The New Year that fell in the high summer of 1842 was a golden odyssey for Jake Andersen and his new family. They were living an enchanted life, one as close to Keziah’s Romani childhood as Jake could give her.
Although carefree on the surface, Jake was aware how low his finances were. The colony’s boom years were over. The properties they passed had nothing to offer itinerant workers. One major source of income he had depended on had dried up. Terence Ogden had always given Jake well-paid work whenever he wanted it, but now Ogden had sailed off to Cornwall for an indefinite period, clearly relieved to distance himself from his nagging wife but sad to leave his thoroughbred horses. Until his return Ogden Park was being run by an arrogant English manager who, despite Ogden’s instructions to the contrary, refused to employ Currency Lads.
Jake was only half resigned to the loss of his other source of ready money.
As they drove along a remote track with no sign of civilisation, Keziah laid down the law about prize fights. Jenny had loved watching him fight, but Keziah could never forget her father had died after a fight in prison.
She confronted him with angry tears. ‘If you fight again I’ll leave you!’
‘Hey, I’m always last man standing. Well, most of the time.’
‘I don’t care. What if you get badly injured! I’d rather be poor for the rest of my life than see you bruised and bloodied.’
‘All right! No more fights,’ Jake reluctantly promised her. ‘What the hell does money matter anyway?’
They were driving along with Horatio at the helm of their vardo, their beautiful horses, Sarishan, the brumby and Pony, trailing behind them. Jake always chose to meander down bush tracks out of sight of villages. He was keen to dodge the roving muster team whose statistics would expose his unofficial custody of Pearl. Privately he wouldn’t have put it past Jenny to threaten to put the traps on his tail unless he forked out more money, but he dismissed that possibility in cavalier style. Keziah didn’t need any help from him to fear the law. This time she must have read his mind.
‘Are we likely to run across the muster team out here?’
‘Stop worrying, love. Our irregular liaison ain’t a problem. Caleb Morgan has done the decent thing and stopped pressing his legal claim to Gabe.’
‘Yes, but his father was the real villain. I can’t see John Morgan happy to accept his grandson being reared by what he sees as a Gypsy thief. I’ll have to keep on being Saranna Browne and you know what that means if we’re caught openly travelling together.’
Jake tried to laugh away her fears about gaujo law. ‘Nonsense. Half the marriages in the colony come under the label of co-habitation. What do the lawyers call it? De facto. Look at how many big-wig politicians, army officers and doctors openly live with their mistresses and raise cartloads of kids. Nobody much gives a damn. We mightn’t get invited to dine at the gov’s table, but will you lose any sleep over that? Relax. Enjoy the scenery. The only decision we need to face is where are the fish biting?’
‘You know I don’t need my Tarot for that. We’ll never go hungry with you as head of the family. You live off the land as well as any Rom.’
Jake grinned his thanks at her compliment. It amused him to admit that despite the years he had adamantly forsworn sharing his life with a good woman, he basked in the role of patriarch. By day he allowed Keziah the illusion she was boss of the camp until sundown when he turned the tables. By night she was totally his woman, ardently responsive and as eager as he was to make up for lost time. Their lovemaking was unpredictable – imaginative, teasing, gentle and romantic or hot and lusty.
They stopped the wagon for Keziah to set up the children’s school lessons. Jake saw how she delighted in teaching two bright, receptive little students. Sister Mary Bridget had taught Pearl well. Despite poor eyesight, her reading and writing were so fluent Gabriel worked doubly hard to catch up to her. In their open-air classroom Keziah wrote new words on his slate.
‘This isn’t a competition, Gabriel. We all have our own special gifts and we learn at our own pace.’
Jake took elaborate care to conceal his own semi-literate state, but he chose to work in close proximity to their lessons, covertly learning along with the children.
It was Pearl’s first encounter with a boy. Jake watched her studying Gabriel as if he was a little alien who strutted and aped Jake’s mannerisms. It pleased Jake to see how his new son had also absorbed his own protective attitude to women. When Pearl tried to move boxes, Gabriel stepped in.
‘Here, that’s too heavy. I’ll do it for you.’
