A Waltz for Matilda (10 page)

‘You were too young to remember, I reckon. Hardly toddlin’. Fat little thing you were an’ all. So pretty. Your hair was almost white then. It’s like gold now.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Simple enough,’ he said flatly. ‘Your ma couldn’t see me for what I am. Ann knew it. I didn’t. Fool that I was back then. Your ma had dreams of what a farm would be …’

‘Woolly lambs and white tablecloths,’ she said slowly.

He met her eyes. ‘That’s it. She never lost them then?’

Matilda shook her head.

‘I’d paid off this land afore I met her. Proud as a peacock, I was. Built the house by the time you were born. Borrowed a cart off Drinkwater to meet the train … I was still workin’ for him back then. I’d even set the table nice for her; the beds were made;
a new rug by the hearth. A possum made a mess of it a few years back.

‘Your ma took one look at this place an’ burst into tears. Said —’ He stopped. ‘Some things are best forgotten.’

‘But you remember.’

‘Yes. But you don’t have to hear.’ He shrugged. ‘She cried the whole damned …
dashed
… night. Three days later I took her back to the train, an’ you too.’

He looked at her, and Matilda could see that he was telling the truth. ‘I wanted to yell at her not to go. She was taking my whole life with her on that train, taking my daughter, all my hopes. I wanted to get down on my knees and plead with her to stay. But I couldn’t.’

‘Why not?’ Her voice was almost a whisper at the memory of pain in his eyes.

‘Because I loved her. Because she was right. Your auntie was right. You’ve got to be strong to live out here. The land would have sucked your ma dry. It was best for her to go back. Best for you too, I thought.’

‘You didn’t even want to see me?’

He was silent for a moment, and then he met her eyes. ‘You want the truth? I tried to forget I had a daughter, growing up somewhere. Tried to forget how you looked, that first morning here, curled up with my dog by the fireplace. Some things hurt too much. You were hers now, not mine. Your ma went back to the nice cottage by the sea, with her parents’ polished furniture and her big sister to take care of her, the church down the road and her white aprons with the lace at the tearoom. But every time I worked a shed I sent her all but a few shillings, to keep you an’ her at Ann’s, to make sure you got the best schooling to be had.’

‘But then you didn’t.’

‘And then I couldn’t,’ he said flatly. ‘We was on strike.’

It was like the flames leaped from the fireplace to her. ‘You could have kept on working! We almost starved. Maybe if Mum had the right food she’d be alive. If we’d had the money for a doctor —’

‘I wasn’t to know that! I thought your aunt would see you right. She was doin’ pretty good with her dressmaking. What I sent was for luxuries, to see you schooled and pretty clothes …’

‘Mum sewed too. But when Aunt Ann died she couldn’t make enough to pay the rent, even when I helped. We sold all we had, but it didn’t bring much.’ She looked at him straight in the firelight. ‘Would you still have gone on strike if you’d known?’

He was silent a moment. ‘You want a lie this time? Nice and sweet like your ma’s dreams?’

‘No.’

‘Didn’t think so. You’ve more of your Aunt Ann in you than your ma. No, girl. Some things matter. It’s a new world we’re fightin’ for here, not just a few more shillings to our pay. We’re fighting for the rights of —’

‘The rights of working men,’ she said tiredly. ‘Fighting for a new Australia. I was at the meeting last night.’

‘You were? I didn’t see you!’

So the men
had
been taking her to her father. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Suddenly she just wanted to sleep. To sleep and sleep till somehow this all made sense.

‘I’m sorry, Matilda,’ he said simply. ‘I truly am.’ He stood up and took her bowl. ‘You’ll want to go to bed.’

‘I need to wash the dishes —’

‘You’re like your aunt, all right. Can’t wash up till daylight —
the breeze’ll blow the lamps out if we take them outside. I’ll show you where I hid the buckets then. Matilda …’

‘Yes?’

‘You can’t stay here, you know.’

Fright drove away the tiredness. ‘Why not? Please … I’m useful. I can cook … and sew …’

‘Matilda my darlin’, it’s not that.’ He bit his lip. ‘I have to get away for a while. Never mind why. I just came here to pick up a few things. I’ll be making tracks in the morning.’

‘Where to?’

‘Anywhere. Just away till things cool down. Pick up some work, maybe.’

‘It was you,’ she said slowly. ‘You burned down the shearing shed.’

‘How did you hear that?’ He shook his head. ‘Never mind about that. And no, they won’t pin that on me — not on anyone. But old Drinkwater’s brought troopers down. They’ll get me for something, just to get even, to show the union he won’t be beat. So I’m going away.’ He hesitated. ‘You can stay with one o’ the women round here if you like. I can give them a few shillings for your keep.’

‘No!’ She thought of the bare baby, the boy throwing stones at the chickens. ‘Please — can’t I stay here?’

‘Not by yourself. An’ I ain’t got enough money to send you to boarding school.’

‘I know.’

‘What about someone in the city — you got a friend you could stay with there?’

It had been a year since she’d seen any of the girls at school, hadn’t known any of their families well enough to want to stay with them or even ask for help when Mum was sick. She would
be even more foreign to them now, after the year at the factory, even the two days out here. She thought of Tommy’s family briefly. She’d just be another burden there. She shook her head.

