Olive could see that Sam was surprised when she agreed so easily to let Jeremy eat with them on his first night at Redstone. She supposed he’d been expecting her to insist on him eating alone in his cottage. But she had her reasons. Once they were all seated with their meals, she said, ‘Before we say grace, I have something to say.’
‘Bloody hell, a welcome speech!’ exclaimed Jeremy, lowering his fork.
‘Not exactly, although you are welcome here, Jeremy.’ Olive had decided that a little kindness to start with wouldn’t hurt. ‘While you’re working for us, there are a few things we expect.’
‘Old Ma calls the shots here does she?’ Jeremy looked at Sam in commiseration. ‘Same at my place when I still lived there. My old lady’s always worn the pants, but she lets Dad think he’s running the show.’
Olive’s face was stony. She’d played this scene out repeatedly in her imagination. In her mind’s eye, Jeremy had listened demurely. Sam shifted uncomfortably in his seat and Alice shot Jeremy a warning glance. He seemed to realise he’d pushed his luck. ‘Righto. I’m all ears. Fire away.’
Olive regained her composure and decided to launch into it with no gentle preamble this time. ‘Firstly, we always say grace before meals. No one swears at the dinner table. There will be no drinking of alcohol or smoking while you’re at Redstone.’
‘Shi—. . . struth, a dry camp! That sounds serious. A bloke’s gotta run amok every now and again otherwise his work suffers.’ Jeremy winked at Alice.
Olive continued coldly, ‘Girlfriends will not be welcome here. And there will be no weekend trips to town. I hope you can cope with those few conditions, Jeremy, as we do hope you can keep this position.’ She finished off with a little sniff.
Jeremy looked at Olive with a direct, not unfriendly expression. ‘The way I see it, Ma, is this. Beggars can’t be bloody choosers. I know I only got this job because there wasn’t anyone else.’ He paused, challenging her to deny it. When she said nothing he continued, ‘On the other hand, I could go to the mines tomorrow and get a starting wage four times the pittance I’ll be getting here. All my mates have gone that way. But the truth is, the stinking mines make me sick. I’d rather work for a bloody septic sucker than go there.’
Olive had gone pale and was holding on to the sides of her chair.
Jeremy went on, ‘But about your rules, I’ll stick to ’em when I can. I’m not making any promises.’ He looked at Sam. ‘Better to be upfront about these things.’
Sam nodded in agreement and then withered under Olive’s glare. ‘Liv, let’s just see how things pan out, shall we?’ he suggested reassuringly.
Olive was thoroughly crestfallen. So far the reformation wasn’t going according to plan. ‘Well, the least you can do is call me Mrs Day. We’re accustomed to some respect around here, and none of our other workers have ever had a problem with that.’
‘Can do. I can cop that. Any day, Mrs Day.’ Jeremy chuckled. ‘And you can call me Jed. Jeremy was my Pommy great-granddad.’
There was a brief silence as Olive considered how to respond. Sam jumped into the opening with unusual alacrity. ‘Let’s get started – food’s getting cold.’
Somehow after all that they missed saying grace. As she washed up after Jeremy had gone back to his cottage Olive clashed the pots in mortification. She felt a sense of rising panic. Sam and Alice didn’t seem overly concerned; Alice was calmly drying up and Sam was poring over the funeral notices in the paper. Olive wanted to say something to shake them up as she’d been shaken. But Jeremy’s cheerful unconcern had made her feel unusually powerless. She finished tidying up and went to bed without doing any of her crochet.
The next morning, after breakfast, Olive watched from the window as Jeremy, Sam and Alice walked to the yards. She began to puzzle again over her new problem. How would she fit another man’s wages into their already stretched budget? Should she ask Lara for help? But Lara’s life now seemed to revolve entirely around her husband, Conrad Harradine, and their three children. Lara had met Conrad not long after leaving Redstone; the older brother of one of her university peers, he was now a successful barrister in Brisbane and Lara’s life seemed to be complete, without the worry of her Redstone connections. Olive knew that the Harradines weren’t short of money and were in fact often on the lookout for new ventures to invest in. But did Lara still care enough about the future of Redstone to consider money spent on it an investment?
Olive asked herself what would have happened if she’d listened to Sam and kept Alice at home instead of sending her away to boarding school. The money they’d laid out on school fees would certainly have come in handy now.