But Jake could see that although Keziah tried her best, Pearl remained wary of her. Jenny had cast a long shadow over all their lives.
That night when the children settled down in the wagon, whispering on the brink of sleep, Jake lay beside the campfire with his head in Keziah’s lap. Aware that something had been on her mind for days, he decided to corner her.
‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing.’
He sat up and tenderly bit her ear. ‘That’s bull, Kez.’
Jake knew how to still her fears. He made love to her long and hard. Afterwards he lay with her in his arms under the stars. He was ready to sleep. The problem was Keziah was ready to talk.
‘You don’t feel for me what you felt for Jenny, do you?’
‘No. Thank Christ.’
He immediately regretted his lack of tact when he saw the flash of jealousy that pride forbade her to admit. He hated being forced to put his feelings into words.
‘What I felt for Jenny was like a sickness. With you I’m a whole man again. It’s like – you’re the other half of my body.’ He baulked at the word ‘love’. ‘If that isn’t it, what is?’
Keziah was blunt. ‘I’ll bet you never spilt your seed on the ground with Jenny.’
‘Ah, so that’s it.’ He sighed. ‘I know what you want, Kez. When the Depression’s over I’ll start giving you those other five little ones you reckon you can see in my palm. Till then it’s my job to take care of you the best way I can. Understand?’
It was clear to him Keziah did not.
• • •
Jake’s luck finally ran out. He drove around a bend in a remote stretch of bush to find a cluster of troopers a few hundred yards ahead interviewing a family outside a farmhouse; the muster team in action.
He turned to Keziah and barked the order. ‘Do as I tell you. Don’t argue! Get Pearl and Gabe out of the back of the wagon quick smart. Keep them out of sight in the bush. I’ll bluff my way through the muster then come back for you when it’s safe.’
Keziah sprang into action and smuggled the children into the bush when the troopers’ backs were turned.
Jake drove the vardo up at a leisurely pace and gave them a lazy salute. ‘Good day, Sergeant. Want the story of my life for the gov’s records?’
The sergeant gave him a hard-eyed look. ‘Name? Bond or free?’
‘Jakob Isaac Andersen. I’m Currency. Doesn’t it show?’
‘Don’t get smart with me. Just answer my questions. Married or single?’
‘Married. My wife bolted but she did me a big favour.’
The trooper wrote down the details. ‘Any issue?’
‘One daughter. In a convent.’ Jake tried to look sad. ‘Wish she was with me.’
‘Religion?’
‘Ma’s Catholic, Pa’s Lutheran. Reckon I’m on an each-way bet to get into heaven.’
Jake suspected the trooper had never cracked a smile in his entire life.
‘You own any land, Andersen? Or just squatting on Crown land?’
‘Mine, fair and square. A hundred and thirty acres. None under cultivation. No house, no sheep, no cattle. Yet.’
‘Good bit of horseflesh you got there. That black stallion looks familiar. You buy it?’
The inference was unmistakable. Horse theft could lead to the gallows.
‘I see you’ve got an excellent eye for horses. That’s Sarishan. I trained him. He won Terence Ogden’s silver cup a few years back. See him win it, did you?’
The trooper circled the wagon suspiciously. ‘Peculiar wagon you’ve got there. You’re not a Gypsy, are you?’
‘Nah! Won this thing in a game of cards.’
‘Yeah? So what do I mark you down as? Farmer or card sharp?’
‘Horse-breaker. You don’t catch me being a farmer.’
Jake grinned to disguise how edgy he felt. If this snoopy trap looked inside the vardo he would discover Keziah’s clothing and children’s toys. Jake needed to distract him fast.
‘Seeing as you’re all done with me, do you fancy cracking a bottle of red?’
The trooper actually smiled. ‘Reckon I won’t say no.’
• • •
It was dark by the time Jake returned the vardo to where Keziah had hidden the children. When she emerged from the bush, furious, Jake tried to look innocent.
‘What’s wrong? I said I’d come back for you. What’s for dinner?’ he teased.
Sparks flew from Keziah’s eyes. ‘Easy for you to joke – sitting in the sun drinking grog with the traps. You try keeping two active children quiet in the one spot for three hours!’
