Kal (11 page)

The interior of the hut was as crude as the exterior although Evan had made several improvements since his marriage.

The iron stove in the corner had been added. Prior to that he'd cooked his meals outside over an open fire. And he'd added floor coverings. They were made of used filter cloths discarded by the big mines. After several ore crushings had been pressed through them, the filter cloths became stiff and unusable and they served as flooring in many a miner's home. Evan had even built a bedroom onto the rear of the hut. No longer did he sleep in his swag on the dirt floor. But the rest of the surrounds were as basic as they had been for the past six years. The homemade table and chairs, the hanging chaff bag which served as a larder to keep the foodstuffs away from the endless ants. The cooking utensils of billy cans and cut-down kerosene tins. Maudie recognised them all: it was the way she had lived with her mother and father for years.

There was a display of femininity in the room though. The rough wooden table was covered with a lace cloth and neatly set out was a china teapot and cups. Probably Kate's pride and joy, Maudie thought, touched; Evan would certainly have used tin mugs. And the smell of fresh-baked scones hung in the air.

‘Kate?' Evan called. She was nowhere in sight. ‘Kate?' He crossed to the hessian curtain which led to the bedroom and pulled it aside. ‘Oh my God!' Maudie heard him call. ‘Oh my God, the baby!' and she rushed to his side.

The woman was lying on the stretcher bed. Beneath her skirt, her raised knees were spread wide and her arms were above her head, gripping the bedposts as she writhed in pain. Her hair was matted and her face and the thin cotton blouse she wore were drenched in sweat.

Evan knelt by her side and smoothed her hair back from her face. ‘Kate? Kate?' He looked up at Maudie, panic-stricken. ‘It's three weeks till her time,' he said.

‘Oh no it's not.' Maudie knelt by the bed, nudging him aside. ‘Jack, go and look after the Princess,' she called over her shoulder. ‘Bring me water,' she ordered, ‘and clean cloth.' Evan rose, confused, uncertain; he did not want to leave his wife. ‘Hurry up, man. Hurry up.'

When he returned she barked further instructions at him. ‘Boil water. Sterilise a knife. Bring me thread. And cloth. More cloth. Much more.'

‘When did it start?' Maudie asked as she bathed the young woman's face.

‘Dawn,' she whispered. ‘The first big pain.' Her face contorted with agony as a fresh spasm seized her. ‘I … was not sure. I did not want …' Another spasm. She was panting with the effort of talking. ‘… To worry him.'

‘Don't talk any more,' Maudie said. ‘Try and breathe
steady, slow.' Over seven hours, she thought. The woman had been in labour for over seven hours. She'd made scones and set out her tea service while the contractions had intensified. Obviously she was tougher than Maudie had given her credit for.

But something was wrong, Maudie could sense it. The labour was heavy, the baby wanted to come. She raised Kate's skirts. The woman had prepared herself and removed her undergarments. She was fully dilated and the baby was coming. But something was stopping it.

Evan returned with more cloth. ‘Pull the curtain aside,' Maudie ordered, ‘it's too dark in here. And light candles, I need light.

‘Breathe easy, breathe easy,' she said gently as she eased her hand inside the woman's vagina. She could feel the baby, but not its head. It was upside down in the womb.

‘Don't push,' she said. ‘Don't push.' The woman's face was a mask of pain. ‘The baby's coming out the wrong way. I'm going to have to turn it.' Kate nodded. ‘Scream if you like.'

Maudie pushed her hand deep into the woman's womb. She felt for a leg. There it was. Where was the other?' Kate's jaw was set and she was staring up at the roof of the hut. ‘Scream,' Maudie urged. ‘Scream—it'll help.'

But she didn't scream. Apart from a regular panting hiss from between her clenched teeth, the woman didn't utter a sound. She's got guts, Maudie thought, she's certainly got guts.

At last. There it was. She'd found the other leg. It was twisted around the umbilical cord.

It took Maudie several minutes to disentangle the leg. Minutes that must have seemed like hours to the woman in agony, but still she did not cry out.

Evan returned with the hot water and the knife and
thread. ‘I'm turning the baby,' Maudie said as she saw his ashen face and the fear in his eyes. ‘It was coming out the wrong way.'

Evan tried to take his wife's hand but she shook her head and clung to the bedposts with an iron grip, her knuckles white. He knelt beside her, feeling frightened and useless. ‘Wipe her brow,' Maudie said. ‘It's turning. It's turning, Kate.'

Maudie's eyes were stinging from her own sweat now. She fumbled and pushed and it seemed an age when, all of a sudden, the baby slipped from her grasp and magically she could feel the head in the palm of her hand. Thank God, she thought. ‘Push, Kate,' she said withdrawing her hand. ‘Push!'

