Flinty Mack
Rock Farm
Rocky Valley
4 November 1944
Matilda Thompson
Drinkwater Station
via Gibber’s Creek
Dear Matilda,
I hope the dry isn’t affecting you too much. Sandy has the syphon going from the creek, but we are down to an hour’s watering a day, or rather night. Sandy gets up at two am and turns the water on the potatoes. The creek has dried up entirely down the other end of the valley so despite the slope we are putting in all we can up here. It will be corn next, as much as we can manage.
George Green is working out well. I think he has been surprised at how much he enjoys being up here and his grandparents enjoy having him at home. He’s been giving lessons in chemistry and physics and electronics at the school on Friday afternoons, which is a great success, and he has joined the bushfire brigade.
But I must tell you something. It is so funny. You know all his talk about the ‘Jewish conspiracy’? Well, he tried that on Mutti Green and she fixed him with her eye — Mutti is good at that — and said, ‘Your great-grandfather, the rabbi, would die of shame to hear you talk that way.’ Her mother was Jewish! Anyhow, it has knocked the wind out of his sails a bit, but on the other hand he is chuffed because he was able to fix the pump on the fire truck when no one else could. He is talking about setting up a steel-fabricating works after the war, making prefabricated sheds. I must say I can’t see how that would work — aren’t all sheds prefabricated before you put them up? But Sandy says he may be onto something.
Do give my special love to Blue, and hug her for me? I know you will anyway. I do wish she was closer, but then I’d probably fuss and drive her mad, bringing over apple pies and generally reminding her of Joseph when she doesn’t need reminding, just getting on with work and life the best she can. But I still worry.
Do give my very best to Jim and Michael when you write to them. Sandy sends his best too.
Love from us all,
Flinty
DRINKWATER, 20 NOVEMBER 1944
MATILDA
She knew when she saw the mail cart drop him off at the front gate, knew as her son walked down the drive carrying his suitcase, instead of staying safe at school in the Blue Mountains. Two more weeks of school, she thought. Couldn’t he at least have finished his last two weeks of school?
If only Tommy had been home. If only Michael had gone to the factory first, then they could have both come home together. She could have smiled easily then, with Tommy at her side …
She had to smile now. She stepped onto the veranda, the smile in place, made herself say, ‘Hello! Shouldn’t you be at school?’
He stepped up beside her, bent to kiss her cheek. He had stopped doing that in public when he was twelve; began again at fourteen. She’d asked him, ‘Why?’ and he’d said gruffly, ‘I’m bigger than them now.’
Yes, he was tall, this clear-eyed son.
He straightened, then hugged her, after the kiss. ‘Don’t worry. I’ve got my Leaving Certificate all right and it’s in my case. They coughed up for it early.’
‘Come inside. You must be parched.’
‘It’s dry all right.’
He plonked his case down in the hall and followed her to the kitchen. It was empty, thank goodness, Mrs Mutton at her afternoons at the factory. She took a jug of cordial from the Coolgardie safe — petrol was too valuable to use the generator now, except for shearing, and kerosene almost impossible to get — poured him a glass and reached for the cake tin.
‘Any chance of a sandwich? I’m starving. Had nothing since leaving Sydney last night. They don’t run the buffet car any more.’
‘Of course.’
Cold meat, bread, chutney. She buttered great slabs, piled on meat, watched him sink his teeth into them. She noticed the chipped tooth he’d got playing football when he was fifteen …
He demolished the third sandwich. ‘I’ve enlisted.’
‘I guessed. Militia?’ Please, she thought, let it be the AIF. Let him stay safe in Australia for three more years. He can do his bit in the AIF …
‘Yes.’
Matilda looked at him, her clear-eyed son. He took her hand. When had his hands grown so large? But they had always been big, she remembered, even that first day as a baby, eyes glaring towards her voice as though demanding where he was and what this world was like.
‘Mum, listen. I’m not going to die. You understand?’
She nodded.
‘I’m not going to die. And Nancy hasn’t died either. She’s alive. We’re coming back here. Both of us, when the war is won.’
‘Michael … you’re not going to find her. You know that, don’t you?’
He almost laughed. ‘Mum, what do you take me for?’
Eighteen, she thought. Eighteen and a man. I never realised …
‘I expect they’ll send us to New Guinea. Doesn’t matter. Whatever is needed.’ He met her eyes. ‘All right, I’m doing this for Nancy too. The sooner the war is ended, the sooner she’ll be home. The sooner we get the Japs, the sooner you’ll be safe, and every other woman —’ He stopped, as if he’d said too much.
‘If they invade, we’ll stop them.’
He grinned. He was the baby, the little boy, as well as the young man. ‘With bayonets made out of brooms and carving knives, like in The People’s Manual?’
‘With the guns your great-great-grandfather left in the back room,’ she said. ‘We could arm half of Australia with what’s in there. Though half of them might blow up if anyone tried to fire them.’
‘It won’t come to that.’
And for the first time she knew with certainty, no, it won’t.