Sarah Thornhill (4 page)

Ma knew how to choose her battles. Grumbled about me being a hobbledehoy, but let me have a pair of Bub's old trousers to wear under my skirt.

Heaven knows what kind of end you'll come to, Dolly, you're that wilful, she said. All's I can do is make sure you're decent.

That first day we went out on the horses, Pa rode along with us. Star rolled his eyes and trampled and Pa shouted out, Steady! Whoa! Steady now Star! so the horse got even more flighty. Jingles led us out on Lightning, then Mary on Belle and me on Queenie, then Pa, and Phillip coming along behind on Valiant.

When we got to the rocks where Thornhill's finished, Jingles kept going, the horses picking their way along the stony track. Thought I'd hear Pa call for us to stop, but he didn't.

Hoy, Jingles, I said, where are we going?

Didn't answer.

When we got to the clearing it seemed no one was about. Then a woman crouched out of one of the humpies, her skinny legs and arms like sticks poking out of the dress. Didn't seem surprised to see us. Spoke sharp and quick back into the humpy and out come the crooked feller. Hung on the stick, watching the ground. The woman bent and went back into the humpy. Watched us through the opening.

Pa got down off Star, gave the reins to Jingles. Had something wrapped in a cloth from the kitchen. Stood with the fire between him and the man.

Good-day to you my old friend, he called.

His voice too loud for the place. I thought, how come he knows that man?

Wish you a mighty good day of it, he said, and here's your bite to eat.

Held the bundle out but the man took no notice. Seemed he could lean on his stick all day while Pa watched him across the fire, the smoke rising into the still air. Pa put the bundle on the ground, unwrapped it, laid the things out. Bread, meat. Potatoes. A twist of baccy. They lay on the ground like so much rubbish.

Pa looked up at Jingles on the horse.

I've asked you before and I'm asking you again, he said. You talk this feller's tongue. Tell him I mean well.

You'd of thought Jingles didn't hear.

Pa turned to Phillip.

Come now, lad, Pa said. Tell him good-day, no more than that.

Phillip coughed, rubbed his neck as if it was bothering him.

Damn your eyes, Pa shouted. What does a man have to do!

Sorry Mr Thornhill, Phillip said. Begging your pardon.

The steam went out of Pa quick as it had come.

Never mind, lad, he said. Never you mind. Take the girls back now, and Star along with you.

Up on the horse, it might of been the first time I was ever taller than my Pa.

No, Pa, I called, it's too far! Come with us!

Get along, lass, Pa called. Get away off home now. I'll be along directly.

As we left the clearing I looked back. Pa standing by the fire, the man on the other side. I watched the man turn and bend, showing his skinny backside in the sad old trousers, and get himself into the humpy. Last I saw, Pa was alone, with the smoke swirling round him and the victuals lying on the ground.

What's that, Jingles, I said. What's that he give them?

Jingles didn't turn, didn't answer.

Few victuals, Miss, Phillip said from behind me.

Yes, I said. But why'd he bring it?

That was the wrong question. You didn't need to ask why you'd bring bread and beef for those skinny folk.

Who are they, I said. They kin to you?

Kin to Jingles, Phillip said, but not in his usual bouncy way. Through his auntie up the Branch.

Oh, I said.

Your pa takes victuals regular, he said. Or sends them along of us. Rain or shine.

Just to give, like, I said.

That's it, Phillip said. Just to give.

Part of Christian duty, I supposed. Never known Pa bother with anything churchy before, but what else could it be?

Why'd they leave it on the ground? I said.

That was only the start of the questions I had, but Phillip come in like he hadn't heard me.

Poor old things, your pa don't like to see them wanting, he said. Told me once, knows what an empty belly's like. Reckon you young ladies never been hungry, eh? Reckon you'll be having a nice leg of mutton today?

Turning the subject, of course, and Mary chimed in then about the crown of lamb she was going to help Mrs Devlin with. The rosemary and the onions and the new potatoes.