The woman filled her lungs with air and pushed. The baby's head appeared. Again she pushed. And again and again. The head, the shoulders. Her face a mask of pain, she pushed and pushed and suddenly the whole slithering mass of baby appeared in Maudie's lap.

‘Good girl, good girl, well done,' Maudie said, smiling with relief. ‘Knife.'

As she spanked the baby and busied herself tying and cutting the umbilical cord Maudie didn't notice the bleeding. Neither did Evan. He was too busy mopping his wife's brow and murmuring encouragingly.

‘It's a girl,' Maudie said, placing the newborn infant on its mother's breast. But something was wrong. The woman's eyes were rolling back in her head. She was trying desperately not to pass out. Then Maudie saw the blood gushing from between Kate's legs.

The placenta, Maudie thought. There was no placenta. Just blood. Pouring out of the woman onto the bed. Spilling onto the floor.

Maudie thrust the baby at Evan. ‘She hasn't contracted,' she said urgently. ‘She'll bleed to death if we don't get the placenta out.'

‘Oh Jesus, oh sweet Jesus.' Evan watched with horror as the lifeblood poured from his wife.

Once again Maudie plunged her hand into the woman's womb. She groped for the bag. There it was. She pulled out her fist and the bloodied placenta came with it. The bleeding stopped as quickly as it had started and Maudie gently eased Kate's stiffened knees down onto the bed. The woman's eyelids were fluttering, but she fought to remain conscious. She released her grip on the bedposts and signalled for Evan to pass her the baby. He supported the infant while she held it to her breast, feeble, exhausted.

Neither Maudie nor Evan noticed a small figure appear beside the open hessian curtain. But Kate did, and a slight smile played on her lips. When Maudie turned to see what had gained her attention she thought at first the child must be Jack.

‘Paolo,' the woman whispered. ‘Do not be frightened.'

A small boy of six or seven stood there, his eyes wide with shock at the sight of so much blood. Of course, Maudie remembered, she'd heard that Kate was a widow and had a son by her first marriage.

‘It is all right, Paolo,' Caterina whispered. ‘You have a sister.'

Just before she slipped into unconsciousness, Caterina wondered whether Evan would mind too much that his firstborn child was a girl.

When Caterina had arrived in Fremantle in the late summer of 1893 she had been heavily pregnant with Paul's child.

She'd stayed with her uncle and his family, as had been arranged, until after the birth, but she knew that she was tolerated rather than welcomed. She knew that her aunt and uncle did not believe she was a widow, as her father had told them in his telegraph. But then Franco Panuzzi had not expected his younger brother to believe such a story. He had told Caterina as much when he had given her the substantial amount of money the family could ill afford.

‘You will pay my brother a weekly sum for your food and lodging,' he had said, ‘and for appearances' sake he will believe your widowhood. It is a matter of family honour that he does so. But as soon as you can support yourself and your child, you must cease to be a burden to him.'

Shortly after the birth, Caterina had spent several hours a day trudging around Fremantle in search of work while her aunt cared for baby Paolo. The main thoroughfare of the town, High Street, was active and vital. The town hall with its clock tower stood proudly at the top end and, down the bottom, on Arthurs Head overlooking the sea, stood the Round House, a solid
circular stone building, once a prison. The backstreets in between were lined with tiny stone cottages and there was a pub on every corner. There were plenty of jobs to be had around town. In shops and bars and restaurants and the larger hotels where chambermaids and cleaners were constantly required. Caterina had worked hard on her English and could communicate well. It wasn't language or nationality differences that presented a problem. It was the baby that was the complication. Then, just when she was nearing despair, she walked into the Dockside Arms.

Fremantle was a man-made harbour built at the mouth of the Swan River. With no natural headlands to form an inlet, sandbars had been painstakingly dredged to create a land-backed inner harbour, and a long jetty snaked out into the deep water of the Indian Ocean. Steamers unloaded their goods at the jetty and vessels disgorged their hopeful passengers by the hundreds, many of them in search of gold. It was a rough port town with rough hotels and the Dockside Arms was one of them. Down near the wharf, it was run by a burly English couple, Mick and Mavis Forster, from the Midlands.

‘Bless you, dear, I can look after the little one. I've six of my own, one still a toddler.' At forty-four, Mavis Forster had sadly acknowledged that her child-bearing years were over and she desperately missed a baby at her breast.

Mick had an eye for a pretty face and a bargain and Caterina represented both. The pretty face was good for custom and the offer of free accommodation meant he could pay her a pittance. Mavis also recognised a bargain—although she sometimes thought pretty girls brought more trouble than they were worth—and a full-time barmaid for the cost of a few shillings a week and the poky little room out the back was an extremely
attractive proposition. Besides, she decided, she liked the girl. Behind the china blue eyes and the dimpled smile, the girl had spine, Mavis could tell. And of course there was the baby. As far as Mavis was concerned the baby clinched the deal.