He looked at her, a slow smile lighting up his face. ‘All right then. Come with me.’

‘What?’

‘It ain’t so bad camping out. Stars for your ceiling and the wind in the trees.’ He grinned, his teeth very white in the lamplight. ‘See if you’re your mother’s daughter or mine.’

‘I’m both.’

‘Well, we’ll see if you’re the bit that can take sleeping in a swag. What do you say? If I do pick up work you can’t sleep in the bunkhouse,’ he added. ‘But there’s always room for another maid at places like that. You can cook. Add your wages onto mine. Then in a year, two at the most, we’ll come back here. Buy some good ewes, the best ram we can find. A couple of horses. By the time you’re a woman we’ll have this place as rich as Drinkwater.’

Safety. A life. Someone who loved her. Somewhere she belonged. But once more sleep was almost all she could think about.

‘Sweet dreams, Matilda,’ he said softly.

She turned to go into the second bedroom. At the last moment she turned. ‘Dad? Why did you say now Mum was dead you were free?’

‘Because now I don’t have to send her almost every penny I make, I can make this into a proper farm. Not with white sheep and baa-baa lambs. Something real.’

He looked at her as though she was a bucket full of gold. ‘Your ma took that from me, just like she took you. I’m going to get my life back now.’ He crossed the room and took her shoulders again, then kissed the top of her head. ‘Sleep well, my daughter.’

The road shimmered white and dry before them. On either side sheep looked up, hoping the humans had brought hay, then gazed back down into the dust. The only trees ran along the riverside, far to their west.

It wasn’t as hot walking today, not with her petticoats packed into the false bottom of the trunk back at the house and her father’s hat on her head. It was too big for her and hung down almost to her eyes, but the swinging twigs kept the flies away, and the wide brim shaded her face too.

‘Tired yet?’

‘No.’ She wouldn’t have admitted it, even if she had been. Somehow being safe — and loved and wanted — made her feel like she could fly along the road.

Her father had insisted on carrying her things too — not much: another dress, a blanket, needles and thread, her soap — in the big rolled swag that dangled down his back, with a billy dangling from one side. He’d grinned at her. ‘We’re waltzing our Matilda together.’

She hadn’t understood. He patted the swag. ‘The men o’ the road call a swag their Matilda.’

‘Like me?’

‘Just like you. Your Matilda is your best friend when you’re on the road. Your Matilda and your billy.’

‘If I was a boy would you have called me Billy?’

He laughed at that. ‘I might.’

‘What about the waltzing?’

‘That’s what you do when you take to the road to look for work. Waltzing your Matilda.’

‘Not a dance?’

He must have seen her disappointment. ‘You can have both, Matilda my darlin’. We’ll waltz the road and the next place we come to with music, I’ll show you how to dance the waltz too. What do you say?’

So now they were waltzing their Matilda away from the valley that sheltered the house, its hills faint in the heat and dust behind them.

‘No blisters?’

She shook her head. She liked how he worried about her; how he’d made her finish the soup this morning and eat half the cheese; how he’d rubbed her shoes with dripping to make them softer before they set out.

‘Won’t go too far today. Just get off Drinkwater’s land before we make camp for the night, so he can’t charge me with trespass or the like.’

‘Are we on his land now?’

‘Road is right o’ way for everyone. But we want to be well away from him and his boys.’

‘How much land does he own?’

‘About five square miles, up and down the river.’ He grinned down at her. ‘With a few holes in it, that other folks selected, like our place.’

Matilda felt a smile grow across her face. It sounded good. ‘Our place.’

‘Old Drinkwater never bought most of his land. He squatted on it, back in the forties. He was just a lad then. Ran his sheep. Made money. Him and other squatters got so rich they was running the government. Made laws to say the land was theirs, if they paid a bit o’ rent. Then the law was changed so that some of the squatters’ land could be selected. Drinkwater and the like paid their workmen to buy up the good land then sign it back to them.’

‘Is that when you bought Moura?’

He nodded. ‘I knew I wanted land since I was your age. Saved every penny I could get. Sold possum skins, trapped koala bears for their fur. Everyone wanted land along the river — there’s a dozen hundred-acre blocks down there. Moura didn’t go for much. Drinkwater didn’t know it had water. That stream never goes beyond the cliffs, except in a flood. He was as mad as a hungry bull when he found out.’

‘Is that why you … you don’t like each other?’

‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘Give him his due, he never held it against me. We was all right, me and the old man, till the strike.’

‘What happened then?’

‘Drinkwater’s one of those who think that because they’re boss of one big place they can be king of everything. The bosses have all the power — they say what you can be paid, even if it’s not enough for a man to live on.

‘They say how many hours you’ve got to work for.’ There was passion in his voice now. ‘That’s why we need unions. No one man can fight bosses like Drinkwater. But if we stand together we’re strong enough to fight for our rights.’

‘So he got angry because you joined a union?’

‘He was in a red rage because I started the branch of the Shearers’ Union around here,’ he said flatly. ‘Other stations have been run on union labour for years. But Drinkwater wasn’t too bad till the price of wool dropped an’ he cut our pay.’