When we got back I sat in the yard on the woodchop stump, waited for Pa. He trudged up as if he was tired, bent to scrape the mud off his boots without seeing me, his face so heavy I thought better of saying anything. He went to the back door and took his boots off so he was just in his socks. Made to go in, but saw me.

You been a long time, Pa, I said.

He walked over across the flagstones, crouched down in front of me.

They're poor souls, Dolly, he said. Poor helpless souls. Dying out like all their race.

That blue stare of his.

I'd give, Dolly, he said. Ease their passing. Only they won't take. Oh, they take when I'm gone. Take and eat. If not they'd of starved long since. Only not from me. Not from my hand.

Something twisted his face out of shape and I thought he was laughing, but he caught his breath in a sob.

Your mother took their part, Dolly, he said. Made me promise. Why you seen me down there. Why I'll stand there and beg them.

His voice was strangling round the words. He'd gone an old man suddenly, eyes blank and dark.

Stand and beg them, he said. Come again the week after, do it again. Because of your mother.

On the last word I could hear the feeling come up his throat and stop him.

By God Dolly, he said, voice just a raspy whisper. By God but I wish that day back again, and have it come out different.

What day? I thought. What different
?

Is it cadging, Pa? I said. When you give them? Or Christian duty?

He cleared his throat with a great cough. Took a breath I could hear going all the way down. Stood up and touched the top of my head, a brush of his fingers.

Yes, well, he said. Your ma's of a different view, you know, Dolly.

His voice was ordinary again.

If you wasn't here in them days you wouldn't know, he said. Your ma weren't here, she don't know. In this one thing I got to go against her.

Stood up, lifted a foot to see the bottom of his sock, where he'd walked on the stones.

Your ma wouldn't like it, he said. You girls being down there. Shouldn't of taken you. No need to say where you was today, Dolly. I'll tell Jingles, take you down the other track when you go out on the ponies.

Went over to the back door, took his socks off and laid them on his boots, walked into the house with his big white feet bare.

What he'd told me was nothing more than commonsense. You couldn't see people go hungry.

So what was that terrible twisting across his face? That thing that was like an animal eating away at him from the inside?

M
A WAS
a great one for visiting. Not gentry, we wasn't on visiting terms with the quality. Not the folk from along the Branch either, scrabblers with not a boot to their name. The ones we visited with were
the better
families
. Folk on the up-and-up like we were, mostly emancipists. Cobbs from Milkmaid Reach, and the Lewises from Ebenezer, Fletchers from Portland Head. Old Mr Loveday if he was sober. The Langlands. They'd row down of a Sunday afternoon, the river a highway for the families along it. Mrs Devlin would cook up a big batch of cakes and scones, Anne busy all afternoon keeping the cake-stand full.

Ma knew everyone's stories, which ones were
come free
and which ones was
sent out
, and if they was
sent out
, what they'd done. Different from Mrs Herring, she didn't mind telling what she knew. Mr Chapman stole a sheep at Burleigh Fair, lucky not to of hanged. Mr Fletcher knocked a man down, took his watch and two half-crowns out of his pocket.

What about Mrs Fletcher, I said.

Can you keep a secret, Dolly? she said, and before I'd said yes she told me. Mrs Fletcher was one of those women sells themselves to men, she said. Got caught when she stole the purse of a man come to take his pleasure.

How did she know all the secrets, I wondered.

Langlands come often, Ma and Mrs Langland out of the same mould, very genteel in their view of themselves. She was a stout woman bursting out of her clothes but dainty in her ways like a doll. Had a shawl, paisley pattern, soft and light as duck down. She'd leave it on the back of a chair and then ask you to give it to her. Be waiting for you to say, goodness that's soft, and so light! because then she could tell you it was Indian kashmir, a bit unusual, which was her way of saying it was better than anyone else's.

No secrets stood behind Mrs Langland. From a good family back Home, if you believed what she said. Not too high up to marry an emancipist, mind. Long as he'd made good. My people were in a comfortable situation, she'd say, and settle the shawl on her shoulders.
My people
. After she said it, I noticed Ma started saying it too, about her
people
in Brixton Rise.

She liked to lord it over everyone, Mrs Langland. Very pleased with herself, and thought it was all her own cleverness.