Jake patted her on the head. ‘You’re a good girl, Kez. Hop in the wagon with the kids and I’ll get a fire going and rustle you up some johnnycakes. Those traps have shot through to the next farm miles away.’ He whispered in her ear, ‘I’ll make it up to you tonight, love!’
Keziah ushered the children inside then turned to him with a half-smile. ‘You think that solves everything, don’t you?’
His eyes wandered over her. ‘It does for me!’
As the year slipped by like an idyllic island in time, divorced from news of the outside world, Jake saw no signs of the upturn in finances that he was counting on – along with every settler, stockman and swagman in the backblocks. Wherever they travelled paid work had dried up. They passed properties with weathered ‘For Sale’ notices, many of them mortgage foreclosures. Clearly no one had money to buy land or livestock. Jake retained his last small stash of cash against an emergency and continued to live off the land, but then came the day his prowess as a hunter failed.
The minute Keziah saw him shouldering the dead kangaroo she shrieked in horror.
‘All right, calm down,’ Jake called out. ‘I’ll get rid of it.’
He stomped around in the bush, swearing profusely until a shot succeeded in putting different game on the table. A rabbit. Over supper he tried to set things right.
‘I thought you’d be sick of fish. Roos are good tucker. A bit like the
Brits’ venison they tell me. Sure you don’t want to try it sometime?’
Keziah was vehement. ‘Not even if I’m starving! How can you live with me and not know me? Kangaroos are so beautiful, so free. Like horses!’
‘Well! We all know how you Romanies feel about them. Horses sit on the right hand of God. You’d shoot me before you’d shoot a bloody horse.’
Her question was tricky. ‘Aren’t we going to make our living breeding horses?’
‘What’s this we business? I’m man enough to support my own family, thanks very much.’ Her hurt look made him add, ‘But you have a real way with horses, I’ll grant you that. You can use your magic box of tricks when they’re crook. And you’re damned good at breaking in a wild colt as I have good reason to remember.’
Jake shot her a familiar look. ‘I know what’s for dinner. I shot it, but what are you giving me for “afters”?’
‘A surprise. Something you’ve never had before.’
Jake’s pulse was racing, but after supper the surprise wasn’t quite what he’d counted on.
After she had tucked the children into their bunks, Keziah emerged wearing her best red dress, swathed in a silk shawl.
He put his glass aside. Keziah watched him intently from the far side of the campfire, as if she had some private celebration that she wanted to share with him. The firelight shadowed her face making her smile seem enigmatic. Jake realised the night was far from over.
‘Hey, what are you up to now, Kez?’
She crossed towards him with great deliberation. Slowly, very slowly, she knotted her shawl low on her hips and began to clap her hands in a steady, insistent rhythm.
From deep in her throat came a song without words, like the sound of some primordial mating rite. She beckoned him to clap his own hands and Jake felt himself drawn to his feet to accompany her, giving her the beat for the staccato stamping of her feet, the clapping of her hands, the movements of her body growing stronger, faster.
Her eyes said it all. Tonight there will be no barriers, Jake. No withdrawal. Tonight I will take you prisoner.
• • •
Camped by the Wollondilly River, Jake worked up a sweat as he chopped wood, keeping Keziah in his sights but at a safe distance. During their sixteen months on the road the phases of the moon had become his guide to handling the wild pendulum swing of her moods. Normally she greeted the day with the spontaneity of a child, but every full moon she became downright irrational. Jake bore the full brunt of it, knowing it was beyond her control, the price he was willing to pay for her. Tonight it would be full moon so he kept his guard up.
Keziah descended on him with a washing basket on her head and angrily waved sheets of paper in his face. Jake leaned on his axe. Jesus wept, here’s trouble.
‘I won’t live with a liar!’ she yelled. ‘You’ve kept these letters hidden ever since you picked up the mail at Goulburn Post Office. Mac Mackie says he’s matched you against some visiting pugilist next week. You hypocrite! You won’t let me read the Tarot to earn cash for us, but you were going to sneak back to Goulburn to fight for money!’
Cornered, Jake took the offensive. ‘I’ll tell you one thing for free. Jake Andersen’s kids are never going to be fed by a woman who gets her palm crossed with silver in a public house. Not while I’ve got breath in my body!’
