It had been a bad, bad day. Elsie came over at seven with the newspaper. She stood at the curtained door, looking at the girl lying unmoving on the bed.
‘Do you want Harry to ride in and get Vern, Mum?’
‘She seems to be sleeping. Let her sleep. He’ll be down in the morning, and if he’s not, Joey can ride in for him.’
Wednesday, 19 April 1939: the front page of the newspaper was full of Bob Menzies’ defeat of Billy Hughes in a battle for the leadership of the United Australia Party. Gertrude knew nothing about it, knew nothing about Bob Menzies. She hadn’t looked at a paper in weeks.
Harry liked the look of Bob Menzies, so Elsie liked the look of him. If there was ever a match made in heaven, it was Elsie and Harry. Why it worked, Gertrude didn’t know, but it did.
At seven fifty, Elsie went home, and Gertrude sat on alone, staring at the photograph of the chap who’d no doubt end up prime minister. He looked like a round-faced boy and he made her feel old — as the half-inch of white showing at her hair partings made her feel old — as did her bones. They were moaning about their age tonight.
‘Exercise. That’s what I need.’
She’d had little exercise these past weeks. More often than not, Joey milked the goats. He cut greens, fed her chooks, carried water, collected her eggs. Charlie’s son-in-law still picked up the bulk of them. Harry took the rest into Mrs Crone and to a few regular buyers. Harry carried Gertrude’s shopping home. They’d kill her with kindness before she was much older.
At eight thirty, she checked on Jenny. She was tossing and turning but sleeping.
A strange little girl with a strange little mind, always full of life and questions. Who would have believed it could come to this? Who would have believed Amber could become what she’d become? Life played out its cruel games and there was no way to dodge its barbs.
She walked to her door, opened it and looked out at the moon. Amber had loved moonlit nights when she was small, loved to go walking in the moonlight. They’d had some good years.
She sighed, and walked out into the moonlight, out her gate and up her track to the road. She’d feel better for some exercise. What was she always telling Vern? ‘Walk,’ she said. ‘Get out of that car and walk. Legs were meant to be walked on.’
Tonight she took her own advice and walked. One moonlit night she’d walked Amber out to Macdonald’s bush mill, near on three mile further out her road — and she’d carried her girl home on her back. Only in her thirties then. A lifetime ago in years, but in living time it seemed like yesterday.
She walked too far, determined to prove she could still do it, and when she turned back, she wished she hadn’t been such a dogmatic woman, wished someone was with her to carry her home. She’d cut through her eastern paddock and was walking by her shed, eager for her bed, when she heard it and, like Nancy Bryant on a darker night fifteen years ago, recognised it.
She looked towards Elsie’s house. Elsie’s Teddy was eleven months old. What she’d heard was the cry of a newborn. She ran, or raised something faster than a walk, swung her door open, knocked a chair over on her way to the lean-to where she saw what she hadn’t expected to see for two or three weeks more. It was on the floor, Jenny standing, her back to the wall.
‘I’m sorry, darlin’. I’m sorry —’
‘Is it all out?’
‘Hop into bed. You’re bleeding.’ Gertrude stepped over the infant and tried to lead her to her bed.
‘Is it all out?’ Wild-eyed, staring at the wailing bloody thing on the floor, shuddering. ‘Is it all out?’
‘Elsie! Elsie! Harry!’ Gertrude called. ‘Elsie! Harry!’
‘Is it all out?’
‘Yes,’ Gertrude said. ‘Yes. It’s all out, darlin’.’ She was holding her up, Jenny’s shuddering shaking her. ‘You have to lie down for me, darlin’. We have to get your head down flat before you fall down.’
‘Get it out of here!’
‘I will. You get into bed, and I will.’
She got her on the bed, grabbed a towel and wrapped the baby, and was placing it on her kitchen table when Elsie came through the door, barefoot and nightgown clad, Harry behind her, still doing up his trousers.
They took it away. Teddy was still at Elsie’s breast. She fed the baby its first meal.