A Changing Land(85)
The baby was screaming. Lauren digested her sister’s shocking news as the baby digested the thick mud his two-year-old sister was shoving down his throat and up his nose. ‘Mary, Jesus and Joseph, Annie, but you’re a terror.’ Lauren, glad to be distracted, rushed to the screeching, mud-covered blob on the ground. ‘Mother?’ she screamed.
‘Dump him in the bucket,’ Mrs Grant offered helpfully without looking up from the steaming boiler.
Lauren found the three-parts-filled cast iron bucket sitting under the gum tree. She lifted the now silent baby and dunked him three times by the ankles up and down. He came out purple and crying, which clearly was better than muddy and quiet, for Mrs Grant gave a perfunctory look over her shoulder and nodded. With the subdued, spluttering baby on her hip, Annie sulking in readiness for her mother’s sharp backhand, Lauren decided good news was required if she were to have a peaceful night.
‘I’ve an offer of marriage, Mother.’
Mrs Grant dropped the great wooden stirring paddle and, wiping her hands on her apron, trundled across the withered grass. ‘Who is ’e?’
‘A stockman from Wangallon Station, name of McKenzie.’
Mrs Grant rubbed her red peeling hands together. ‘Scottish? Well, the Scots are not bad, you know. Good workers. Serious minded, especially if he be a Presbyterian. Gawd, now there are a mob of churchgoers. And Wangallon, eh? Them Gordons have money. I’ve seen that Jasperson here at the store buying up like he was the King of England himself. You’re not with child? Not that it matters if you’re to be married.’
‘No and I’ve not given him an answer … yet.’
‘What? Are you daft? An offer of marriage from a man who’s not a drunkard, a thief or an old man is as scarce as feathered frogs.’
Lauren placed her hand on her mother’s muscled shoulder. ‘I’ve said nothing for I’m hoping for a better offer.’
Mrs Grant took Lauren’s face in her hand and squeezed her cheeks until her lips popped out an inch from her face. ‘Who?’
Lauren shook herself free, prodding her bruised cheeks. ‘Another from Wangallon.’
Mrs Grant laughed. A great belly laugh that set the baby to crying. ‘What have you been up to, my clever girl?’ From a pile of folded laundry she pulled out a white blouse detailed with fine pintucking. ‘Here.’ She tossed the garment across to Lauren before retrieving a bottle-green skirt. ‘Here, the Peters can’t pay this week. Want to work it off with eggs and butter. Eggs and butter? What do I want with the likes of eggs and butter when I can have condensed milk and a joint of beef.’
Lauren grinned.
‘Men like to be chased just a little, my girl. So you dress yourself up real nice and use some of the money in the jar under my bed to hire yourself a dray and horse. And check the almanac at the store. That way you’ll be safely travelling on the night of a waning full moon.’ Mrs Grant winked. ‘They can’t rush you back now can they, if it’s too dark to travel at night.’
Lauren swirled across the brown grass with the second-hand skirt and blouse clutched between her fingers. She was going to visit Wangallon and show Luke Gordon that she was a lady, one very much in demand.
Sarah opened her eyes to a strip of light. She focused slowly, feeling a crick in her neck. The room was in semi-darkness and the light came from the bottom of the door, beyond which muffled laughter sounded. She straightened slowly in the chair, recalling a late lunch of packaged sandwiches, uncomfortable at her father’s insistence at her staying in the room with her mother while he returned home to shower and change. Streetlights lit the drawn curtains behind her, footsteps sounded in the corridor. Sarah wanted to leave, yet she was aware that once she stepped beyond this room where the woman who should have loved her lay, she would not return. This would be the culmination of her long goodbye; one that had started many years ago.
Hesitantly Sarah walked to her mother’s side. Vividly she recalled the day of her brother’s death. The carrying of his body to the Wangallon dining room table and the outpouring of grief as they stood gazing in shock at his wrecked body. Her mother had blamed her for Cameron’s death because it was Sarah who had wanted to go riding that morning. And before that blame had been years of disinterest. Why? Because Sue Gordon loved and lost a man who was not her husband and then she lost her love child.
‘You should have loved me,’ Sarah said bitterly to her mother. ‘You were so caught up in your own world that you lost something precious –’ she reached over and flicked on the night light – ‘me.’ In the soft light her mother looked almost serene. There was a curve to her lips and the vertical lines that fanned from her mouth in a web of disappointment had smoothed. Her eyes were closed, her breathing steady. ‘I needed love too. I needed your support.’ Her mother’s eyes opened so slowly that Sarah imagined her waking from a deep sleep, one that spanned hurt and betrayal and love. Despite the improbability of her mother returning from the mental abyss which engulfed her, Sarah leant forward and lifted her hand as if to test her mother’s sight, although she doubted if Sue had any synapses left that could join form and reality.