She leant out the door and peered into the street. ‘You better make sure those boys don’t ruin Mister Cottingham’s garden throwing those sticks around like swords.’
‘Are you going to holler for Edie or stomp off in a sulk to get her for me? The day you behave properly, Beth, will be the day hell freezes over.’
‘Some men appreciate a little waywardness in a girl,’ she said and slowly looked him up and down, sizing him up. ‘But you wouldn’t.’
He thought of the women in Africa. It had been so long ago. He wanted to tell her that he amounted to more than she saw, that he might not have a lot to say, he might not be one of those men with silky words but he knew how to bring out the waywardness hidden in a girl’s soul. He saw her waiting for him to take the bait. But this wasn’t Africa and he wasn’t that person any more and Beth wasn’t the girl he wanted.
‘Are you going to get Edie for me or do I need to holler myself?’
‘You? Holler? You can barely speak, Mister Hooley.’ And she laughed too hard and saw that he knew she was putting it on and she turned and went down the hallway to get Edie.
For once Edie didn’t have the child with her and it gave him hope.
‘Miss Cottingham, I thought a walk around the lake? Or if it’s too hot for you we could stick to the botanical gardens?’
Did he see pity in her eyes? He prayed not, because if there was pity there was nothing.
She took a deep breath and held tightly onto the door jamb; he could see her knuckles turning white. ‘I can’t, Theo, I really can’t. Because you see I know and you know it’s not just an afternoon that you’re asking about. Not really. You don’t just want a walk with me. You want a lifetime.’
He was sure he could see tears welling in her eyes — or were they welling in his own? His heart wanted to crack open but he wouldn’t let it. He would keep waiting. The child was walking now, but in not so many years she would be off to school, gone, and he would have his desire.
Later that day as the sun loosened its bite and began to set, Beatrix and George sat on her front verandah drinking beer.
‘It’s like the Stations of the Cross at Easter,’ Beatrix said, ‘the way he walks up there every week with all those children in tow.’ George reached over and grabbed her plump bottom and pulled her closer and she giggled and said, ‘Next week you better turn up with a rose or else.’
‘Or else what?’ he laughed. ‘Let me give you a bit more or else.’
A little further away, sitting so that busybody Nurse Drake couldn’t see them, Beth and Colin were on the verandah steps next door.
‘It’s truly beautiful,’ Beth said to Young Colin Eales as she pulled at the brown dry grass, ‘the way he is so devoted to her. She doesn’t deserve him.’
And further away still, in the underground room, Edie lay on the bed with two-year-old Gracie asleep at her side. She wrote in her notebook:
Twenty-fourth November Seven
Gracie is two years old and she calls me BeeBee. It makes me laugh every time.
He has the bluest eyes, even bluer than Gracie’s — endless like the sky. Plan — I will stay true to my promise to Mama.
Theo continued to visit every Sunday afternoon at three. He never missed and every week he left Edie a rose on the verandah step. When the summer came, the sun in its fury cooked the oil out of the rose and the petals became a crisp brown sacrifice, and when the winter came, the morning ice froze the petals and then the afternoon rain turned them to crimson slush, as though they had been bled out. And in all weathers each Monday Beth came out with a bucket of soapy water and a scrubbing brush and washed the rose stain from the porch. It took her hours and she wondered about a man whose love left such persistent stains.
Sixteen
Colin
Friday, 8 May 1908, when the rain falls day after day as if it will never cease.
Beth’s bloke, Young Colin Eales as everyone called him, was wet, cold and red in the face.
‘The rules say us miners only have to work six hours a day in a wet shaft,’ he yelled and the men agreed with him. He looked around at their faces, pleased they were letting him do the talking even though he was the Young and not the Senior Eales. It was his dad who usually did the yelling, but not this time; this time it was his turn and his ability to bellow on behalf of the men must mean he was being taken seriously.
No one messed with his dad so they probably thought that now he was no longer a boy, they better not mess with him. He was glad, he was tired of being a boy. Growing older couldn’t come quick enough for him. He didn’t know what might be waiting for him when he was older, he just knew it had to be better than what he had now.
The men stood in a huddle outside the mine entrance that stared at them like a gaping mouth ready to devour anyone stupid enough to walk into it. They were in a stand-off with management, who stood in front of the mine, invisible swords drawn.
Young Colin was at the front of the miners. They were forlorn, really, their bones were brittle and shivering, their livers were bilious and yellowing and their cheeks were hollow. The dust from the mine floated around them, scratching at their eyes and making their clothes stiff as the wet cloth turned it to clay; their trousers chafed their balls.
The manager,