‘And Keziah Stanley’s Rom is never going to be battered to feed us while I’ve got breath in my body!’
They stood toe to toe like two dragons breathing fire at each other until Jake turned amiable. ‘Fair enough.’ He moved in on her with intent.
‘No, you don’t!’ She waved the evidence in his face. ‘What’s this one about?’
‘Oh that!’ he said casually. ‘It’s from Joseph Bloom.’
‘I know that. I can read. Why is this Lily Pompadour giving you all this money?’
Jake saw the fear in Keziah’s eyes and stopped teasing. ‘It’s not like you think. I was full of hate after Jenny. Lily taught me what I know about women. She was tough on the outside but gentle at heart. Not like the other girls in Bolthole Valley.’
Keziah gasped. ‘She was a whore?’
He snapped back at her. ‘Any girl can be if she’s hungry enough and her spirit is broken. Lily was meant to be a good woman. I won’t hear different. I helped her clear out of Bolthole and start a new life. She must have done all right for herself in Melbourne Town. This money for a horse is her way of saying thanks.’
Keziah’s mood changed like quicksilver. She handed back the letter. ‘Forgive me, Jake. I’ll never read your mail again.’
‘Yes, you will. You’re a woman,’ he said. ‘Can’t help yourself.’
Keziah was contrite. ‘A horse is the best gift in the world. Buy the finest thoroughbred money can buy.’
That night after Pearl and Gabriel were bedded down in the vardo Jake lay with Keziah under the stars. He admitted he was going to fight in Goulburn. The children needed new boots. He could repair them but he couldn’t stop their feet from growing.
Keziah clung to him. ‘Don’t leave me, Jake! You won’t come back! Remember that terrible white light with the tail we kept seeing crossing the sky. I warned you. That comet’s a bad omen!’
Jake gently nuzzled her. ‘Hey, just some shooting star. Your bad dreams and omens aren’t real. I’m real, Kez. I’ll camp you close to a settler’s wife and be back before Gabriel has time to sing his way through Rule, Britannia. Now go to sleep. I’ll keep the mulos away.’
• • •
Instead Jake had fallen instantly asleep. Keziah listened to the precious sound of his breathing as he slept beside her, but she was unable to banish the images from a recurring nightmare she had kept hidden from him. Horses. Rope. Blood. Fire. Guns. Jake’s face behind the grid of a prison door.
Jake stirred beside her. ‘What are you doing, Kez?’
‘I’m listening to your breathing.’
‘Well, let me know if I stop, right?’
She could barely manage a faint smile. The power of her nightmare refused to fade.
She awoke with a jolt when the sun was high in the sky. The children were eating porridge. She could smell the fresh damper Jake had baked in the ashes of the fire.
When Pearl gave her a tentative smile between her lank strands of hair, Keziah hoped it was a chink of light in their relationship. Keziah had still not won the little girl’s trust, but Gabriel’s natural intuition had sensed Pearl’s insecurity and he’d become his new sister’s ally. The two children ran off now to collect kindling. Jake always turned work into a game.
Keziah tried to think of fresh ways to forge a motherly bond with Pearl, plaiting the child’s hair with ribbons to make her feel pretty. She was suddenly overcome by an acute sense of sadness when a jagged wave of pain shot through her belly. Had her body betrayed her once again? Her mouth dried with fear as she slipped her hand between her thighs.
‘Jake, you must leave me alone.’ She screened herself from his eyes. ‘I’m bleeding.’
‘Don’t be silly. It’s natural. I’ll get clean rags for you.’
‘No, Jake. I’m losing a baby.’
His face was blank with shock. ‘Why in heaven’s name didn’t you tell me last night? I would have been more careful with you.’
‘Don’t be angry. It’s nobody’s fault, just nature’s way.’ She kept her voice low so as not to alarm the children. ‘I didn’t want to tell you yet. I wanted to hold on to you any way I could.’
She couldn’t even cry.
For a moment Jake looked helpless then he made a move towards the horses. ‘I’ll fetch a doctor for you.’
