A Waltz for Matilda (14 page)

Mrs Ellsmore stared at her. ‘You’re in shock. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I promise —’

Matilda began to walk again.

‘Wait!’ Mrs Ellsmore peered out at her from the front door. ‘What shall I tell my brother?’

Matilda turned. ‘Tell him to bring my father’s body home. And my sheep.’

It took more than an hour to get home. The swag that had looked so light against her father’s back bent her almost double. In the end she held it by one strap and half dragged it, the billy clanking and bouncing through the dust.

But the pain was good. The struggle was good. While she forced her body along the road she couldn’t think.

She didn’t want to think.

Her mouth felt as dry as the gum trees by the time she reached the shadow of the cliffs. She almost ran the last stretch between them, dropped the swag and plunged her hands into the cold clear water of the pool, gulping great mouthfuls, then drinking more slowly. Finally she washed her face and her hands over and over, as though she could wash away all that had happened today, as if when she lifted her face from the water her father would be back in the house, and she would see smoke rising from the chimney as he put the billy on.

She lifted her face. The house sat still and quiet. No smoke rose from its chimney. She wiped away the tears, and then bent to drink again.

She should have filled the billy with water before leaving Drinkwater. Or asked for food, at least. No, she couldn’t have done that. She would never ask them for anything, ever. But all she had was the flour in the tucker bag, the treacle, the salt and the tea. And some money, maybe … She drank again, slowly now, then picked up the swag.

It was hot inside the house, and stuffy. She put the swag on the floor and opened the windows, and left the door open too. Her letter was still nailed to the outside of it. She picked it off and put it on the table. Her father’s table, made with such love and care.

Something moved out the window: a yellow shadow, gone in the blink of an eye. She stared up at the rock face, wondering if she’d seen it at all. A wallaby, maybe, she thought. Could a wallaby get up that high?

A wallaby wouldn’t hurt her. She was pretty sure there weren’t any savage wild animals in the bush, nothing that could harm her. Except snakes of course. And spiders. And men …

But the house sat in its well of silence. There were no men here. Just her.

At last she could sit down and cry.

She had thought she’d feel lonely by herself, despite her determination to come here. But she didn’t. Not yet, at any rate. Her father’s hands had built this house, for her and her mother. He’d carved the chair, found just the right branches to make curved runners for the rocker. Maybe he’d even tanned the sheepskins for the beds, and trimmed them to just the right shape.

This was hers. The house, the land around it. It was the first time she had ever owned anything except her clothes and books and toys, and even those had been sold when Mum grew ill.

This was … solid. What had her father said?
The land will still be there.

She ran her hands over the wooden surfaces then gazed out the door again. The high cliffs seemed like protective hands clasped around her, keeping her safe not just from the winds and heat. The high cicada buzz in the trees could have been the land itself singing to her:
we are yours, we are ours, you are ours, we are yours.

A sense of peace flowed through her. This is the first time I remember, she thought, that I have nowhere I have to go. Not to Miss Thrush’s school, not to the factory, nor to find her father. She was here, forever.

And she had water to drink and a bed to sleep in. All she needed now was food.

She moved slowly over to the swag, then crouched down and untied it, rolling out the grey blanket that held the tucker bag, her spare dress, her father’s trousers. There was a leather pouch too. She pulled open the drawstring and felt inside. Coins …

A threepence, three sixpences, a couple of shillings, ten big brown pennies and a ha’penny. Four shillings and sevenpence ha’penny. More than a week’s wage at the factory, and Mr Doo had sold all those vegetables for tuppence.

Or was that charity? she wondered. She didn’t want charity. But maybe she’d have to accept it, for a while.

There was a lump in the tucker bag. She shook it over the floor. Two sinkers fell out, smelling faintly of fish. She’d need to wash the bag before it stank.

She picked up one of the sinkers and began to nibble it as she carried the blankets back into the bedrooms, hung the clothes on the wooden pegs on the wall. She was still wearing her father’s hat, she realised. She hung it up too.

The sinker sat hard and heavy in her stomach, but she couldn’t afford to waste food. You had to eat to keep on going. She turned back to get the other.

A furry shape glared up at her from the doorway. She bit back a scream. For a moment it was no animal she recognised; then she saw it was a dog, but moving like no dog she had ever seen, down on its belly so it seemed to have no legs, creeping toward the tucker bag. As she looked it grabbed the last sinker in its jaws, leaped to its feet, then bounded out the door and down the steps.

‘No!’ That sinker was hers. She was out the door and halfway up toward the cliffs when she realised what she was doing. She wasn’t desperate enough to eat a sinker covered in dog slobber. And anyway the dog would have eaten it by now.

Plus there would be no one to help her if the dog bit her. Weren’t wild dogs dangerous? But that’s what they had said about Bruiser. She was good with dogs, and anyhow she didn’t care, not now. This was something to do, something to keep her moving, stop her thinking. She kept on going, scrambling up toward the cliff to where the yellow streak had vanished. Maybe she was already more lonely than she had realised. Maybe it was the memory of Bruiser, still chained up at the factory, back in the city …

She slipped between the tumbled boulders. There was a path, she realised, trodden perhaps by wallabies or other animals. Or by her father … she remembered him saying
I’ll show you where I hid the buckets.
But he hadn’t. They had left the next morning.