‘You could start as soon as you like,' she said in reply to Caterina's query. ‘That's so, isn't it, Mick?'

‘Sooner the better,' Mick nodded. ‘Tomorrow, if you can. Lizzie leaves next week and you'll need to know the ropes by then.'

Caterina enjoyed her work at the Dockside Arms. Mick and Mavis were hard taskmasters but they were fair, and Mavis was wonderful with baby Paolo. So wonderful that Caterina felt an occasional twinge of jealousy—the woman spent more waking hours in the company of her son than she herself did.

Feeding times became precious, and as Caterina watched the tiny mouth, ferocious at her breast, she knew that everything had been worth it. And any hardship yet to come would be worth it too. This was the baby she and Paul had made, high up in the Alps, as they lay together in the narrow bunk, the snow outside blanketing the chalet. This was their son. Paolo.

Initially Doris, the other barmaid, had been wary of Caterina. Here was competition, she thought, wishing that plain Lizzie had not left to get married. Doris had rooms in a boarding house around the corner and conducted a lucrative business on the side. She didn't consider herself a prostitute. She only slept with men she fancied and then on the understanding that they gave her a ‘present'.

Doris was a Cockney who admitted to being somewhere in her twenties but was really thirty-five. She had a hard, pinched little face and thin blonde hair which, when pulled tightly up into a chignon, accentuated her beakiness. But her body was neat and pert and when she
flirted with the men, the promise in her eyes was attractive. Business was good, so long as there was no competition. Caterina's lush body and her thick auburn curls which refused to be restricted by pins or bonnets posed a definite threat.

Before long, however, it became evident that the Italian girl was not remotely interested in any form of personal relationship with the men, either for business or romantic reasons. Good heavens, Doris thought, the girl did not even dress to attract them. She seemed to own only two skirts which she alternated, and several blouses which she washed and ironed in the back kitchen. Doris was a very conscientious dresser and would never wear the same outfit two days in succession. She also believed in advertising her wares. She corsetted herself so tightly it was a wonder she could breathe and she favoured skirts that accentuated the line of her back, hinting at the pert round bottom beneath. Despite the fact that her blouses were as modest as fashion demanded, the tightness of her stays pushed her neat little breasts into such prominence that it was impossible to ignore them.

Doris noticed that, charming and affable as Caterina was with the men, as soon as they attempted to flirt with her, she ignored them. It was then that Doris, breathing a sigh of relief, decided to take the young Italian girl under her wing.

A strange friendship was forged between the two. Doris, who liked a good laugh, discovered that beneath Caterina's beauty was a well-defined sense of humour. And Caterina delighted in Doris's ability to shock.

‘He's a dud, that one over there,' Doris would whisper, pointing to a well-built wharfie in the corner. ‘All muscle and no show.' Or, of another regular: ‘Big Ben I call him, built like a horse and a regular athlete in bed but he's a mean bugger. Expects to get it for a free
dinner.' And Caterina would laugh and call Doris wicked which only encouraged her. But Caterina was grateful for the friendship. Although she pretended to be shocked, she knew that Doris was good-hearted and meant no malice. And Caterina had long since ceased to make judgements. If Doris wished to sleep with the men and accept their presents, where was the harm?

The Dockside Arms had an air of masculine conviviality about it. It was not the roughest of the miners' and workers' pubs. Apart from the occasional drunken brawl, it was usually peaceful and easy-going. The roughest pubs were the ones with the illegal gambling dens upstairs or out the back.

The Dockside Arms was one of several Fremantle pubs known as goldrush pubs. Many of the miners who drank there brought their gold to the city, some because they believed they got a better price, and some because their gold was stolen. Since the big mines had recently come into operation, gold theft was rife and if the theft was of considerable proportion, it was a lot safer for a miner to sell his illicit gold to one of the anonymous shady dealers in Perth who would ask no questions. Other miners came to the city merely for rest and recreation.

Drinking alongside the miners were the wharfies and the itinerant workers and the timbermen from the towns down south. Employed by the railways to cut sleepers for the constantly expanding rail tracks, the timbermen would come up to the city each month to get drunk, have a woman and gamble away most of their wages.

Caterina came to know the regular drinkers. And not just the shift workers who propped up the bar when their day was done. As the months slid by she recognised the timbermen who came to town for a long weekend every now and then. She always remembered
their names and she was always good for a long chat when business was slow. Once the men realised that she was unavailable, they enjoyed the feminine company. They all lusted after her but they accepted the fact that they had to go to Doris if they wanted ‘a bit of that' and when a newcomer who did not understand the rules overstepped the mark, he was quickly set straight by the regulars.