‘No. They can’t do anything. Time must take its course. It’s far too early.’
He knelt by her side and gripped her hand. ‘Tell me what to do and I’ll do it. You can count on me.’
‘I know.’ Her voice broke. ‘I’m so sorry, Jake, I can’t stop the bleeding, but fetch the valerian from my box. At least that will help me sleep.’
‘And?’
‘Can you keep the children happy?’
Jake nodded. A few moments later she heard his cheerful directions to them as if nothing was wrong.
‘Listen you two. Put your sunhats on. I want to see a pile of kindling before the sun burns the skin off you. Pearl, you make sure Gabriel doesn’t fall in the creek.’
Gabriel let out a bellow of hurt male pride. Jake silenced it. ‘Gabriel, you make sure Pearl doesn’t fall in the creek. If you drown you’ll miss your swimming lesson tomorrow. Today you can read me a story but keep it quiet. Mama’s tired.’
Jake came back and carried Keziah into the vardo. Slipping in and out of consciousness, she tried to garner her energy, willing her blood to stop flowing from her womb. Long ago she had lost Gem’s babe. And then she had lost Gem. She desperately needed this babe to bind Jake to her forever. No matter what lay ahead.
She stirred at the sound of the children singing the alphabet. Gabriel piped up as he scratched his chalk across his slate, ‘Papa, how do you spell “kangaroo”?’
‘Easy. R-O-O.’
Keziah managed a faint smile as she slipped between the folds of sleep and pain.
The first stars were out when she heard Jake bedding the children beneath the wagon.
Without a word he lay beside her. Not as a husband, not as a lover, but as her mate watching over her. He stroked her hair as his scratchy voice sang The Wild Colonial Boy under his breath. His idea of a lullaby.
When Keziah woke in the night she saw that Jake had fallen asleep with one leg contorted in an awkward position against the wall as if even in his sleep he was trying to avoid waking her. One hand was entwined in her hair. The fingers of his other hand were splayed across her belly to protect the babe inside her.
It was at that precise moment Keziah realised she really understood the meaning of true love.
As soon as she woke in the morning Jake brought her strips of linen and a bowl of water. ‘I’ll sponge you, change your linen and wash everything in the creek.’
‘No, Jake, no! A man must never see a Romani woman’s blood. It is powerful magic! It will bring you bad luck!’
Jake cut across her rising note of hysteria. ‘You know I’ve always respected your weird Romani laws, but right now I’m the only doc you’ve got. What’s happening to you is more important than seeing a bit of blood. I’ll take my chances on what baxt wants to chuck at me.’
Lying alone and exhausted while Jake went to the creek, Keziah saw in the doorway the filmy outline of a tiny girl with dark hair. The child gazed at her for several seconds then flickered in and out of the light, growing fainter each time until finally she disappeared.
Keziah cried in her heart but no tears fell. She knew it was all over.
She was alone when contractions delivered the tiny foetus. Inside her head she heard the echo of Patronella’s curse. ‘You will bury the child of your heart.’
On Jake’s return her voice was flat and dry. ‘Bring me that clean bowl and my floral silk scarf. Dig a hole beside the black wattle tree, then come back.’
She said a Romani blessing for the soul of the babe whose time had not yet come. She knotted her scarf to cover the bowl, removed her gold earrings and handed them to Jake on his return.
‘Bury these with her. And say your gaujo prayer. I’ve said mine.’
Jake said nothing. But Keziah knew he was wearing his grief inside.
Drained of all emotion, Keziah fell into a deep sleep, her head resting on the pillow of Jake’s arm. For once she was unafraid of what tomorrow might bring.
• • •
For two weeks Jake cooked their meals, insisting she must rest. One night Keziah was woken in the darkness by an acute wave of nausea. Caught between sorrow and confusion, she was shocked to feel a wild surge of hope. Against all odds had a twin soul survived the quickening? Had one little soul given up its place to its brother? She clung to Jake as he slept but decided not to tell him until she was certain.
All through the night she whispered the Romani prayer for healing. Please God, stand up for me and make me well.
She sent up her silent plea from the highest point her soul could reach. Mi-duvel, I beg you, let me give life to Jake’s child.