children had come to the station with their bed rolls and they had all mucked in together. His ma had excelled herself, cooking delicious meals, and every evening they had had a corroboree in the yard, for then the course had been held during the dry. However, this year the dry season was still some weeks off and Pete could not help thinking that any corroboree might easily get ruined by rain, and that the adventure of sleeping on the floor with a great many other lads could be spoiled by the insects and small animals which would invade any dry area should a heavy downpour start.
What was more, he was enjoying having his mother’s company to himself, for with his brothers away she had more time for him. Early that morning there had been an extremely large snake curled up in the bathtub and he had swelled with pride when she had shrieked for him to ‘Take it away, Pete;
please
get rid of it! Ugh, ugh, ugh, I nearly stepped on it!’
please
get rid of it! Ugh, ugh, ugh, I nearly stepped on it!’
He had looked into the tub with a little trepidation, for there were sufficient deadly snakes in the outback to make him cautious, but it was all right. The snake was not a venomous one. It was certainly very large, but Pete had not spent the last half dozen or so years trapping snakes with a forked stick for nothing. It wasn’t easy because the prongs of the stick simply clattered on the galvanised tin bath and did not dig in, but with a quick flip he managed to extract the creature from its refuge. Then he pinned it to the earth floor, seized it behind the neck so that it was unable to turn and bite him, and carried it outdoors. Had it been poisonous, he would have had to kill it, but as it was he simply carried it a good way from the house and released it into long, wet grass, thinking as it turned to give him one last look, before wriggling out of sight, that there had been gratitude in the golden eyes.
‘Pete, my love, you’re a brick,’ his mother had said when he returned to the house, giving him a hug. ‘Thank God you did your first-aid training last year, because you know how odd the women can be about snakes. If it hadn’t been for you I should have had to tackle it myself . . .’ she shuddered, ‘and if I had, it would have sensed how scared I was and turned round and bitten me. And don’t tell me it wasn’t poisonous, because you know what your pa says: a bite from a wild animal can infect you with all sorts . . . rabies, septicaemia . . . oh, anything. So thanks, Pete. You’re a son to be proud of.’
Right now, Pete was working out a sheet of mathematics and thoroughly enjoying himself. He loved the simple logic of figures and was already doing work two years more advanced than that normally given to his age group. His teacher in far-off Perth wanted him to take his School Certificate in a couple of years, though should he do so he would have to swot up on other subjects. And what good, he reasoned, were languages or history to a feller who meant to become either an engineer or a pilot in the air force?
He was just settling down to the very last problem on the page when there was a commotion outside and Bo burst into the room. He was a stockman’s son, the same age as Pete, and one of his closest friends. The boys rode together, swam in the river together, hunted together. In fact, the only thing they did not share was lessons, for Bo considered his education complete when he could read a bit and write his own name; mathematics left him cold.
He skidded to a halt beside Pete, and thumped him vigorously on the shoulder. ‘Get your pa’s gun, Pete,’ he shouted urgently, ‘quick, quick! Harry and the littl’un were splashing in and out of the big pool by the river . . . and there’s a croc. I seen him, honest to God I did, and he’s
huge
; the biggest one I ever seen. I screamed at the kids to get out o’ the water, then I come runnin’ for you. Hurry, Pete, hurry!’
huge
; the biggest one I ever seen. I screamed at the kids to get out o’ the water, then I come runnin’ for you. Hurry, Pete, hurry!’
Pete needed no second urging. He dashed across the room and into his father’s study, seized the gun from the rack and came out again at a gallop. He was seething with excitement, and with fear, too, for he had gone on a crocodile hunt with his father not so long ago and had been amazed – and terrified – by the speed with which the enormous reptiles could act. Once he had seen a croc, completely hidden but for its eyes in a shallow lagoon, leap out of the water, grab a big bull by the nose, and drag it under all in one movement. He had waited for the fight, the crash, the explosion . . . but there was nothing. The croc had drowned the beast without allowing it to give so much as one sound, one splash, and had then, he presumed, towed it into deeper water and devoured it.
But there was no time for such recollections now; no time for anything but speed, if the kids were to be saved. He and Bo ran, not for their own lives but for the lives of Bo’s two little brothers, and Pete told himself briskly not to think; no time. Just remember everything his pa had ever told him about crocs and guns. Be steady, aim between the eyes, fall back if you have to but keep an eye on the terrain behind you because you can’t afford even one little mistake when it’s a croc in your sights.
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