Caterina tried desperately to save money from the pittance the Forsters paid her. By stinting on her own food and clothing she finally bought a perambulator and Sunday, her precious day, was spent strolling down High Street, windowshopping, with Paolo in his pram. Or she would stand on Old Lighthouse Hill, look upriver to the Fremantle Bridge and the waterways which led to Perth and describe the view to Paolo as he gurgled away happily.

‘We will go there one day, Paolo,' she would tell him. ‘It is a beautiful city, they say. On a big round lake. And you can sit on a hill just outside and look down on the whole city and the lake and the beautiful trees. We will go there one day.'

But as the years went by, Caterina knew she was deluding herself. Paolo was now three years old; he could walk and talk. She could never give him the life she wanted while she worked at the Dockside Arms. She could find employment which would pay more, certainly, but who would look after the child? The answer was obvious. She must find a husband.

It was then that Caterina started to look at the men who drank at the pub in a different light. She was aware that very few of them were ideal as marriage prospects. But then, neither was she. Indeed, few men would be remotely interested in a woman with a child. But where else was she to meet a prospective husband?

Doris was immensely helpful. Not only because
Caterina's search for a husband posed no threat—a man willing to marry a woman with a small child was not a man looking for an erotic experience in exchange for a generous present—she felt a genuine sympathy for Caterina. In fact she wondered how in God's name the girl had survived for so long without the favours of men.

‘We'll find him, don't you worry,' she promised. ‘We'll find a good father for Paolo, one with money, you just wait and see.' Doris's only regret in finding the right man was the knowledge that she would lose her friend. She had become very fond of Caterina.

 

‘Y
OU ARE A
miner, Mr Jones, yes?' Caterina had not seen the man before and, when he introduced himself, he was obviously lonely and wanting to talk. His introduction had not been flirtatious, and the bar was not busy, so Caterina was only too happy to oblige.

‘Is it that obvious then?' Beneath his bushy beard Evan smiled politely but he couldn't help feeling just a touch offended. He'd scrubbed the red dust from his body till his skin was raw, and bought a brand-new shirt, vest and jacket and he'd rather hoped that he looked like a businessman. His partner had recently informed him that he was leaving the Clover to work for one of the big mines and if Evan was to find a suitable replacement with money to invest, he needed to look successful. Not that he was sure he really wanted to find a new partner—the prospect of working as a loner was attractive.

Evan had told himself that a trip to Fremantle would do him good, but after two days, he was already wishing he was back in his humpy and working his mine. Big towns with crowded streets were lonely places. Strange, that. He never felt lonely when he was twenty feet beneath the ground's surface, just him and his pick and the earth with its promise of gold. Or sitting by his open
fire boiling his billy tea after a hard day's work.

He'd stay for just one week, he decided. He'd play the successful businessman, visit several of the goldrush pubs where he may possibly find a prospective partner and then he'd head back to the goldfields.

But here was this young Italian barmaid immediately seeing through his disguise. ‘And how did you know I was a miner, might I ask?'

‘You come from Kalgoorlie, you tell me,' Caterina answered simply. ‘All men from Kalgoorlie are miners, yes?'

‘Ah. Well, I suppose they are that, yes.' The directness of the girl was charming.

At thirty-one years of age Evan had from time to time met beautiful women and he had always found them intimidating. But this girl seemed oblivious of her beauty and it was captivating.

‘What is your name, Miss …?' he asked.

‘Caterina,' she said. ‘I am called Caterina.'

Caterina's mind flashed back to the Alps. The chalet. Mary. Mary had spoken like that. The same soft lilt. ‘You are from Wales?' she asked.

‘Yes, I am that. A long time ago. From Cardiff.'

A man signalled for service from the end of the bar and Caterina excused herself, but over the next several hours, when business was slow, she talked to the Welshman. And when he returned the following night, she talked to him again.

‘He's keen, Catie,' Doris said approvingly. ‘Very keen. You could do worse. But don't you go telling him about Paolo yet. Not until you've got him panting.'

Caterina felt herself blush. It was one thing to talk of finding a husband, but another thing altogether to be confronted with a man upon whom she should set her sights. And he was a nice man, Evan Jones, she could not be dishonest with him.

 

‘S
UNDAY TOMORROW
. W
ANT
to come out with me?' The Saturday-night rush was on and Evan had to raise his voice above the din. He felt conspicuous but nobody seemed to be taking any notice. ‘We could catch the train to Perth and have lunch by the river, what do you think?'

Caterina tried to sound nonchalant as she poured the beers and called back loudly over the hubbub, ‘Sundays I am with my son.' She looked briefly at him, noticing the surprise in his eyes. ‘I have a little boy. Paolo.'