A Waltz for Matilda (40 page)

Auntie Love smiled at her from the sofa, Hey You at her feet. ‘Auntie!’

It was so good to feel the thin brown arms about her, to smell the gum leaves and smoke in her hair. Mum’s dress looked no more worn than when she’d seen it last. ‘Where have you been?’

Auntie laughed. She stood up, then calmly opened the chest to get flour to make damper.

Suddenly the valley felt right again.

It was a cold winter, the sky too high and clear to keep the warmth in the soil. The scanty grass seemed hardly to feed the sheep at all. They grew so thin that Matilda bought hay for the lambing ewes, and left bales by the water troughs every three days.

The morning sunlight flickered through the trees as she walked back toward the valley. The land was quieter in winter,
most birds saving their songs for spring, the cicadas’ summer duty done. A currawong’s long liquid note drifted out from the valley, a branch cracked somewhere and fell, and behind her a steady
snick, snick, snick …

She turned. It was a bicycle, coming up the track. Happiness, pure as the sunlight, poured through her at the sight of his dear familiar face. He looked different — grey serge trousers, white shirt, a waistcoat, even a bowler hat — but somehow totally the same.

‘Tommy!’ She ran to him, beaming. ‘Tommy, I’ve missed you so much!’

She meant to hug him, but the expression on his face stopped her. She took a step back and he stopped his bicycle. ‘How are you? Where have you been?’

‘Setting up a place of my own.’

A place of his own means a workshop, she thought, not a home.

‘Got a loan from the bank.’

Why didn’t he smile? Why didn’t he say he’d missed her too?

‘Good,’ she said hesitantly. ‘Come on up to the house. Auntie Love is here, so you don’t have to eat my cooking.’

He shook his head. ‘Need to get back to catch the train. Just came to settle things up, see that you’re all right.’

‘Of course I’m all right —’ She broke off as he stared at the ring on her finger.

‘Mrs Lacey said you were engaged. I wanted to know if it was true.’

‘I’m not engaged. Well, not officially. I don’t even know … Tommy, it’s been so difficult —’

‘Is that his ring?’

‘Yes. But …’ How could she explain to him what she didn’t even understand herself? But if she could just talk to him
maybe she could sort it out. ‘Tommy, please, come and have a cup of tea.’

‘No time.’ He looked down at the watch attached by a chain to his waistcoat pocket. ‘I’ve got to go. If you ever need anything you can write to me at Mum’s. She’ll always know where I am.’

‘Tommy, please, can’t you catch another train? Just stay a few days?’

Somehow she had to find the words. Tommy of all people could help her through her confusion. They had talked about so much together, for so many years. Why couldn’t they talk about this too?

But he was already turning the bicycle.

Suddenly she remembered her father’s words. He had wanted to plead, to kneel in the dust, as he watched his wife and daughter leave. But he hadn’t, because it was best for them.

She could run after him. If she kept calling surely he would turn back. She just had to say she needed help and Tommy would be there …

Instead she stood in the middle of the road, watching him get smaller and smaller as he pedalled back to town.

AUGUST 1899

Matilda put the letter in the chest with the others. It was good to hear from James. Of course it was good to hear from him, she told herself.

But it didn’t help the hurt place inside that there was no letter from Tommy. Was he working in his city workshop? Did he miss Gibber’s Creek at all or ever think of her?

She sat on the rug and watched Auntie Love lying on the sofa, placidly spinning strings of bark into rope. If only marriage and love and friendship were as easy to sort out as spinning. She said impulsively, ‘Auntie, who were you married to?’

For a moment she was sure she had said the wrong thing. She had assumed from the small grave that Auntie had been married to a Drinkwater stockman. But women could have babies without being married … Yet the ring that Auntie had worn that incredible time in front of Mr Drinkwater had looked like a wedding ring.

Had she offended her by asking? Maybe Auntie couldn’t talk about him, not if he was dead. But Auntie just shrugged, not even looking up.

‘Did you love him?’

Auntie did look up at that. ‘Oh, yes.’

‘Does being in love always hurt? Is it always so confusing?’

Auntie seemed to be hunting for words. ‘It hurt,’ she said at last. ‘It’s good, but it hurt bad sometime.’

‘Did your husband die, like your baby?’ asked Matilda gently.

‘No. Baby die, I had to leave. Can’t stay where people die. Got to leave their spirit free.’

‘You mean you left Drinkwater because your daughter died?’

Auntie nodded, staring at her weaving again.

And his ghost can be heard as you pass by that billabong,
thought Matilda, suddenly glad that no one had died here at her house. The whispers from the dead were loud enough, sometimes, without their ghosts haunting the place too. ‘What about your husband? Did he leave Drinkwater with you?’

Again there was no answer.

Never the whole truth, thought Matilda. Had the Drinkwaters or their men killed her husband? Was that why Auntie refused to say more? I’m not a child now. I can bear these things. Why won’t people tell me?

‘Auntie, where do you go when you’re not here? Do you go bush? Or do you have another home?’