Did this path lead to the buckets? Where had her father hidden things?

Stop it, she told herself. You’ll be dreaming of buried treasure next. Which was impossible — her father’s entire wealth was four shillings and sevenpence ha’penny. If he’d had more than that they wouldn’t have needed to go waltzing Matilda to find work. He’d have bought rams and ewes and pipes …

Suddenly the path ended in a small flat space about the size of a table. She peered up the cliff-face — it was too sheer to scramble up, even for a monkey. She glanced down. The house looked like a toy from here. She hadn’t realised how far up she’d climbed. The dog must have slipped away from her, further down.

She turned to go back down. The path must have been an animal track, then. But why would an animal come all the way up here? There was no grass among the rocks.

Suddenly she stopped. The dog
had
come up here — there was a dog print in the loose dirt at one edge of the track. And this
was
a path. Maybe … maybe her father had hidden things among these rocks or buried them …

Buried a bucket? It didn’t make sense. If he was going to bury something it would be easier in the soft soil down below. But nonetheless she turned back and began to search, running her eyes along the rock, every inch of it, then back again.

Nothing. Except … she stared up the cliff-face at a ledge like a step. She looked up. There was another ledge above it, just above eye-level.

The higher ledge looked too small to hide a bucket, much less a dog. But she still put her foot on the step, then pulled herself up onto the second ledge.

A breath of cool air washed over her. It was as though the cliff itself had exhaled.

There was a gap here: the rock was grinning, the lips smooth from years of wind and rain. It was just big enough for a man to crawl into. Or a dog. And quite big enough for a girl.

She hesitated. If the dog was in there it might bite her as she crept inside. Maybe it had puppies. A mother dog with puppies would bite no matter how carefully Matilda approached her.

But she lay on her stomach, and pushed herself inside. ‘Here, girl, boy, whatever you are.’ She tried to make her voice as soothing as she could. ‘No need to bite me, dog.’

The rock was cold under her stomach. Snakes. She hadn’t thought of snakes. Was one about to strike her, its fangs raised? ‘Go away,’ she said more loudly. ‘I’m a ferocious human. Scat!’

She was almost inside now. She reached forward. Her fingers struck stone.

A blank wall. All this way and nothing —

She twisted her head. No, there was light coming from over there. She twisted again, and suddenly her hand met open space. She hauled herself in another foot, and there it was: an opening like a big round window, not even jagged. She sat up, thrust her legs through, then pushed herself to her feet.

The cave was as big as the parlour at Drinkwater. Light speared in from holes in the cliff. The ground at her feet was littered with dried grass and twigs and tiny bones, bleached white. From birds’ nests above, she thought, remembering a sea eagle’s nest she and Mum had seen on the cliffs, in the last year of peace before Aunt Ann died.

Still no dog. But there was the bucket … no, two buckets: a heavy wooden one, with polished sides and handle, and a battered tin one. Five lengths of metal piping — she supposed thieves might take them too; an old fruit box full of metal bits and pieces; and a hammer on top, shiny with what she supposed
was dripping, to keep the rust away. A spade, an axe, a wood splitter, a garden fork, a shovel, a rake and an unfamiliar, long-handled tool with two prongs. They too were fat-covered, the shininess slightly dulled by dust. A wooden chest, with leather straps. She undid it carefully, watching out for spiders, then pulled open the lid.

Her heart thumped with disappointment. What had she expected? Gold coins? Rubies and diamonds?

It was a china dinner service: thin and cream, with a pattern of rosebuds around the rim. Dinner plates, bread and butter plates, soup bowls, dessert bowls, tea cups and saucers. Twelve of each, she thought, running her finger lightly up the sides of the stacked plates.

When had her father bought them? Just before her mother arrived here, a gift of daintiness for his city wife?

I’d even set the table nice for her,
he had said. Or had he bought them afterward, when he still dreamed that if he filled the house with pretty things she might come back?

She would never know. In a way it didn’t even matter. She just wished he could have known that his gift had at last been found, and would be loved.

She closed the lid. She’d have to take the china down piece by piece, in case she dropped it. It could stay here for a while, anyway. There was no one to serve tea to …

No, she thought. She’d take the whole set down to the house today. She’d eat from it, as her father had intended. She’d prop the plates on the dresser, where she could see them all.

Something growled behind her. The dog. She turned, slowly, so as not to spook it.

The animal lay on its stomach behind her. Now it was still she could see it was thinner than she had thought. No, not thin, just
sort of stringy, like a pencil with the wood shaved off. Its eyes looked almost golden in the sharp lines of sunlight from the cliff holes above.

A golden man, she thought, and golden hills. Now here was a golden dog.

The dog gave a short yip. It stood, ran a few paces down the slope into the dimness, then stopped and stared at her.