Alice had hated that boarding school and then wasted the opportunity by leaving in year ten. It had seemed outrageous at the time, as the quietly spoken girl had been awarded an academic scholarship for years eleven and twelve. Olive had fought hard to convince her to stay but Alice had been unusually stubborn, and Sam, to Olive’s frustration, had sided with the girl. In the end, Olive had agreed that she could leave, but only on the condition that she furthered her education at ag college.
Through the primary years Olive had diligently taught Alice herself with Distance Education. With quiet pride she’d noticed that her own aptitude for maths had continued down the maternal line. Alice loved to read, too: novels, but also Sam’s history books with their black and white photos of bullock teams, timber cutters, drovers and packhorses. Newspapers, farming magazines and farm production guides were always whisked away to Alice’s room upon arrival.
But then the time had come for high school. Olive remembered the night she’d argued with Sam about sending Alice away. ‘Alice must have a chance to make something of herself. She’s very clever, Sam.’
Sam was strongly opposed to the idea. ‘She has that chance – here. Redstone is her future.’
Olive had a trump card up her sleeve. ‘Lara insists. She’s going to pay all the fees. It may be that she wishes to get to know Alice after all when she’s in Brisbane. We can’t stand in the way of a mother’s wishes.’
But Sam had made it clear that he was doubtful of this from the very first.
Still, Olive got her way, and Alice had made the journey to Brisbane to start at the same reputable Catholic girls high school that Lara had attended. When she came home for her first Easter holidays, it seemed that Sam’s fears had been warranted. Alice had seen Lara, Conrad and their two young children only once during her term in the city and had suffered horribly from homesickness. Sam had spoken accusingly to Olive. ‘She’s pining. Looks like a little wilted flower.’
Still, Olive had imagined that things would improve in time. Lara had loved boarding school and Olive was convinced that Alice would grow to like it too.
Alice didn’t share all the details of her first term with her grandparents. She’d encountered the bullies before she’d found anyone she could call a friend. Subtle girl bullying. Quiet taunts and exclusion. The ringleader, daughter of the local member of parliament, was tall, beautiful, Jacinta Foster. She’d targeted Alice on the first day, sweetly commenting on her great ‘tan’. Alice had explained that her father was Aboriginal, to which Jacinta had responded by asking whether she’d been adopted by a civilised white family.
By the end of the first week, having failed to ruffle Alice, Jacinta enlisted a gang of followers. Their secret conferences often involved glances towards Alice and a great deal of muffled tittering. While most of the other girls would have gladly been friendly with Alice, they were too afraid of attracting Jacinta’s disapproval and generally avoided the lonely country girl.
It soon became obvious to all that Alice had brains. Mrs Parsons, her eccentric, middle-aged English teacher, clapped her hands in delight at reading Alice’s first essay on the themes of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Mr Ferrari, the handsome young maths teacher, took a special interest in Alice and began bringing her extra problems to solve each week.
Jacinta, seething with envy, had intensified her mission to make Alice’s life a misery. One day, while the class was waiting for Mr Ferrari to arrive, she’d called across the room to one of her friends, ‘Hey, Bianca, what’s worse than a dumb Abo?’
‘What?’ Bianca giggled stupidly, before the punchline.
‘A smart Abo. Because they know they can get everything they want just by being black!’
Poor Alice, whose entire world until now had been contained within the boundaries of Redstone and the calm, orderly ways of her grandparents, found herself utterly disorientated and bewildered by the ruthless teen social dynamics of the city boarding school.
However, those high school years had toughened her, and she’d managed to keep her chin up and make the best of a bad deal. She’d been sent to learn, so learn she did. This attitude, and the promise of one day returning to her beloved Redstone, were the two secret weapons that carried her through, term by term of school and also the following years at ag college.
Now Olive, using the benefit of hindsight, was filled with an uncharacteristic regret for the part she’d played in the decision to send Alice away for schooling. Her hopes that Lara would take the opportunity to get to know her daughter had amounted to nothing, and Lara’s continued indifference had been a source of secret sorrow to Olive over the years. In addition, Lara had never followed through on her promise to pay Alice’s school fees, and Sam and Olive had been too proud to ask for the money.
The day of Alice’s return from ag college, some weeks ago now, Olive had searched the girl’s face and figure for some resemblance to her mother. Lara’s pretty features were there, in a darker shade. But not the eyes. And none of the essence.
Sam had been right: Alice was nothing like Lara. The girl’s heart was truly embedded in this place, and had she been allowed to stay, Sam may have managed things a little better at Redstone.
‘What’s done is done,’ Olive said matter-of-factly, out loud, to reassure herself.