‘My home is here.’

‘But when you go away —’

Auntie Love put down her weaving, and looked at her for a while. All at once she stood up, and shuffled toward the door. Matilda followed her, mystified.

Auntie signalled to Hey You to stay on the verandah. She used the railing to steady herself down the stairs, but once on the ground she was firmer. She walked a little way, then looked at Matilda, smiling.

‘What is it? What do you want me to see?’

Auntie gestured at the ground.

‘I don’t see anything. Oh.’ There were Matilda’s footprints in the dust. But there was no sign Auntie had been there at all.

Excitement thrilled through her. ‘How do you do that?’

Auntie gestured for Matilda to take her shoes off. She lifted a callused foot, with its wide-spaced toes, then placed it down again, onto its outward side, then did the same with the other foot. She took two paces, then smiled at Matilda. ‘You try.’

The dust was cold and dry underfoot. She took a few steps, then looked back. She could just see two smudged imprints, but her other steps seemed to have vanished on the ground.

‘Auntie Love! I did it!’

She looked around. Auntie Love was gone.

There had been no time for her to walk away. Surely the old woman could no longer run. But there were no hiding places either, just a few thin trees on either side of the track.

‘Auntie Love! Auntie Love!’

‘Here.’

Matilda jumped. One second there had been no one, then suddenly there she was, standing by a tree, only a couple of yards away. Surely the old woman couldn’t make herself invisible?

Auntie looked at her seriously. Slowly she began to vanish again.

But not quite, not while Matilda stared right at her. The old woman stood side on to the trees, her shadow and her shape blending with theirs. One arm was raised, the other lowered, so she was no longer human in form, her head down, her eyes shut. Matilda had never seen anyone so still.

Auntie opened her eyes. All at once she was back.

‘Can I do that too?’ whispered Matilda.

Auntie nodded. She gestured for Matilda to come closer, then took her arms, bent her fingers into position …

I am here, but not here, thought Matilda. I am a rock, a tree. There was no one but Auntie to see her, but somehow she knew that if anyone came up the track, they would see no one, not her, not the old woman.

She shivered, and the spell was broken. She stared around at the limp leaves of the trees, the shadowed cliffs, the strong shapes of the tree trunks.

Had Auntie Love ever been away at all?

OCTOBER 1899

She stared at the words, not quite believing they could say what she had read.

Which left one choice.
But James himself had said that everyone had choices. Enlisting to fight the Boers was the choice he’d wanted to make. He had left without telling her, without asking what she thought, just as he had assumed that she would marry him.

She looked at the ring. What should she do now? You couldn’t write to a man about to go to war and say
I don’t know if I want to marry you.
It was impossible to hurt him like that.

Suddenly the true horror of it hit her. James, about to face the enemy, a Boer with a rifle hunting him down, like James perhaps had once hunted others here. James hurt, bleeding, calling out in agony, even killed …

She was angry it hurt so much, furious with him and with herself. ‘I love you!’ she shouted, not caring if Auntie heard her, down where she was milking the cow. She heard the echo from the cliffs.
Love you … love you …

How dare he desert her like this? How dare he vanish, leaving so much pain?

Suddenly she heard the sound of the motorcar. Mr Drinkwater would know she had got a letter, perhaps had received one himself or heard from Bertram.

She looked over at the cow byre. There was no sign of Auntie
Love. Matilda smiled, knowing it was deliberate, knowing this time how it was done.

The car drew up at the steps. Mr Drinkwater got out, looking frail as a sheet of paperbark. He stepped slowly up to the verandah. ‘You’ve heard from James?’

‘Yes.’

‘Bertram wrote to me. Tell me it isn’t true.’

He looked so vulnerable her anger vanished. ‘Come inside,’ she said gently. ‘I’ll show you the letter.’

Her ring flashed in the light from the doorway as she handed him the piece of paper, trying not to see the eagerness with which he took it, then busied herself with tea leaves and the pot.

He had read it and re-read it by the time she poured tea for both of them, and sat opposite him. His eyes were closed in pain. The tin roof creaked above her, as the sun came out from behind a cloud. He was an old man who had lost his son, lost him forever, perhaps. They had both lost him, for a while at least.

Funny — she had thought that if she married James she would never be like Mrs Heenan, waiting, waiting. Now she was waiting for something far more worrying than a shearer on a bender.

I can cope with waiting, she thought. But I can’t stand the thought of James being hurt.

‘Thank you,’ Mr Drinkwater said at last.

‘What for?’

‘For letting me read your letter. For not accusing me —’ He broke off.

‘There’s not much point now.’

‘No.’ He stared at the ring on her finger. ‘Will you …?’ It must be hard to have to ask. She said gently, ‘I’ll show you any other letters. Of course.’

‘Matilda … this makes no difference to how I feel.’

‘I know.’

He drained his tea and stood up, then hesitated and put out his hand. She took it. It was almost as though they were sealing a deal about some sheep.