A Waltz for Matilda (17 page)

‘Please, could you ask her why she came here?’

Mr Sampson crouched down by the chair. The old woman spoke again. At first Matilda thought the words were strange because the old woman mumbled. Then she realised this was another language, one that Mr Sampson understood.

He looked up at her. ‘Auntie was coming to tell me about her brother. Heard your father died.’

‘How did she hear that?’

He shrugged. ‘Auntie hears everything. Heard two stockmen talking, I reckon. She came here to see you was all right.’

‘I’m all right,’ said Matilda slowly. The old woman must have set out here before she had left Drinkwater. Or maybe she’d travelled faster, knew a shorter way than the road.

But why would a native woman bother about a white girl? And why had she gone to the cave? Did Mr Sampson know about the cave? She didn’t like to ask in case he didn’t. Her father was right — hiding places were good sometimes.

The old woman banged her hand against the chair to get Matilda’s attention without having to mumble. She shook her head at Matilda, as though to tell her to stop asking questions.

‘I’ll bring the cart over, take her home. Me wife’ll nurse her, and me and the boys. My sons —’

‘No.’ The word was the clearest Auntie Love had spoken yet. She took a deep breath, then forced the words out clearly. ‘Stayin’ with the girl. Women’s business.’

What was ‘women’s business’? Was it like having babies? But she was too young to have babies and Auntie Love too old. She waited for Mr Sampson to argue or even to just tell the old woman she was coming home. But instead he just crouched down, his face level with the old woman’s. ‘All right, Auntie. I’ll bring your things, eh?’

Matilda stared. ‘You’re just going to leave her here?’

‘What she wants.’

‘But —’ You might have asked me if I mind, she thought. It would be a lot of work caring for the old lady. Then she remembered the fire lit this morning, the kettle on to boil … or maybe not so much.

Mr Sampson tipped his hat again. ‘Miss.’ He walked back down to his horse. It was almost as beautiful as the ones Mr Drinkwater and his sons had ridden, the same shiny brown.

‘Tea,’ ordered Auntie Love.

Matilda went to make another pot.

She spent the morning sewing the hem of Mum’s black dress more securely — she had only had time to tack it for Mum’s funeral — so she could wear it on Saturday for her father, and taking in the waist so she didn’t have to tie it with a belt.

She thought that Auntie Love was sleeping in the chair on the verandah, but when she looked up the wrinkled eyes were open. She looked at Matilda for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision. She gestured for her to come closer, and then to help her down the stairs.

Did Auntie Love want to go to the dunny? She put her arm under the old woman’s shoulders. Once more Matilda was aware of how small she was, how thin and light. She helped her down the stairs, the dog following them, but when she tried to head over to the dunny the woman shook her head, and moved in the opposite direction.

Why on earth does she want to go over there? thought Matilda. It was just a patch of dirt and tussocks. But she moved that way obediently.

‘Baa.’ It was the sheep, nudging at her.

‘Go away,’ said Matilda crossly. This was hard enough without a sheep.

The dog growled, long and low, then made a lunge at the sheep’s back leg. The sheep skittered out of the way.

‘Baa,’ it said, reproachful again. It headed off to eat near the spring.

Auntie Love looked around, then let herself slide down onto a bit of ground seemingly just like all the rest of the ground around. The dog lay down next to her. She picked up a bit of branch and held it out to Matilda.

‘What should I do with this?’

The old woman made digging motions. At last, because it was easier, Matilda obeyed, scratching at the hard baked soil. She had only got a few inches down when she saw a round shape, almost like a potato, but longer. She held it up, glancing back at Auntie Love.

Half of the dark face smiled. The old woman nodded, and pointed to another place. Matilda began to dig again.

There were about twenty of the potato things by the time Auntie Love seemed to think they had enough. Or perhaps, Matilda realised, she was too tired to sit there any longer. But she
had the strength to reach over and pull at a sheet of thin white bark lying in the leaf litter. As Matilda watched she twisted it, this way and that, till suddenly a basket appeared in her hands.

‘Can you teach me to do that?’

