Wandering Girl (6 page)

The lantern went out, I didn't wait to pick it up, I left it there next to the fence. Like a hunted doe with her heart full of fear, I bounded back to the house and never once looked back.

I went into the garage, turned on the big lights and sat there till I caught my breath.

Now that I had got my breath back, and I was my normal self again, I wondered what to do about her orange juice? No way was I going back down there again. So what I thought I'd do was go into the kitchen, get two oranges and squeeze the juice out of them.

So I went quietly into the kitchen. Nobody was up yet. Quickly, I rushed around and got her orange juice ready. I went into the lounge, got her glass out, poured the juice in, put a clean doyley over it, cleaned my mess up, then went outside. I felt good now as it was beginning to get light. Before I started sweeping I thought I'd better go and get the lantern, as I did not want to explain anything to her. So I ran down to get it.

That horrible old ram was still there. Before I knew what I was doing I picked up a rock and threw it to get even with him. I collected the lantern and went back to sweep her driveway.

I made sure everything was done before she got up. I wanted to be in the kitchen then because I remembered she had said she was getting up early, and if I was outside she would start asking questions, as it should not take that long for my outside jobs to be completed. So having swept her driveway, I went into the kitchen glad that she was not up yet. I set her table for breakfast, then put the kettle on.

By this time it was ten to seven. As she came in, I said “Good Morning”, and as usual got no answer. I was asked where had I put her orange juice? I told her it was on her breakfast table. She told me to go and get it as she would have it in the kitchen.

She drank it down, then shuddered with distaste, her wrinkles tightening up on her old face. “Oh that was very bitter, the sweet oranges must be just about all gone,” she said.

I continued on with my duties as if I did not know anything about it. She told me, “When you go down to the orchard, you'll find an old man there working. Could you ask him to pick a bag of sweet oranges off the tree? He'll know what kind I want, and what tree to pick them from. Then bring them up to the house and put them in the pantry. I'll have two of those every morning.”

“And now that you have been here over three months, you can do all the cooking. I'll leave a menu in the kitchen on the wall so that you can follow what meals we are having during the week. The main meals will be breakfast and tea at night, when we are all together. Don't worry about dinner so much, as most of the time we won't be here. If the boys are not going to be here for any of our meals I'll let you know.”

“You can start by cooking bacon and eggs for our breakfast. We'll have our eggs medium and for a change we'll have coffee, so you can put the percolator on.”

She left me there feeling rather breathless. Every time she came over to talk to me I was beginning to feel a sense of debility creeping over me. I set about the task of getting their breakfast ready. The bacon and eggs smelt scrumptious, making my mouth water.

After I dished their breakfast up on a plate, I purposely left the pan near the stove. I had no intentions of cleaning it as I was going to have a good fry up when they left. I made the toast, put it on the toast racks, then as everything was prepared I went in to see if they were ready to eat.

Mr Bigelow was there going through some papers, so I went into the kitchen, loaded the trolley up and took everything into the dining room. I took the breakfast off the trolley, set it down on the table, then checked to see if nothing was missing and all was in place. I had forgotten the serviettes! So I quickly went to the drawer to get the rings out, polished them, then rolled the serviettes up and slipped them in the rings, which I placed on their individual plates.

Feeling quite pleased about getting breakfast ready all by myself, I turned to Mr Bigelow who, by now, had finished going through his papers. I said to him, “Breakfast is ready,” then walked out knowing full well that I wouldn't get a reply.

I went about cleaning the kitchen. When everything was tidy I sat down to have my plate of weeties thinking, “This is not the only thing I am going to eat this morning.”

I carried on in my normal way, so as not to arouse suspicions if she were to come into the kitchen - which she did to tell me off for taking breakfast in when she wasn't present in the dining room.

I apologized and explained to her that when I saw Mr Bigelow sitting at the table, I naturally thought he was waiting for his breakfast. She carried on in her usual tone, I was to wait till she rang the bell and if ever there was a time that Mr Bigelow was on his own, I wasn't to go in. It wasn't very nice for a slave girl to be all alone in the presence of a male member of the family.

She asked me how much coffee had I put in the percolator? Seeing that it was my first effort in making coffee, especially in a percolator - I had never set eyes on one before - I felt rather pleased. For once I thought she was going to praise me up, for making good coffee, but my sense of her good intentions soon became dispirited, when I told her I poured half a tin of coffee into the percolator.

‘You are a very stupid girl! You need only to put a couple of dessert-spoons in. Now hop up and make a fresh one!”

So I left my breakfast and followed her into the dining room to get the coffee pot.

I had been stunned by the comment she made about being alone with her husband. I couldn't understand it. To make it look good I immediately went into the dining room with the trolley and made myself busy. I had other intentions on my mind as soon as they would leave.