Old Mr Langland, he'd worked for a silk-weaver in Spitalfields, Ma told me. Caught running off with twenty-seven silk handkerchiefs under his coat. He was in the first lot sent out forty years before, when the Colony was just a few tents in among the bush and not too many rules about anything. Him and Pa would rather of been out in the yard with their pipes going, spitting on the stones. But they was trying to latch on to being respectable now, so they sat with the teacups and the scones and listened while Mrs Langland went on about her joints.

Langlands had a string of children. Took after Mrs Langland, pale and soft like cakes not given a hot enough oven. Charlie was a chubby fellow the apple of his mother's eye. Next down was Sophia, not much older than me so everyone thought we'd be friends, but I couldn't be bothered with her. All she could think about was what her dress was like, and if the ribbons on her bonnet matched her gloves, and how a girl should fix her hair to
make the most of herself
. Her lacy handkerchief peeked up out her bosom so it
drew the eye
, and she was forever dropping it to
put some colour in her cheeks
.

Knew all those tricks. Told me and Mary, only to make us feel like fools that we didn't know.

Sophia was taller than she thought a girl should be so she never wore anything but flat slippers. Sat down when she could. If she had to stand, she'd kink one hip sideways. Mary said Ma had her eye on Sophia Langland for Will, but I pooh-poohed her. Why would he fancy a dull girl like Sophia Langland, when my handsome favourite brother could have his pick?

Then there was Jack. The oldest of the Langland children by six or seven years, and as different from the others as night from day. Jack's mother was not Mrs Langland. She was a darkie, long dead. Ma told me, but it was no secret. Everyone knew that Jack was half darkie.

When Mr Langland went with Jack's ma, New South Wales by all accounts was a rough place. Not much between a man and starvation and not too many women other than the native ones. A man did what was natural. As for the children that come along, the old hands like Pa and Mr Langland thought it nothing so very terrible. What counted was not if you were half darkie, so much as if you could handle an oar or split a log.

But things had changed. The ones that come later, and come free, drew the lines strict.
Sent out
and
come free
, white and black. Mr Langland was a churchy sort of feller now and had got himself a respectable wife. Wouldn't like to be reminded he'd been happy enough once upon a time to bed a native woman.

Everyone knew about Jack's mother, but no one said. It was like stealing a sheep or knocking a man down for the coins in his pocket. You didn't mortify anyone by saying it.

Easy in Jack's case because you wouldn't pick him straight away. Dark in the face, yes, but the men who worked the ships all got dark. A heaviness round the brow. That might tell you. And the colour of his eyes. A greeny colour, very bright against his skin.

But he was no different from the rest of us. Talked about
the blacks
the same way everyone did. They were strange to him the same way they were strange to us. He knew Mrs Langland wasn't his real ma. But he'd never known the native woman. She died when he was too young.

He was on the outer in that family, though. Called Mrs Langland
Ma
, but she had no warmth for him, and there was no love lost between Jack and his half-brothers and sisters. Didn't know them that well, because he'd been away on the ships since he was a lad, didn't have the easy life they'd had.

Jack was younger than Will by a good few years, he'd of been around fifteen when I first got to know him, and Will into his twenties. I was only a girl still, seven or eight. The two of them like brothers, everything about them on a grand scale. Both of them deep in the chest and wide across the shoulder. Black beards, and faces burnt from the sun and the salt. Worked side by side on
Industry
, Jack a match for many an older man.

When
Industry
put in to Sydney they'd stop with us till she sailed again. Come up the river on someone's boat if they could, or on the new road, catch rides off the wagons. Jack would be with us for a night or two, then he'd borrow one of Pa's skiffs.

Off to Langlands now, he'd say. Back in a few days.

That's what he called it, Langlands.

Don't think anyone at Langlands cared if Jack visited or not. But it was the right thing to do, visit your kin, so that's what he did. Be back from Langlands a few days later, with us the rest of the time.

Pa and Jack sat by the hour with their pipes. Will with them sometimes, but more often away up and down the river visiting, a sociable feller our Will.