The old woman gave the twisted half-smile again. It was as though Matilda had passed a test. Of course, thought Matilda. She’s teaching me. Women’s business …

She wondered how these strange roots would taste like. Could you use them to make soup? She put them in the basket, then leaned down to help Auntie Love to her feet.

Mr Sampson was back that afternoon with a few clothes and two blankets in a hessian bag, and another hessian bag clustered with flies.

‘Meat,’ he said as he dumped it on the table. ‘Flour too, an’ sugar.’ He paused. ‘Drinkwater don’t pay wages, not to me and the boys. Just rations. But I can bring you those.’

‘But … but everyone gets paid wages.’

A sharp look, this time. ‘Not natives. You all right, eh, Auntie?’

Auntie Love nodded. She’d slept for an hour, then hobbled in to take the damper dough from Matilda’s hands and show her how to mix it more lightly before she sat on the verandah chair again.

‘Mr Sampson?’ He waited for her to speak.

‘Do you have any daughters?’

‘Why?’

‘I just thought … your auntie … she keeps showing me things.’

He nodded. ‘She’s like that. No, I don’t have daughters. Good thing too. Drinkwater only wants blacks for stockmen. Wants white women in his kitchen, these days at any rate. Don’t want daughters of mine sent to the reservation.’

She had thought that reservations were good places, where natives learned to speak English and live in houses. There were collections at church to buy Bibles for the natives on reservations. But something in Mr Sampson’s voice said that maybe they weren’t like that at all.

‘Would Mr Drinkwater send Auntie Love to the reservation?’

Mr Sampson looked at her impassively, as though this was an answer he didn’t want to give.

There was too much here she didn’t understand. It’s because they think I’m a child, she thought. Mr Drinkwater, Auntie Love, even Mr Sampson. There are things they aren’t telling me. Another thought came to her. ‘Mr Sampson, are you in the union?’

For a second she thought she had offended him. Perhaps native men weren’t allowed in the union.

He shook his head. ‘No.’ He paused and added, ‘Not yet.’

No one had told her when they would pick her up for the funeral on Saturday. So she dressed at dawn, and got Auntie Love settled with more tea and toast on the verandah, and fed the dog the meat they hadn’t eaten — it was going off fast in this heat, even though she’d cooked it.

Auntie Love seemed stronger. She could lift her left hand now, and only dragged her foot a bit as she walked. But she had made no sign that she wanted to go home, wherever home was. Matilda had a slightly uncomfortable feeling that ‘home’ was here now.

She didn’t know if she minded or not. She had never had a chance to ‘mind’ things before — adults or fate decided, not her. But at least with Auntie Love here no one could say she was too young to stay on Moura alone.

The morning passed. Auntie Love limped out of the house, waving Matilda back when she started to follow. She came back with an armful of dried grass stems. She sat in ‘her’ chair on the verandah again, and began to plait them, weaving one layer of grass into another, then handing it to Matilda to continue.

It was peaceful, sitting twisting grass stems, watching a sort of netted cloth slowly appear under her fingers. Auntie Love took it back now and then, to twist it in different ways. By the time Mr Gotobed’s wagon clattered through the cliffs there was a basket, in stripes of gold and white and faded green, big enough to keep vegetables in, the colours of the landscape strangely captured in its fabric.

Matilda had half expected Auntie Love to want to come to the funeral. But she and the dog just watched from the verandah as Mr Gotobed helped her into the wagon, then rattled the reins to get the horse moving. There was no sign of Bluey or Curry and Rice today. Nor was there any conversation beyond the initial, ‘You all right, girly?’ when they started out.

She was glad. There was too much to think about to talk. Too much to feel too. Grief, but mostly anger, a sense of loss not so much for the man she had so briefly known, but for all the years they’d never have together. Mr Drinkwater had taken those, but there was a lingering deeper feeling that her mother too might have stolen time she could have spent with her father.

But the years by the sea had been good ones. Would she really have wanted to swap her memories of Aunt Ann for ones of her father?

No, there was too much to think about to want to talk now.

It was a shorter ride back to town than she had thought, hardly two hours, even at the slow walking pace of the horse. Town seemed deserted; the houses had a strange blank look. It was only
when they were almost at the Town Hall that she realised that every door was shut and every window had its curtains pulled.