Now, I was out in the kitchen again, washing up the dishes when I heard her yoohoo. Whenever she was at home, or if I was outside doing things, or she couldn't see me, she had a habit of yoohooing out to me, like she was out in the paddock, trying to round up a horse or something.

I went running to see what she wanted. She told me I was to go get Mr Bigelow's shoes from the shoe rack and make sure they were clean and shining.

So I ran out to get his shoes. They looked brand new as I always made sure that all shoes were kept cleaned because, with my heavy workload, I had a fear of being scolded if the other jobs were not done on time. So I quickly grabbed his shoes and ran back into the house with them and put them down on the floor outside their bedroom.

She briskly came out of the room and told me to pick the shoes up and pass them to her in the proper manner, as it wasn't in her category to bend down and pick things up from the floor. I apologized and went on into the kitchen to continue my cleaning duties.

While I was busy in the dining room polishing up the silverware and brassware from the mantelpiece to the window ledges, which were spread around the room, I caught a glimpse of them strutting past the window. The way they were both dressed reminded me of the characters out of a book I used to read when I was a child, called “The Three Musketeers.”

I picked up an item I was polishing and moved towards a window from where I could follow the car with my eyes right down the driveway. When it turned left onto the highway to go into town, I dropped what I was doing, sat back and gave a sigh of relief.

THE TURKEYS

Mm, just to smell the aroma of bacon and eggs cooking made my mouth water. Then I made some toast, and when everything was ready I got my old tin plate and tin mug, chucked them in the sink and took out a setting from one of her finest crockery services. I went into the dining room where she sat at the table, laid everything out, got a clean serviette, put that on my bread and butter plate, then went into the kitchen to get my breakfast out of the oven.

Just as I was about to sit down, I had a feeling that there was something missing. “Oh, yes, that's it!” So I went to the boys' room and got the wireless out. “I'll have some music. The place is a bit quiet and needs livening up.” I turned the music up loud, and then sat down to the most nourishing meal of my life - all the time thinking, if she could see me now she'd probably have a heart attack.

I felt quite contented just sitting there enjoying my breakfast. “Well, why not?” I thought. “I work hard and it's about time I took it easy for a while.”

Now that I had demolished everything on my plate, I felt quite satisfied. ‘That breakfast was sufficient,” I thought to myself. “I'll just skimp through my main jobs that have to be done, she won't know any better.”

When everything looked fresh and clean, I could take a walk and look for the turkeys. It was such a nice day outside, a pity to stay indoors and work. So I went into her old shed and found a big stick in the comer.

One of my childhood habits was to always walk along with a stick in my hand. We did a lot of bush walking when I was in the mission, and the nuns could never understand why we used to all grab our sticks when we set off for the bush, as they came along with us. I guess it gave us a sense of security.

Now that I had my stick in my hand, I set off in the direction of the orchard, thinking it would be nice if I had some ripe juicy pears and apples to munch on during my walk through the paddocks.

So off I went, down to the orchard. When I got there I opened up the big iron gates and made my way down a few lanes, selecting out the best fruit. I couldn't wait to sample that fruit. I sunk my teeth into a big juicy pear.

Never before in my growing years did I have the opportunity to help myself to fresh fruit, so I might as well make the most of it while I could.

In the mission we only saw fresh fruit once in a blue moon. I remember when we were little girls we used to sneak around the convent to where the nuns used to have their meals and hide and wait in the grass until one of the nuns emptied the scraps in the bin. We used to wait for the right moment, then it would be one mad dash to the bins to get the orange and apple peels out.

I remember the big silent fights we used to have unbeknown to the nuns. If they had realised we would've got a flogging for sure.

I smiled to myself as I took off my apron, put my fruit into it, then bundled it up in knapsack style, threw it over my shoulder and went off down towards the river, as that's where she said I would find her turkeys.

As I went along I looked all around at the countryside, which was very hilly. The gullies were steep and deep. “Fascinating,” I thought as I climbed up onto a big log and looked all around me. Far off in the distance I could see the roof tops of different farm houses spread out on the horizon. Different shades of green lay everywhere.

“Lovely”, I thought, as I jumped down from the log and set about searching for the turkeys and eggs. I was looking forward to a nice cup of tea and a piece of sponge cake with cream, which I had seen in the fridge.

It didn't take me long to find the turkeys as I heard their gobbles in a clump of grass near the river bed. They were strutting around, looking most conceited.

All of a sudden, the quietness of the air was filled with loud gobbling noises as feathers and birds went flying in all directions. I had my stick out shooing them in the direction of the house, when out of the blue this big cheeky turkey came towards me and made a peck at my legs. I got a fright and screamed and, in reaction, brought my stick down hard across his neck. He slumped to the ground.